Best/worst crew/captain? Tier list?

[aimer]

I usually find that people love that kind of theorycrafting, but didn't really see a similar thread in recent discussions here. I'm rather new to the game (have only done 5 games and won once, with Anna/Earl/Bia on Adventure/Classic), so it's hard for me to give any opinions, but I'd love to hear yours, as I know there are many experienced players posting here. From what I've read so far it seems that Anna is regarded as one of the best captains due to her perk being overpowered? Also there's spindart's thread for the Dolores all-in run with a ridiculously high renown.

On the other hand, it's also interesting who is considered rather bad. I've read that Ivan isn't very good, or at least compares unfavorably with some other, similar characters like Jan-Piet.

So if you want to share your knowledge and opinions, I'd very much like to read it! Any notes on crew synergies or how certain characters fare on different difficulties would be cool.

[turnerjer0000]

One observation re: Ivan. The downside of his Captain Perk (-1 Renown) doesn't actually affect your score (unless you die. ;) ) However, the +1 Encounter Token for Aggressive resolutions can *hugely* boost your score. So IMO Ivan is a pretty good Captain, just rather challenging to use.

I agree that he's probably inferior to Jan-Piet in most crews, though.

[spindart]

For captain, I'd say Anna, Dolores, Yvonne and Molly are the best in my opinion, just because of how well they scale as the game progresses. Yes, Anna is still overpowered, just run her in a triple scientist team with Earl and either Emilia or Philippe and proceed. She is probably the most constantly reliable scorer too; the stun locks and AoE make all fights very easy.

Ivan is probably the only character that strikes me as bad. It isn't his lack of speech defense or the -1 resolve, but the two 80% speech checks. You can't always go aggressive, and his just unreliable when solving encounters, as his not flexible. His one of the only characters you have to actually build around if you want to use him.

For crew, I'd recommend Emilia or Philipe, both have an AoE heal, and can fit into any team comp. They also have an uncertain attack, which is pretty massive as far as combat goes.

[turnerjer0000]

Here's a totally unscientific estimation of Captain power levels. I'm no expert but I have logged 250+ hours and collected every type of Cintamani.

Top Tier:
Anna & Charles.
Boosting your main type of Token is insanely powerful because of the feedback effect. But Anna is particularly strong, because there are so many Research Papers that grant extra Study Tokens. Plus, both of them are very strong in Encounters and have useful Perks.

Second Tier:
Bia, Dolores, Molly, Emilia.
Dolores qualifies because she also improves a Token, and in a semi-controlled way. As spindart showed, you can make your Collect Tokens insanely good if you make Dolores spin the wheel a zillion times. Plus she's great in Encounters.
Bia is a straight killer. She just murders the crap out of everyone, and after a couple of boss fights she's just amazing. Remember that boosting Stats also boosts your Adventure Wheel spins. I'm not sure she's one of the highest-scoring Captains, but IMO she's one of the easiest to win with.
Molly is also a murderer, but she also has that thoroughly ridiculous THREE extra Collects per level of Rogue. It's possible to achieve truly preposterous amounts of Gold with her... and if you manage to get the Star of Africa...!!!
Emilia is probably my favorite Captain and one of my favorite characters. A free Tool is *incredibly* useful, especially once you get to know the Expeditions pretty well and can try to plan ahead. Plus a free Study Token from every Nature challenge, which are pretty abundant in most Expeditions. Add the fact that she's one of the best tank/support characters in Encounters, and the +2 Studies in Berlin from her lvl 3 ability... she's just awesome.

Third Tier:
Agatha, Kiwi, Hatice, Yvonne, Ivan, Hildegaard.
Agatha is very good in Encounters. +1 Insight and +1 Study from teaching are solid but not very exciting bonuses. Archaeologist and Tactician are two of the more useful Perk trees, IMO.
Kiwi's -2 Supply capacity is not really even a thing, IMO. The Preparation Paper that gives you +2 capacity is useful, but it's very possible to win without it, as long as you get her to Survivalist 4, and publish the Scout Paper that generates Supplies. She's also great in Encounters.
Hatice is capable of racking up huge amounts of Collect Tokens without even really having to do anything. She really shines if you team her up with Beguilers and Tacticians so your crew can nail every Wits challenge. She's also very very deadly in Encounters, as long as you keep her out of harm's way. Since her basic attack has range 3, that's not usually too difficult.
Yvonne also has a Captian ability that improves over time, but much more slowly than Anna, Charles, or Dolores. However, she's one of my favorites to use in Encounters, so I guess I'm gonna put her in this tier. In general, I think bonuses that rely on a certain type of Resolution are a little weaker. You will sometimes have to choose between getting your bonus Tokens and getting a better outcome. Plus, it straight-up makes Encounters harder to win.
Like I said in my other post, the problem with Ivan is that -1 Resolve doesn't do anything, until it causes your game to end. :D But if you get past the first Expedition or two and get some Resolve in the bank, +1 Encounter Token is a *fantastic* bonus. But remember that Ivan is not as tough as he looks, and he WILL fold faster than Superman on laundry day if you let any fast-talkers get close to him. Getting him a strong Memento should be a top priority.
Hildegaard's Captain perk is very very good. 1 point of Research is worth a hell of a lot more than 1 point of Status or Gold. Although I have a hunch that Naturalist might be one of the slightly less useful Perk trees, ICBW about that. Diplomat is certainly very very useful.

Fourth Tier:
Philippe, Earl, Pedrinho, Jan-Piet, Kwame.
Philippe is a strong support character, but his Captain ablity is at best likely to net you a small handful of Study Tokens, *if* your game is going well. I only put him in this Tier instead of the bottom because I really really like him in Encounters, and his Perks are pretty good.
Earl is okay. 6 Collect Tokens is a lot, especially if you've boosted them with Entourage or Treasures. And it's fun to be able to earn Gold from the World Map. Spending Insight with Captain Earl is more interesting than with most Captains.
Pedrinho is one of my favorite characters, but as a Captain he's blah. 1 extra Collect is not bad, but I tend to prefer other types of bonuses because I don't much like being nailed down to one Attitude.
Jan-Piet is a good addition to most teams, but he's not a great Captain. Gold from Status Tokens is nice, but it should be more than 5, and the other half of his ability leaves me cold.
Kwame - free helpers is awesome!!! I really really want to boost him to Tier 3, but: 1. it takes too long to earn a helper, and you don't know when you'll get your next one, so it's a bit unsatisfying IMO. 2. You need to stay very focused on Friendly outcomes if you want the Perk to pay off big. Again, right now I'm more interested in versatile teams. But Kwame is definitely a blast. I'd say he's Tier 3 if you're willing to totally commit to Friendliness.

Fifth Tier:
Harry, Victor, Maria.
I haven't seen Harry's perk being useful. I've only tried him as Captain a few times, so maybe others have had better luck. But Treasure Hunts are just not common enough. If you want to get rich, focusing on Collect Tokens seems like a much much smarter course, since there are tons of ways to improve them, or to finagle more. He ought to *also* receive +1 Grit and Speech Defense for every Treasure Hunt, or something like that.
Victor and Maria's perks aren't necessarily worthless, but they *are* very boring.

here's page 1 of my leaderboards if you'd like to see what kind of scores I've gotten, and what kind of crews I favor, etc.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=570414904

[strange]

As turnerjer mentioned, usually Anna, Charles and Kwame are considered Tier A in terms of scoring, as their captain perks can carry them into 10k+ renown runs. That said, my highest scores are around 9k with by Jan-Piet and Hildegard in the lead, so. Any time you hear about OP captains and tiers, just take it with a grain of salt. ;)

Good and bad captains aren't just about renown output though. Molly can make life a lot easier if you got into battle-heavy expeditions, and Kiwi is great for exploring more in each location. Other captains can be great if you are partial to certain skills or resources, so they can be more or less enjoyable to play depending on your own strategy and style.

Aside from the nicely detailed breakdown above, Lord Reliant had a character guide and analysis that you might like to check out. Really helps comparing characters and abilities at a glance.

PS. I will fight anyone who badmouths Ivan.

[aimer]

Thanks for replies guys! Gotta say that's quite an effort, turnerjer!

[Flamestalker]

Originally posted by strange:

As turnerjer mentioned, usually Anna, Charles and Kwame are considered Tier A in terms of scoring, as their captain perks can carry them into 10k+ renown runs. That said, my highest scores are around 9k with by Jan-Piet and Hildegard in the lead, so. Any time you hear about OP captains and tiers, just take it with a grain of salt. ;)

Have to agree, Jan-Piet and Hildegard are better captain than most will give them credit for. Both their perks are really good early but fall off hard later on which why people tend to ignore them as they aren't as flashy or extreme as the other high tier perks.

Jan-Piet's perk allows you to focus on status early on and get your entourage going while still getting enough money to buy equipment. The other part of his perk is also more usefull than you might think, +2 campaign from campaigning insight actually gives him a leg up over everyone in that department as he gets more than even speakers. Again this allows him to stack up earlier as he can get a good amount of status early from Paris.

Hildegard is even stronger early, the 2-6 research on campaign is really strong early as it basically a free study token with every campaign token. This makes her good in getting research papers done early while focusing on campaign and stacking the entourage. It does indeed become (nearly) comepletely useless lategame but it can really help you out early.

Harry's perk also isn't as bad as it might seem. If you unlock Bombay with the preparation tree completed you become so rediculously rich. My crew had such good equipment that I needed only two attacks to defeat Rivaleux.

[aimer]

Would you try to not spend any Insights until you unlock Bombay with cpt. Harry?

[Flamestalker]

Originally posted by aimer:

Would you try to not spend any Insights until you unlock Bombay with cpt. Harry?

I believe I spend half my insight before I unlocked Bombay and still ended up with the best equipment posible, so you might get even more if you save it up.

[turnerjer0000]

Really, strange? You think Kwame is up there with Anna and Charles?

also, Flamestalker, i'm sure you're right about Jan-Piet. I got attached to him quite early, so I played him a ton back when my skill level was much lower. I haven't played him as much lately. One thing I have barely experimented with is hiring Insight-oriented Specialists instead of Perk-oriented ones. I could see where Jan-Piet could become really really good at Insight.

and yeah, Hildie could probably be considered 2nd tier. on reflection i'd probably promote Hildie to 2nd and Jan-Piet to 3rd. Also, Victor's and Maria's abilities actually pay off pretty well, so I could see promoting them.

and I forgot that you can eventually trade Insights for Treasure Hunts. haha, maybe Harry should get promoted too, and the bottom tier should be empty. :P

[strange]

Originally posted by turnerjer0000:

Really, strange? You think Kwame is up there with Anna and Charles?

No personal opinion about any of them, actually. My Kwame and Charles runs have mostly been terrible and I haven't played Anna since my first couple of runs in the game! Haven't had them on good teams, I think. I've gotta try them again at some point, but I tend to veer off naturally high-output characters. It's fun to see how much you can squeeze out from the underdogs. ;)

[Hauptj]

Originally posted by turnerjer0000:

Fifth Tier:
Harry, Victor, Maria.
I haven't seen Harry's perk being useful. I've only tried him as Captain a few times, so maybe others have had better luck. But Treasure Hunts are just not common enough. If you want to get rich, focusing on Collect Tokens seems like a much much smarter course, since there are tons of ways to improve them, or to finagle more. He ought to *also* receive +1 Grit and Speech Defense for every Treasure Hunt, or something like that.
Victor and Maria's perks aren't necessarily worthless, but they *are* very boring.

There's one garunteed treasure hunt per map, and one of the bonus Insight sinks (don't remember which one) gives another one, which doubles to two if you complete the top left research. If you save your insight untill you unlock it, you'll end up rolling in money.

[Flamestalker]

Originally posted by Hauptj:

There's one garunteed treasure hunt per map, and one of the bonus Insight sinks (don't remember which one) gives another one, which doubles to two if you complete the top left research. If you save your insight untill you unlock it, you'll end up rolling in money.

Bombay, it unlocks along with Beijing and Kyoto.

[El Guapo]

The inherent problem of this debate is that everything will change with update 10 very soon due to the tech tree revamp.
Basically it comes down to the captain's perk's scaling ability. Anna and Charles are the traditional scaling beasts whereas "+1 collect for each friendly encounter" is on the opposite end of scaling.
With the recent updates we got the long overdue Anna nerf while at the same time Bia, Molly and Kwame got a beautiful boost that put them near Anna's level.
But like I said, we should probably wait for update 10. The tech tree bias towards scientists should be gone by then as well.

[aimer]

Out of curiosity, what was Anna's nerf?

[El Guapo]

Originally posted by aimer:

Out of curiosity, what was Anna's nerf?

Don't remember exactly, but her "random token improvement upon finishing research paper" was toned down a bit. Something like 1-2 instead of 2-3 for research and so on.