Boarding

[thrillhouse]

I want to like this game, but I'm starting to think getting and upgrading a good ship doesn't matter. I can instantly win any battle by boarding the opposing shop and winning one fencing match. This makes the entire game trivially easy. Even against legendary pirates. I want to have a cool duel manouvering and shooting, but am instantly boarded and just easily win a duel. Am I missing something?

[Tom]

Well, you can play any way you like. If you like the ship-to-ship combat, go for it. It has its own challenges and there's a lot to learn about tactics. It's fun to out-maneuver a larger ship, wear it down in a cannon battle and get it to strike its flag and surrender, or board at the end of the battle and take it with the sword. To be successful at that strategy you tend to need a larger ship and a larger crew to man it, which requires you to have a larger bank account to keep them happy. Some people think you need the largest ship types in the game to succeed at that, but clever tactics makes that unnecessary, and you won't need the huge crew that the big ships require.

Others like to board quickly and defeat the captain in the sword battle. That allows you to run with a small but agile ship, and a smaller crew because you're not requiring them to man the cannons. That's how I like to play, so something like a Royal Sloop is my favorite ride, and I keep my crew as small as I can manage, especially in the earlier stages of the game when I don't have much of a bank account. The true believers in this strategy even like to sail a canoe instead of a ship.

The key to a happy crew, by the way, is 3000 in the bank for each crewman. At that level they'll never be unhappy and never want to mutiny. But a smaller amount will please them as well, as long as the ship captures and the buried treasures keep coming.

[screamingcrane]

Originally posted by buckshot:

Am I missing something?

No, this is basically how I played for most of my time. All you need is crew for sloops and you just ram them every round. When I got bored of that I normally have a massive crew so I just start taking out cities.

[BobbyGun]

Try a harder difficulty :)

[Skeksis13]

Yes the sword play gets considerably harder when you play on harder difficulties. Also, as your pirate ages you will reach a point where fighting is no longer an option, and you will need to rely on other strategies.

[thrillhouse]

I've been one Rogue the entire time and the swordplay was pretty easy, until I turned about 35 then it became basically impossible.

And yeah I found other strategies that work as well if not better. Really fun game overall.

[Ranger]

You will find the Marquis impossible after a certain age, except possibly at the easiest levels. You need the set of swords (there are two with the second being better than the first) as this compensates to some extent. Also obviously the fencing skill helps right at the beginning. At higher levels I do choose the fencing skill. Basically choose a higher level for more difficulty and some military/pirate captains can be a challenge and the Marquis is the hardest.