The Essential Guide to Caribbean Legend!

As the game has continued to update and grow over the time since its release my guide has become less accurate in some areas. I do plan on revisiting this guide in the future when updates have stopped or at least slowed down but for the time being keep in mind that I wrote this guide while playing version 1.1 and mostly using my knowledge from TEHO, and some areas might no longer reflect the current stae of the game.

This is my guide for all things Caribbean Legend, from gameplay mechanics to tips to walkthrough. This is the second draft, with a few changes and improvements to some areas and now including walkthrough up through the Dutch Gambit. If I haven't gotten to the part you're at yet, sorry about that, it's coming. In the meantime, consider this a manual of everything you need to know to play the game. There's a lot of difficult mechanics in this game and with no official resource for explanations, I decided to put one together myself. My guide is going to grow and expand a lot over time so please, leave comments for things you want me to add! If the formatting seems weird, sorry about that. I typed this all up in Word first, and copied it over here, losing a lot of the formatting I intended it to have. Things are a bit cluttered, I'll probably see about adding an index and fixing the formatting later on. Also, just to be clear, I am not a developer for this game, nor am I affiliated with the developer or the publisher in any way. I'm just a fan.

If you want to view my guide as a pdf, formatting intact, I uploaded it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_RYODcWsSeord_nTto7uZ04R2bItuTng/view?usp=sharing

I put a lot of work into this, and there's still plenty more work to be done, so I'd really appreciate it if you felt like tossing a few doubloons my way. I set up this ko-fi page for that: https://ko-fi.com/stormrangerx

I've also been streaming the game on Twitch! I talk a lot about game mechanics and have been streaming with a sort of video walkthrough intention, so you can follow me over here or check out my vods for any of that: https://www.twitch.tv/stormrangerx

Introduction

Welcome to Caribbean Legend! If you are a veteran coming from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own, welcome back! If you’re brand new to the game altogether, then boy, have you got a ride in store for you. For those active in the community, you may already recognize me, as I am very active between the Steam forums and the community Discord. If not, then hello! I’m StormRangerX and I love this game, but unfortunately it can be very difficult and very confusing so I wanted to put this guide together to provide an up-to-date resource for everything you need to know to play the game. You may already have seen the old guide for TEHO by DarkEternis, which is a significant inspiration for this guide, so I’m hoping to make this guide stand out as a proper successor to that. There are many changes in Caribbean Legend, so even if you are a veteran of the series, I would recommend going over this guide to get a feel for what is new. Overall, the goal of this guide is to provide explanations for the many game mechanics that you need to know to succeed in the game, and after that serve as a walkthrough for the story. This is primarily a guide for the Story Mode of Caribbean Legend, if you’re playing sandbox, a lot of information here may not apply, so keep that in mind. As it stands, this guide is nowhere near finished. I’m planning on including a full walkthrough and after that, we’ll see what else is worth including. Above all else, remember to save often. Let’s get started!

Important Things to Know

Before I get too deep into things there are some very important details about the game and my guide that I want to call attention to here.

First of all, this game is built on a very ancient engine and despite the best efforts of the developers, the game can still be very unstable. Expect crashes, and save often to counter them. I’ve been averaging about a crash every ten hours of playtime or so, but some sections may be more unstable than others, it’s best to just be aware that the game may crash and be diligent about saving.

Second, you need to pay attention to dialogues and quest logs in this game if you want to get through it. If you’re familiar with the old guide, DarkEternis ended up repeating a lot of the dialogue, and I will not be doing that as much here. Frankly, I found it too wordy at times and enabled players to stop paying attention to the dialogue themselves, leading to many getting stuck even with the guide. Instead, I will be generally summarizing events at most and providing directions without repeating too much of what is said. If you are reading something in my guide and I tell you to go somewhere or do something that the game has not given you any indication to do yet: STOP. Slow down, back up, double check what you’re supposed to be doing. There are very few circumstances in this game where you need to do something unprompted, and I will make it clear when those moments are. Otherwise, pay attention to the game and you shouldn’t get stuck.

Third, this game has a lot of hidden checks and variations to scripted segments based on the skills or rank of your character, along with the difficulty you’re playing on. I will attempt to provide the best information I can but just be aware that some things may be different in your game even if you closely follow my guide. If you come across something different from what I’ve described, just try your best to play it by ear, following my advice should hopefully help you prevail even in areas I haven’t covered. If you really get stuck on some variant that my guide doesn’t cover, just ask! I’m very active around these parts, as are many others who would be happy to help.

Fourth, there are many new things in Caribbean Legend compared to To Each His Own, and the bulk of my knowledge comes from my experience with TEHO. I’m updating much of my information with new changes as I go, but just know that I may put something in this guide based on how it worked in TEHO that is no longer accurate. I’ll be updating it frequently so if you check back often you may find parts of the guide reworked. If you notice something I’ve put in the guide that is wrong, please let me know!

Lastly, this guide is going to be a work in progress for a while. As of writing this I’ve only worked up through the Dutch Gambit, and my walkthrough section will not go further than that until I make more progress. I’ll be generally expanding the guide as I go, to make this guide as definitive as possible, and I don’t want to include things that I haven’t tested myself, so it may take a while. I will endeavor to work on this guide efficiently, but if you’re playing all the way through, you’ll likely be progressing much faster than I will be writing this guide. If it reaches the point where you get stuck on a part I haven’t gotten to yet, try checking the old guide written by DarkEternis, or just ask around the community.

Frequently Asked Questions Part 1

I want to include this section as a quick resource to consolidate the many questions I come across frequently between the forums and the Discord. I will go into more detail on most of these topics later on, but if you just have a quick question that you want a quick answer to, it might be right here! Check back here often, I’m sure this section will continue to grow.

Q: Why are all my skills negative?
A: Three things can penalize your skills. The most common is using a ship that is too high for your navigation skill, and this is what trips up a lot of players. You need to have a Navigation Skill, either yourself or provided by your Navigator, at specific milestones to use higher class ships, as follows: 25 Navigation for class 5, 45 for class 4, 65 for 3, 80 for 2, 95 for 1. The penalty gets worse the larger the difference between your Navigation and the required skill. The other two ways you can get penalties are from being over-encumbered or having low vitality. The former is an easy fix, while the latter will require rest or recreation to fix: Staying in taverns or visiting Brothels should recover your vitality in most instances.

Q: Why are my expenses so high?
A: This tends to be closely related to the previous question. If your ship is too big for your Navigation Skill and you’re receiving penalties to your skills, it will also drive up all of your expenses as well. The most immediate solution is to switch to a smaller ship. Other than that, in general bigger ships are more expensive now, if you want to sail a class 1 ship expect it to cost a few hundred grand a month. If you want to command a fleet of class 1 ships, don’t expect anything less than a million a month.

Q: Why can’t I hire more officers?
A: Also related to the previous question. The number of officers you can hire is 2*Authority. Notably, this is the A in your PIRATES stats, not the Authority bar. The different archetypes have different Authority values, so some archetypes will be able to hire more officers than others. However, if you’re receiving penalties from manning a ship too big, your Authority will be reduced, which in turn reduces how many officers you can hire.

Q: Why can’t I hire crew?
A: If you’ve just gotten off Martinique in the story, you’re not quite done with the tutorial yet. Unfortunately, the game still hasn’t fully opened up yet so you need to speak with Fadey on Guadeloupe and then return to Michel on Martinique before the game considers the tutorial over. Until that point, you are unable to do various things, including hiring more crew. If you tried to hire crew and the Barkeep says you’re stingy, it means you have unpaid crew debts. Crew salaries can sometimes sneak up on you and they’re very easy to accidentally miss, make sure to check your crew debts on the fleet tab from time to time to make sure you haven’t missed any payments. Beyond all that, make sure there’s actually room on your ship, crew takes up deadweight.

Q: Why can’t my cannons hit anything?
A: Skill issue. Literally. At the start of the game, your accuracy and cannon skills are terrible. You need to find a cannoneer ASAP. As of recently, Folke Deluc starts with the Moonlighting skill, and has decent cannoneer skills, so you can assign him as both navigator and cannoneer until you get a better replacement. If you’re not at the start of the game and you just find yourself unable to hit anything in a fight, it could be that the defense of your target is too much greater than your accuracy, causing your shots to miss. Some people have also reported certain specific ships being bugged in this regard, causing shots to miss no matter what, though I’ve not been able to replicate this myself.

Q: Why am I having a mutiny?
A: There are many factors that go into mutinies, but if you’re asking this question, it’s likely that you’ve already checked the usual stuff, like morale and debt. Officer Loyalty and Authority also play a significant part in mutinies. If an officer has low enough loyalty, they have a chance to incite a mutiny against you, if that officer is a companion on another ship in your fleet, they may just end up deserting your fleet and taking the ship and crew with. Authority, meanwhile, is the bar below your character picture on the inventory screen. If the bar is less than half full, your crew will start to grumble, and if it drops too low it will reach the point that no matter how happy they are or how loyal your officers are, they will simply mutiny in order to elect a captain they respect more. There are a few tricks to increasing Authority, the most important one tends to be regularly buying women for your crew at the Brothel. Make a habit of stopping at Brothels for this and you’ll quickly fill up your authority bar despite any other challenges.

Q: Why is my Honor still dropping after Flying the Jolly Roger?
A: Once you become known as Charlie Prince, your Honor will drop at regular intervals. Until you repent your evil ways and return to Michel on St. Pierre, this will keep happening. For whatever reason, Michel is the only person you have to convince that you’re no longer evil.

Q: I’m at the location a quest gave me, where is the ship I’m looking for?
A: A quest that tasks you with hunting a ship will either require you to find a ship on the Global Map, or engage a ship on the Local Map. There’s no clear wording on which one any given quest gives, but as a general rule: If a quest mentions that a ship will depart from a certain location, it will have specific-colored sails and travel on the Global Map, but if a quest only mentions where a ship will arrive at, you have to enter the Local Map of that region for the ship to spawn. If you get a notification in the top right that a vessel has been sighted on the horizon, you’ve come to the right place, however it may have spawned far away so you might not immediately spot it. If a ship is traveling from one location to another on the Global Map, the timeframe you’ve been given may not always be reliable, as it could travel faster or slower depending on the wind, or its path could be interrupted along the way. Sometimes it will even despawn before reaching its destination. Given all that, it’s generally best to attempt to intercept a ship by waiting for it to depart or finding it along the path, rather than waiting at its destination.

Q: A job is telling me to go to a blank location, what do I do?
A: Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do. You’ll see this come up for random jobs from time to time. Just reload and get a different job, this is a very old bug in the code that still has not been fixed.

Q: Why am I being chased by pirate ships?
A: This question also has a few factors. Typically, pirate ships will regularly spawn to chase the player. You can fight them as normal or they can usually be easily avoided by just fleeing the battle, as they will despawn after you return to the Global Map. Also, if you pick up the perk “Scourge of the Sea” you will no longer be chased by random pirate ships. However, sometimes a special ship will spawn to chase you, the Gentlemen of Fortune. This ship will not despawn if you outrun it, and will require you to fight it. Your best bet if you’re simply outmatched is to lure it into a Fort, as the Fort will make quick work of it. If you have a bounty or are currently doing certain quest missions, you’ll often have interceptors chasing after you as well. The same applies to those however it may be a bit trickier as they will be of a certain nation, so you’ll need to make sure to lure them into a Fort hostile to that nation or the Fort won’t attack it.

Frequently Asked Questions Part 2

Q: Why is this ship I captured worth so little at the shipyard?
A: Most likely because you captured a ship that was generated by a quest. Essentially, any ship that spawns because of a quest or event is marked as such and sells for less. My guess is this was implemented to prevent players from spamming certain quests to generate a lot of big ships to capture and sell. There’s decent money to be made from prize ships, but there’s more money to be made elsewhere anyway.

Q: I had a ship moored at a Harbor Master and now it’s gone, what happened?
A: Unfortunately, when a Town is plundered by an enemy fleet, ships moored in the Port are lost. This also applies to any money you have invested at the local Bank. The only thing safe from enemy attacks is cargo stored in warehouses.

Q: How do I get rid of this bounty?
A: Abbot Benoit in the church of St. Pierre can fix your relations with Holland and Spain, while Fadey in his house in Basse-Terre can fix your relations with France and England. Each will require 600 doubloons, and after a few weeks your bounty will be reduced by 20,000.

Q: I have the doubloons and resources, why can’t I upgrade my ship?
A: There is currently a mistranslation for the shipyards, and they state that you need to pay X doubloons. What you actually need to pay is X CHESTS of doubloons. You can sometimes find empty chests at the Banker, use those to craft 150 doubloons and an empty chest into a doubloon chest. Otherwise, many quests and treasures will reward chests of doubloons, it’s often better to keep them in the chest until you need them.

Q: Where is the Commandant?
A: There are actually two! It’s not usually made clear which one you’re supposed to talk to though. The first commandant is in the Prison and this tends to be the one you’re supposed to talk to for most quests. However, there is also a commandant in the armory room downstairs in the Fort, and sometimes you will actually need to speak to that one to progress some quests.

Q: Mary or Helen?
A: Mary.

Terminology

Before we get on with the guide, I’m going to put here a list of various terms I use for mechanics in the game, in an attempt to form a sort of consistent language for the game. Many terms have changed from TEHO so I’ll put those changes here as well. Some things can be unclear, what with all the different terms we all use, so refer to this section if you get confused.

Savescum – The process of reloading a save to get a different outcome in the game. You can use this as little or as much as you want, some of my advice will suggest it but I will generally avoid tactics that involve too much savescum. I’ll go over some of these strategies later.

Global Map – The wide-open sea. This is the term I use to refer to the map you’re on as you travel long distances across the Caribbean. Some quests will require you to find a specific ship on the Global Map.

Local Map – This is the term I use to refer to the map for ship combat and landing at Ports. Some quests will require you to attack a ship that is in the Local Map for a certain region, this is different from finding a ship on the Global Map.

Hot Cargo – When you steal cargo, the game marks it as stolen, this is what I refer to when I say “hot.” If you set it in a warehouse for a week it will “cool off,” and then you can sell it for full price.

Port/Town – I tend to use these terms interchangeably, as does the game. Don’t worry about it, they mean the same thing.

Selva – Spanish for Jungle, this entails anything on an island outside of the Town gates. Some characters will use this term, I’ll stick with jungle in this guide.

Romani – So, the game uses a common exonym for the dark-skinned women that have stalls or wander around Town on occasion. As it is a slur, I will be using the term Romani to refer to them in this guide.

Fame – How well the Caribbean knows you.

Honor – The morality of your character, be that Good or Evil. The game technically calls this Reputation in some areas, and Honor in others. As something else is also called Reputation, I prefer to use Honor as it’s a bit more intuitive and makes a distinction between the two.

Reputation – Your relation with the various nations. Not to be confused with Honor, which is, in some tooltips, referred to as Reputation.

Authority – This can refer to two things, either the bar below your character picture, or the A in PIRATES. There are no alternative terms, I will try to be clear when distinguishing between the two.

Rank – The level of your character.

Stats – Your PIRATES values, I’ll explain this more later.

Skills – All of your Personal and Naval skills, I’ll explain this more later.

Perks – The special abilities you can acquire once you’ve gained enough skill points, I’ll explain this more later.

Health – The amount of damage you can take before dying. Used to be called Life, some tooltips also refer to it as HP.

Energy – Each attack drains a certain amount of Energy; you can’t attack while it Is depleted.

Vitality – The condition of your character, which can degrade through various means. Used to be called Health.

Class – The size of your ship, smallest is 6, largest is 1. The game will also refer to this as Rate in some tooltips, but I prefer Class.

Bosun – Most of the time characters will use this term instead of Boatswain, I’ll still use Boatswain in my guide, but it is a more fun term.

The rest of these are just terms that changed from TEHO, I’ll go into more detail on these in later sections.

Light/Medium/Heavy Weapons – Used to be called Foils/Rapiers, Sabers/Cutlasses, and Broadsword/Axes.

Insight – Used to be called Impression.

Serendipity – Used to be called Success.

Leadership – Used to be called Charisma.

Opportunism – Used to be called Luck.

Vanguard – Used to be called Boarder.

Surgeon – Used to be called Doctor.

Carpenter – Used to be called Ship-joiner.

Mods

Mods haven’t quite picked up yet for Caribbean Legend but as there is a supported steam workshop that will likely change over time. I’m going to put here any mods I’ve noticed that I feel significantly impact the game.

Global Map Boundaries: This is a new version of a mod for TEHO that shows the boundaries of every region on the Global Map. Very useful information to have when trying to find certain places or optimize travel time. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3160795575

Better herbs visibility: This mod just mainly changes the model for the Manga Rosa to make it really hard to miss. Nice to have, as finding those plants can be frustrating even when you know where they are. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3157217233

Setup

In order to get the most stability out of your game, there are some settings I recommend to tweak before getting started. In the launcher, first of all make sure your game language is set to English. Then change the bottom option from Fullscreen to Borderless, and adjust the resolution accordingly. I personally play in 1600x900 resolution, but this may vary based on the size of your monitor. The important part is to not play the game in Fullscreen, as the game will crash any time you attempt to Alt-Tab. Once you’ve changed that, go ahead and launch the game.

Before starting a new game, go into Options. The game can be very loud so I would recommend turning down the volume to start with. Then in Graphics, I would suggest turning on Simplified Sea and turning off Camera Rotation. Simplified Sea will help the game run better at the cost of some graphics, which should mean less crashes. Camera Rotation just prevents the camera from rotating to face a door when near it, I find this more annoying than anything else.

Look over the controls while you’re here. I’ll go over the most important ones later but it pays to just know what does what. Quicksave is F6 and Quickload is F9, this is not listed in the controls for some reason but is very important if you plan on getting through this game. Once you’re done looking over your settings, head over to New Game!

Character Creation

You’re now looking at the character profiles. There are three playable characters: Charles de Maure, Diego de Montoya, and William Paterson. Diego and William do not currently have any story content, so in order to play the story you will need to select Charles. I will be playing as Charles for the purposes of this guide, so keep that in mind. Note that Charles is French, and the French are at peace with the English and Dutch, and at war with the Spanish and Pirates. There are four archetypes you can choose from, each determining your starting stats and skills, along with some free perks exclusive to each archetype. Before you pick one, let’s go over what the PIRATES stats and your Personal and Naval skills mean, and then I’ll provide screenshots of each archetype with my thoughts on them.

P.I.R.A.T.E.S.

Your PIRATES stats are very critical, as there are only two sections in the whole game where you will have the opportunity to increase them, though there is one new section where you can respec entirely. They can significantly impact various parameters of your character in combat, so pick your archetype with that in mind. Each stat also determines the starting level of various skills for the different archetypes. As I will be showing screenshots of those, I won’t go into too much detail on that. It’s not really that important what your skills start at as you will be training them over the course of the game to eventually reach the maximum level anyway. It only affects what you may be better at from the start.

P – Power: Primarily affects your starting Health and carry weight. Will not affect max Health if altered later.

I – Insight: Mostly determines some starting skills, also affects crit chance for some firearms.

R – Reaction: Affects your max Energy. Will affect max Energy if altered later.

A – Authority: Affects how many officers you can hire, which is 2*A. So, for example, at 5 Authority you will be able to have 10 officers.

T – Talent: Determines how quickly you gain experience and how many skill points you need to earn to gain a rank or perk point. The higher your talent, the faster you will level up and the faster you’ll gain perks. To gain a rank, you need to earn 35 minus T skill points of any type, be that Personal or Naval, and to gain a perk of one type you need to earn 40 minus T skill points of the same type. Some archetypes will even be able to gain an extra perk or two over other archetypes with this in mind. However, it’s not that critical as any archetype will be able to acquire every Personal perk over the course of the game, and it isn’t necessary to acquire every Naval perk as officers will help provide what you lack. Given that rank limits for early quests have been removed, there is no longer any penalty to leveling up too quickly. Will only affect progress towards future Ranks and perks if altered later.

E – Endurance: Similar to P, it primarily affects your starting Health and carry weight. It also determines how much Health you gain per Rank, as follows: 3-4E = 4HP. 5-6E = 5HP. 7-8E = 6HP. 9E = 7HP. 10E = 8HP. Will affect max Health retroactively if altered later.

S – Serendipity: The luck stat. Like many games, this is the sort of thing that affects everything and nothing. Higher luck means you’re more likely to get favorable outcomes, but doesn’t guarantee anything. Also increases crit chance.

As mentioned before, there are two parts in the game where you can increase some of your PIRATES stats. The first opportunity is at the end of the Caleuche questline, where you will get a point of R and E, and then a point of any other stat of your choice. The second opportunity is quite near the end of the main story, where you will get a point of P, R, and E. Note that Athlete starts with 10 P, so that P point will go to waste, however it would also allow you to reach 10 in all three stats. If you’re not Athlete, a point in P will increase your carry weight, a very useful improvement. Alternatively, a point in A would allow you to recruit two additional officers, if you feel your roster is too small. Otherwise, it’s simply down to preference, a point in T will allow you to gain Ranks and perks faster, though it may come a little late to have as pronounced of an effect. If nothing else, more S is never a bad choice.

Additionally, with Vile Little God, you will unlock the ability to fully respec your stats. This DLC is currently a pre-order exclusive but will be available for purchase by 2025 from what I’ve heard. If you have the DLC, you can unlock the respec after Dutch Gambit, as it requires you to sacrifice a unique ship to reach it. I’ll cover this in detail in the walkthrough.

On to skills, these determine how competent you are at the different aspects of gameplay. They are split into two categories, Personal and Naval, and level up primarily through use, but additional XP is rewarded for various quests. All of these skills will eventually reach 100, so what they start as only really impacts your strengths at the start of the game.

Personal Skills

Your Personal Skills affect all aspects of land gameplay, though some affect naval gameplay as well. These all rely entirely on your own skill, though various bonuses or maluses can be provided through amulets and equipment.

Leadership: There are many encounters in the game that will require a leadership check to pass. Generally, higher Leadership increases the likelihood of people being willing to work with you or convincing them of things. This will also impact how much crew is available for recruitment in Taverns, and how much interest Bankers will offer. This stat will train very passively, just through completing quests and interacting with the world.

Light/Medium/Heavy Weapons and Firearms: How effective you are with this class of weapon. This will primarily affect how much damage you deal and how much Energy is used, though there are many factors that go into combat which I will explain later. Generally, if you’re in a hard fight, make sure you’re using a weapon you have the highest skill for, but otherwise make sure to alternate between the skills for the sake of training.

Opportunism: Hello again luck, you vague and ubiquitous beast. Once again, it affects everything and nothing. Generally, high Opportunism means more favorable outcomes for you, especially in regards to crits and gambling. Can be trained through gambling, whether in the tavern or against Governors.

Stealth: This will primarily affect your chances at passing stealth checks, which you will run into both on land and at sea when trying to sneak into hostile Ports. As Charles, you are French by default and will need to fly either a Spanish or Dutch flag to sneak into Spanish Ports, which will then require a stealth check. There are many other minor interactions that involve stealth, generally any dialogue that involves deception. Training this skill can be difficult, it’s trained simply by succeeding stealth checks, and various quests reward XP for it but generally stealth will be difficult to pull off until it increases a fair amount.

Naval Skills

Your Naval Skills affect all aspects of sea gameplay. While you will train these over time rather intuitively, you will primarily be relying on the skills of your officers, who can share specific skills with you based on the roles they are assigned to. Various bonuses can also be provided through amulets. I will also explain officers and their roles in more detail later.

Navigation: The most critical skill for any captain. This determines what class of ship you can command without penalty. Class 6 ships have no requirement, class 5 requires 25 navigation, class 4 requires 45, 3 is 65, 2 is 80, and 1 is 95. The only exception to this is the Flying Heart, a unique ship you get during the Caleuche questline, which requires 100 navigation. If you are ever in command of a ship that is too big for your navigation skill, all your stats and skills will be heavily penalized as a result, based on the difference between your skill and the required skill for the ship. Navigation trains very passively, just by sailing your ship, however bonus XP is rewarded for many types of quests, like freight or mail delivery, races, ferrying, and escorts. Sailing in a storm will also increase your skill dramatically, though until you have the means to survive storms this is not an effective way to train. Your Navigator shares his Navigation skill with you.

Accuracy and Cannons: These skills affect how well your ship performs in combat. Accuracy affects, obviously, the accuracy of your shots, while Cannons affects the reload speed. You will find at the beginning of the game that your broadside cannot hit the broad side of a barn. These skills are simply trained through use, the more combat you do, the faster it trains. Your Cannoneer shares his Accuracy and Cannons skills with you.

Boarding: How effective your ship is at initiating boarding fights. A lot of factors actually go into boarding fights, which I will go into later, but generally this stat will determine the acceptable range, speed, and angle your ship can be at to board an enemy ship. Same with Accuracy and Cannons, the more boarding fights you do, the faster it trains. Your Boatswain shares his Boarding skill with you, though Vanguards are also very important as they impact some aspects of boarding and are otherwise additional fighters.

Defense: Affects how much protection your ship and crew have from enemy volleys, generally weighted against the Accuracy and Cannon skills of the opponent. Trains simply by getting shot at. Your Surgeon shares his Defense skill with you.

Repair: How effective your crew is at repairing the ship. Some important perks are required for this skill to become truly effective. Trains by repairing your ship either yourself or at a shipyard. Your Carpenter shares his Repair skill with you.

Trading: Without high trade skill, you will struggle to manage your expenses and profit through cargo sales. It also impacts certain dialogue options involving bargaining or negotiation, including the interest rate Bankers offer. Very important to keep your expenses down and profits up, trains through buying and selling cargo. Your Purser shares his Trading skill with you.

Perks are very important, but they’re also fairly intuitive. Nonetheless, I will go over some Personal perks while explaining the archetypes and the rest when I talk about combat, and Naval perks when I go over officers. Now that you understand what all your stats and skills mean, it’s time to pick an archetype.

Duelist

This is the light weapon and light armor specialist. Stats are well spread, and starting skills favor light weapons and stealth. This archetype gains the Critical Hit perk for free, which is required to perform crits in combat, starting at a 5% chance. It also has two perks exclusive to the archetype: Thick Skin and Duelist. Thick Skin simply makes light armor more effective, which normally provides minor defensive bonuses without many setbacks, and is made more protective with this archetype. Duelist provides an additional 10% crit chance and makes Fast Attacks more powerful, along with negating the energy loss on taking hits. This archetype is a good all-around pick with solid combat bonuses, and notably has the highest Talent which allows for faster leveling. As it has no particular weaknesses, it’s a great choice for new players. The only particular thing of note is that Light Weapons generally underperform compared to Medium and Heavy Weapons, especially later on.

Accountant

This is the leadership, trade, and stealth specialist. Stats are very nice, except for Insight which doesn’t particularly matter, and starting skills favor medium weapons and trade. This archetype gains the Trustworthy perk for free, which allows you to take most random quests regardless of Honor, freely sneak into hostile Ports by land, increases the amount of crew and officers available for hire in taverns, and unlocks specific unique dialogues with favorable outcomes, though this only comes up in specific quest interactions. A very nice perk to start with! It also has three perks exclusive to the archetype: Treasure Hunter, Natural Pretender, and Rat Wolf. Treasure hunter simply improves your chances at finding good loot from treasure maps, Natural Pretender increases your stealth chance at sea by 50%, and Rat Wolf eliminates rats from your flagship, which means no cargo lost to rats on your main ship. This is a solid archetype for the experienced player; however, it lacks in combat compared to the other archetypes so I would caution new players against picking this.

Athlete

This is the heavy weapon and heavy armor specialist, in contrast to the Duelist. Stats are harshly split, clearly favoring P, R, and E, while neglecting I, T, and S. Starting skills only particularly favor heavy weapons, due to the preference in stats for combat. This archetype gains the Tireless perk for free, which increases Energy recovery by 15% allowing you to fight more efficiently. It also has two perks exclusive to the archetype: Bronze Horseman and Living Breath. Bronze Horseman simply makes heavy armor more effective, which is normally very effective at protecting the wearer at the cost of penalties to some stats and skills, and is made even more protective with this archetype. Living Breath is a copy of Tireless, adding an additional 15% to Energy recovery. Given that heavy armor tends to penalize Reaction, reducing max energy, and heavy weapons tend to have high energy costs, the significant increase to Energy recovery this archetype adds along with the 8 Reaction makes this archetype an absolute beast in combat. Unfortunately, heavy armor is difficult to come by in the early game, as are heavy weapons, and there’s a perk that requires many prerequisites in order to turn the heavy attack into a real slayer. Athlete can be very powerful in combat, but takes a while to get going especially with that abysmal 4 Talent, so it won’t see its strengths highlighted as much in the early game, which can make it a more difficult choice for new players compared to Duelist.

Sharpshooter

This is the firearms specialist. Similar to Athlete, stats are harshly split, favoring I and S while neglecting P and A, with everything else being somewhat mediocre. These are the hardest stats to work with, as the Sharpshooter will have much lower starting Health and Energy than the other archetypes, and a pitiful 4 Authority sets your officer limit at 8. Starting skills favor firearms and opportunism, with some good cannons and accuracy too, so you won’t struggle nearly as much without a cannoneer at the start as the others. This archetype gains the Musketeer perk for free, granting 10% faster reload and accuracy for personal firearms, along with immediate access to muskets, which have seen a significant buff in recent updates and are experiencing something of a golden age in the current version. It also has three perks exclusive to the archetype: Jager, Sniper, and Bombardier. Jager simply adds an additional 40% reload speed, putting the Sharpshooter at a blinding 50% reload time reduction at the start of the game compared to the other archetypes, which will only increase with a later perk and the use of paper cartridges. Sniper causes enemies to lose energy when shot, which can help in combat, while Bombardier simply makes your cannons far less likely to explode during combat. Cannon explosions aren’t really much of a problem in the first place, but it’s a nice bonus. Previously I wouldn’t have recommended Sharpshooter to new players as this archetype is rather weak in combat and muskets were tricky to use. However, due to recent changes, muskets are incredibly powerful as they are now capable of the same combat maneuvers as blades. Since you can acquire a musket near the start of the game, the Sharpshooter will have little trouble plowing through combat and makes a solid choice for new players now. Just won’t be as effective in melee combat with the low Reaction and Endurance, not to mention the pitiful weight limit.

Game Options

Now that you’ve selected your archetype, there’s a few more options to configure before starting the game, make sure you look over these as they can significantly impact gameplay.

Classic/Exploration Mode: You can choose between Classic Mode and Exploration Mode. Classic Mode is roughly the same game as it was in TEHO, while Exploration Mode removes most timers in quests, makes fights generally easier, and increases your speed on the Global Map. For the purposes of this guide, I will be playing on Classic Mode and my advice and guidance will have these time limits in consideration. If you want a more relaxed progression, you can select Exploration Mode, but I will note that it is still a work in progress and I’m still hearing reports of some timers not being disabled. As a general rule, even if you’re playing on Exploration Mode, don’t delay when you’re in the middle of a questline, you’ll have time for freeplay between quests.

Handguns auto-reload: When in combat, firearms will reload over time, allowing them to be fired multiple times in a single fight. With this option disabled, firearms will only reload while your weapon is sheathed. Note that this also applies to enemies, so there is a consideration to disable this option to prevent enemies from firing their weapons more than once. Given some of the hard fights in this game with enemies that can kill you in one shot, it’s not a terrible idea to disable it. However, the Sharpshooter may find that disabling this is akin to castration.

Hardcore Mode: This makes it so you can only save while inside a church. Don’t enable this, for the love of God just don’t touch it.

Crew’s shares: The full explanation for this is a bit wordy, but it’s fairly straightforward. With Crew’s Shares enabled, you’ll have to pay your crew more based on how much booty you plunder. Essentially, your expenses are just higher. If you’re new to the game or just struggle with your finances, disable this.

Saving during naval combat: This is straightforward, allows you to save during ship battles. Don’t disable this, you will want to be able to save whenever possible.

Rains: This is a graphics option that for some reason is not in the Options I went over before. Turn this off and the game will run better, which means less crashes.

Naval combat type: The main difference between Dynamic combat and Tactical combat is the speed at which ships move and cannons reload. I would recommend Dynamic as ship battles can get very slow and tedious on Tactical.

Difficulty

The last thing you need to do before starting your game is select a difficulty. To be honest, if you’re a new player, just select Easy. Difficulty primarily affects the rate of XP gain, expenses, and the strength of your enemies.

Easy: Don’t let this fool you, this game can be tremendously difficult even on the lowest difficulty. The main difference in this setting compared to Normal is that enemies generally will not have healing items, which lets you kill them a lot faster. You will level up faster, things will be cheaper, and enemies won’t pose as much of a challenge. Despite that last part, there are some tremendously difficult fights in this game regardless of difficulty. Overall, I strongly recommend this choice for new players or otherwise players looking for a more casual experience.

Normal: The more standard difficulty. Enemies have healing items and aren’t afraid to fire their guns, but will still have about the same strength as those on Easy. If you’re familiar with the combat and general gameplay this is a great choice, as it will provide ample challenge without being patently unfair.

Hard: This is where the game really stops pulling punches. You’ll gain experience slower than on the lower difficulties and your expenses will start getting higher. Enemies will come with plenty of healing items and their guns can often kill you in one hit. This is the difficulty where you really need to understand the intricacies of combat to prevail. For the purposes of this guide, I will be playing on Hard difficulty so expect the content of this guide to reflect that.

Very Hard: This is where things get truly unfair. If for some reason you found yourself not challenged enough on Hard, go ahead and kick it up a notch. Enemies will already have been able to one-shot you on Hard, so be prepared to savescum a lot.

Impossible: God, just don’t. There’s an achievement for beating the game on Impossible with Classic Mode, but you’d have to be a true masochist to want to attempt that. I’ll see you lunatics in a few months when I finish this guide and start achievement hunting.

With your difficulty selected, go ahead and name your profile and select Start Story. If you select Start Sandbox, you’ll instead be thrust into the open-ended sandbox mode. If you’re not interested in the story, feel free to play this instead, but understand that the sandbox is missing most of the content in the game. This game is very story-centric, but it also prevents you from doing too much freeplay. If you’re playing on Exploration Mode, you’ll certainly have more time for it, but overall if freeplay is more what you’re interested in you should just go ahead and play the sandbox. Sandbox is actually quite fun in this game, even if you miss out on the story. Once you’ve got that locked in, it’s time to start the game! However, there’s a lot more stuff to go over before I actually get to the walkthrough section of this guide.

The Enter Menu

Press Enter and you’ll have a few options available on the top left corner of your screen, you can cycle between them with the Arrow Keys. Many of these will only appear under specific context. Note that many of these are disabled during the tutorial section of the game.

On Land:

Go-To: This is fast travel, allows you to hop over to any of the major buildings while in Town. Any time you are inside a building, you will be able to select Port, which takes you to the dock, and any time you are outside a building you will be able to select Town Gate, which takes you to the jungle. Go-To is disabled while in hostile Towns, so make sure you still get familiar with what certain buildings look like for those situations.

Open: Only available when facing a door or other screen transition. Unnecessary to use as you can just press LMB or Spacebar instead.

Dialog: Only available when facing someone. Unnecessary to use as you can just press LMB or Spacebar instead.

Thinking Out Loud: When you select this, you will be presented with multiple options that can generally be accessed through other hotkeys anyway. The only notable exception is while in the jungle you can select an option to start capturing the nearest Town. Overall, not as important as it used to be, however there are some quests that will require you to select an option in this menu to progress, so don’t forget about it.

Crafting: This opens the alchemy menu, also accessible by pressing K. Without the alchemy skill you’ll only have access to a few recipes, I will go over alchemy later.

Rest: Lets you pass time, up to 24 hours. If you are inside a tavern, you can pass up to a week. There are many quests that require you to pass time, and just generally sometimes you’ll need to wait around for something or other.

At Sea:

Moor: Only available when near a beach or Port that is not hostile. Unnecessary to use as you can just press LMB or Spacebar instead.

Sail-To: This is a different fast travel, which allows you to jump over to a nearby ship, beach, or Port. The range increases with the quality of your spyglass. Note that you cannot Sail-To a hostile target, or while in combat.

Map: Takes you to the Global Map. You can also press Spacebar to do this if you are not near a dock.

Send Boat: When you are close to a ship that isn’t hostile, you can send a boat to board the vessel. This takes you aboard the ship where you can speak to the captain. You’ll need to do this for many quests.

Cabin: Takes you into your cabin, where you can enter other rooms of your ship like the Hold, where prisoners are held, and the Wardroom, where your officers hang out. In your cabin are multiple chests, these are functionally bottomless and you should be storing any items you don’t immediately need here. Unnecessary to use as you can just press C instead, which will also return you back to sea while in your cabin.

Launch Mine: Spends 200 gunpowder to drop a mine. Any ship that gets too close to the mine will take damage. Very effective for sinking ships when you otherwise lack the firepower.

The rest of these require specific Ship Combat perks to activate, though these all have hotkeys as well.

Combat Repair: Spends planks and sailcloth to repair the ship to 80% Hull and Sails. Unnecessary to use as you can just press Z instead.

Emergency Repair: Only available if your ship’s hull drops below 10%, saves your ship from sinking. Unnecessary to use as you can just press X instead.

Quick Turnaround: Temporarily increases your maneuverability, allowing you to rapidly turn the ship. Try spinning, that’s a good trick! Unnecessary to use as you can just press V instead.

Prepared Reloading: Temporarily increases your reload speed, combos well with Quick Turnaround to spin and fire all on cylinders. Unnecessary to use as you can just press B instead.

If you cycle down, you can also issue commands to other ships in your Squadron.

Defend: Selecting this will then prompt you to select a target. The ship will then sail towards the target and engage any hostiles around it.

Sail Away: This commands the ship to flee from any hostiles. The AI can be a bit dumb about this, so don’t expect too much.

Take Down the Sails: This commands the ship to furl sails and come to a full stop, it will not maneuver any further but will still fire on any targets in range.

Reload: Selecting this will then prompt you to select an ammunition. The ship will reload cannons with the selected ammo type and continue using that ammo from then on.

Launch Mine: Functions the same as the player’s ship, spends 200 gunpowder to drop a mine. Better hope it doesn’t run right back into it.

Sail to: Not the same as the player’s Sail-To option, selecting this will prompt you to select a cardinal direction. The ship will then turn towards that direction with full sails. If the AI is being stupid about Sail Away, try using this option instead.

Brander: Only available if you or your Boatswain has the perk, this commands the ship to ignite the gunpowder stores and ram the nearest enemy. The more gunpowder on board, the bigger the explosion. The Companion will die unless they have the Emergency Rescue perk.

As long as the Companion on the ship has the perk, you can also command them to do any of the Ship Combat perks, there are no hotkeys for these for Companion ships.

The Global Map

Once you’ve got a ship and are free to leave the island, select Map in the Enter Menu or press Spacebar if not at a mooring point to exit to the Global Map. This will take you to the full map of the Caribbean and your play area. Press W to start moving forward, hold it a little to make sure you reach top speed, and use A and D to turn to head towards wherever your destination is. You can also zoom in or out with the mouse wheel, and press Tab to fully zoom out and be able to pan the screen around to look across the whole map. Time is still passing while you do this, so don’t get too distracted!

In the top right you’ll see a compass that shows the passage of time, the direction of the wind, and the speed of the wind. Time passes quickly on the Global Map, so don’t delay. You move faster when sailing with the wind, and slower against the wind. Unfortunately, a lot of the time the wind is just against where you’re heading. This will also determine the speed and direction of the wind when you enter back into the Local Map, which you can do by selecting To Sea in the Enter menu or just pressing Spacebar. Below the compass is your morale and provisions. Green is good, red is bad. If morale gets really bad you may end up with a mutiny on your hands, so make sure you don’t spend too much time here and run out of provisions. Below that is your coordinates. Without any navigation tools, this section will be blank. However, once you acquire the right tools you will have up-to-date coordinates of your exact location in the world. Sweet! Frankly, this is almost entirely useless. There are a few quests that provide coordinates instead of a location, but there’s only one quest in the game where navigation tools are required to progress, and you’re provided them immediately beforehand anyway. Having the tools equipped does at least give you a speed bonus on the Global Map, but the coordinates serve no real purpose beyond that. Below that is your current flag, this dictates what kind of ships will chase you. With the French Flag, expect to be occasionally intercepted by Spanish ships.

The Caribbean is separated into many regions that have much larger borders than you may expect. If you are using the Global Map Boundaries mod I suggested, you can actually see these region borders represented on the Global Map. Any quest that takes place in a specific region will start once you enter the Local Map within the region borders, be careful with this as if you exit back to Global Map, you can fail the quest. While within the Local Map of a region, you can Sail-To any ship, Fort, Port, or beach within range, as long as you are not in combat. Note that some quests will disable Sail-To regardless of combat.

Types of Ships on the Global Map

There’s a lot of different ships out there so let’s go over everything you might run into.

Pirates: We fly no colors out here, but praise the lack of ‘em. So let the Black Flag signal nothing but your allegiance to man’s natural freedom. These are always hostile to you, and there’s no downside to attacking them. Engage or evade as you please.

Spanish: The red and yellow of the Spanish Empire, upon which the sun never sets. Normally hostile, unless you fly a Dutch or Spanish Flag. They’ve got a lot of gold transports and cash crop traders sailing around the Caribbean, but also vigorously defend them.

English: The Cross of St. George! For King and Country! Technically, this is the Commonwealth of England, as the King is currently dead and Cromwell reigns. Don’t look too hard at the dates, you’ll just get confused. Normally friendly, unless you fly a Dutch, Spanish, or Pirate Flag. How are the French the only people the English are getting along with? That just seems wrong.

Dutch: The ol’ Red, White, and Blue! Uh, wait, wrong country. And shouldn’t it be orange instead of red in this setting? I’ll be honest I don’t really know much about the Dutch. Normally friendly, unless you fly an English or Pirate Flag. These guys are pretty nice and just like to trade. 😊

French: The Fleur-de-lis. Mwaaaah, the French... champagne has always been celebrated for its excellence. There is a California champagne by Paul Masson, inspired... by that same French excellence. It's fermented in the bottle, and like the best French champagnes, it's vintage-dated, so Paul Masson's superb... Anyway. Normally friendly, unless you fly a Spanish or Pirate Flag. They’re pretty chill too, if you ignore the whole Crusader Order thing they’ve got going on for some reason.

Some quests will spawn special ships that are color coded a different way regardless of their nation. Make sure you keep an eye out for these when on a mission, as any time a quest tasks you with hunting down a ship on the Global Map, it will be one of these colors.

Purple: The typical quest ship target. Most of the time a Story quest has you hunting a ship, this is the color you’ll be looking for.

Green: Friendly quest ship target. Many random quests will task you with finding a ship that you don’t actually have to fight, those will be green. Just make sure you pay attention to what Nation they are in the prompt, as the ship will become hostile if you fly the wrong flag.

Orange: Hostile quest ship target. Random quests that task you with hunting down a ship will have an orange-sailed target for you. The Stolen Ship mission will likely be your main source of orange sail ships. These are not automatically hostile if you fly a friendly Flag, but you will in most cases need to attack the ship for whatever quest you have.

Red: Occasionally a quest will spawn an Interceptor to hunt you, regardless of its Nation it will have red sails on the Global Map. These will be hostile regardless of your Flag.

Encounters on the Global Map

As you travel the Global Map, there are many different encounters that can pop up on the open sea. When you approach a ship, the icon next to your compass will change and pressing Spacebar will prompt you with some information on the fleet and whether you want to engage or ignore it. Any time you engage a ship on the Global Map, you’ll be brought into the Local Map for that region.

Pirates: The most common encounter. Clearly using some kind of special Pirate technology from the future, every pirate in the Caribbean knows your exact location at all times, and they will hunt you down for what you did. What did you do? You know what you did. Once a pirate vessel approaches, your icon will switch to a boarding hook, even when they’re still a decent distance away. As they get closer, you’ll be forced to engage them, so it’s best to try and engage on your own terms.

Patrols: The next most common encounter. It seems the Spanish occasionally get their hands on that Pirate tech themselves and send a fleet after you, for the simple crime of being French. Can’t say I blame them. Same as the Pirate encounter, you’ll see this ship approach and be prompted the same way. The Nation this encounter generates will change based on what Flag you are flying when it spawns, the fight can be immediately avoided by changing Flag and fooling the patrol, provided you can pass a stealth check.

Note that both of these types of encounters can be evaded. If you manage to outrun them on the Global Map, they will eventually despawn. If on the Local Map, simply outrun the enemy until you are over a distance of 1000 away, and then you can return to the Global Map. Doing so will despawn the ship after.

Gentlemen of Fortune: A unique Pirate encounter that will spawn based on certain triggers. Usually when doing a delivery job from the Store or Harbor Master, but can also appear after finding a treasure, or just entirely by random. Unlike the regular Pirates, these ships are much faster on the Global Map and cannot be simply outrun. If you try to flee from the fight on the Local Map, the ship will not despawn and continue to chase you. The only way to get rid of this is to destroy it.

Interceptor: A unique Patrol encounter that will spawn based on certain triggers. Usually when a Nation has an active bounty on your head, but can also spawn from specific events in Story quests. Same as the previous, this encounter cannot be avoided, and will continue to hunt the player until destroyed. These ships will also remain hostile regardless of Flag, there is no way to fool them.

As both of these cannot be avoided and will sometimes be difficult to fight on your own, a good trick is to start the encounter near a Port, so that the enemy will be in range of the local Fort. Forts can make quick work of your opponents, but be aware that a Fort will not fire upon a ship that its Nation is not hostile to.

Trader: Passive ships that frequent the many Ports of the Caribbean. If you are flying a hostile Flag, they will try to avoid you, otherwise they will just go about their day. Great targets if you’re interested in some piracy, but you’ll damage your Reputation with the Nation by doing so. Spanish Traders make for good targets, as few will blame a Frenchman for plundering Spaniards. These come in a few varieties, some will be alone, some will be escorted. The Trade Expedition is a highly valuable variant of this ship that will often carry Strategic Goods, required for Ship Upgrades and otherwise highly valuable for smuggling. There’s no way to tell the difference between Traders at a glance, you’ll have to approach each one and see what the prompt tells you. Note that attacking a Trader for any reason will automatically annul an active Trade License, they must have nabbed some of that secret Pirate tech to send an instant message to Willemstad.

Military: As long as you aren’t flying a hostile Flag, these military vessels will travel around the Caribbean and leave you alone. Should you wish to engage them, you may, but the Nation the ship is from won’t take it lightly. There can be a few variants of this ship as well, though these generally won’t have much value to attack unprovoked.

Battle in Progress: You’ll often come across two stationary ships on the Global Map, a fight between two sides! You’ll be able to tell at a glance what Nation each side is from, and if you get close you can view the prompt to get more details, like if it’s a Trader or a Military Battle. Be careful with these, as you can often spawn right in front of an enemy’s broadside. Nations will always appreciate you coming to their aid!

Floating Barrel: Sometimes difficult to spot, these barrels floating in the water can have valuables inside! There are three variants to this encounter: A lone barrel with random loot, a barrel with random loot surrounded by a bunch of drifting cargo, and a mine. The barrel, when approached, will open a container and be yours for the taking. It will often have some pesos and other random items, often junk items but can occasionally be valuables! Take everything regardless. If there’s also random cargo drifting around in the water, be sure to maneuver around and pick that stuff up too, it’ll often be trade goods and can even be decent amounts of Strategic Goods! Sometimes, the barrel will actually just be a mine, and blow up in your face. Some jerk probably thinks he’s real funny.

Shipwrecked Captain: Also difficult to spot, this small dinghy drifting around is the survivor of a shipwreck. So much for “the captain always goes down with his ship,” eh? Picking them up will add them as a captive, which you can then do with as you please.

Storm: Those dark clouds are a bad omen. If you get too close, you’ll be immediately pulled into the Local Map in the midst of a storm. During storms, your Hull and Sails take constant damage, furl those sails to avoid as much damage as you can. Also watch out for tornadoes, as this is a genuine hurricane, they will quickly wreck your ship. Engaging with another encounter close enough to the storm will start your fight in the midst of the storm, a very dangerous place to be having a battle, and prevent you from leaving until you escape or defeat any hostiles. After a short period, as long as you aren’t in combat, you will be able to return to the Global Map. Repair Skill, various perks, and the Jonah ward reduce how much damage is taken in storms. With those, you can laugh at your enemies from relative safety as the storm destroys them.

Mutiny: Any time the clock strikes midnight, there’s a chance you will be pulled onto the deck because of a mutiny breaking out. You’ll have to fight off any hostiles on deck, which could even include one of your officers leading the riot. Maintaining high morale, Loyalty, and Authority is the only way to avoid normal mutinies. Crew Debts going unpaid for too long can also trigger a mutiny if you don’t pay when the month ends. If you have any slaves on board, they always have the chance of revolting, only mitigated by how much crew you have. If there are ever more slaves than crew, be prepared.

Land Combat

Health: This is pretty straightforward, it’s how much damage you can take before death. Starting Health is determined by the following equation: 30 + (P*E)/2. Endurance also determines the rate at which your Health increases per rank. The Growing Life perk (should really be renamed Growing Health at this point) also further increases Health gained by 1 per rank. This perk is a retroactive effect, so it doesn’t matter when you pick it up.

Energy: Each type of attack drains a different amount of Energy, and if you don’t have enough Energy, you won’t be able to attack. This regenerates during combat, 15% faster with the Tireless perk and then another 15% with the Athlete exclusive Living Breath perk. Base is 30, increased by 10 per point of Reaction. Unlike Power and Endurance, changes to Reaction will affect your Energy total. The Growing Energy perk also increases your energy by 1 per rank. This perk is also a retroactive effect.

Vitality: This is a measure of your condition. On low difficulties you’ll rarely see this drop, while on higher difficulties it will be constantly dropping. Health potions and ginger are cheap healing items that have no penalty on Vitality, while alcohol or elixirs will quickly damage it. Otherwise, taking damage in general will eventually reduce your Vitality. Vitality can be recovered by resting at taverns or having sex, or in extreme cases by visiting a priest for salvation. Make a habit of doing both to keep your condition Excellent, as anything less will penalize your stats and skills. The Excellent Health perk (should really be renamed Excellent Vitality at this point) reduces damage to your Vitality, and increases the rate of recovery. Not really necessary for low difficulties, but can be helpful for higher ones.

Crit Chance: The left number is your crit chance for melee, the right number is your crit chance for firearms. You need the Critical Hit perk to gain any crit chance, and the Professional Fighter perk will further increase it, along with the Duelist exclusive Duelist perk. Serendipity will also increase your crit chance, but you still need the Critical Hit perk for it to apply. Only specific firearms can crit, so don’t expect to get any with a common pistol or musket.

Defense: The left number is how much percentage of melee damage is reduced, the middle number is how much percentage of firearm damage is reduced, and the right number is your chance to resist a critical hit. These values will increase with armor, light armors don’t tend to protect much but don’t apply many penalties either, while heavy armors are much more protective at the cost of some stat penalties, mainly Reaction which decreases your Energy. The Basic Defense, Advanced Defense, and Professional Fighter perks each increase your melee and firearm defense, by 10%, then 20%, and finally 30%.

With the core stuff down, let’s get on with actually fighting! There are a lot of tricks to combat in this game, and if you play the tutorial, you will meet a kind gentleman named Gregoire who will even show you the ropes. He goes over much of what I’ll be putting here, and will even duel you a few times as practice, it’s good to go over it with him.

Land Combat Controls

Time Dilation – R, + or -: A very critical control that allows you to affect the flow of time. By default, the game plays at 1x speed. Pressing R will automatically take the game to 2x speed; however, you can further modify the speed by pressing + or -. The game speed can range from 0.5x to 8x, depending on the situation, but sometimes you will be limited to 3x or 6x. Sometimes you need to slow things down, sometimes you need to speed them up. Don’t forget about this! You can change the game speed at almost any time, land or sea, not just in combat.

Combat Mode – E: Now, first things first, you’ve got to draw your sword to enter combat! Most of the time, your sword will be drawn automatically, but you can draw or sheathe your sword with this button. With Handguns auto-reload disabled, you can only reload firearms while your sword is sheathed. While holding a musket it’s a bit less clear, but you’ll slightly raise your gun while in Combat Mode, and hold it by your waist while out of Combat Mode.

Use Healing Item – X: Uses your selected healing item, if none is selected it will choose one by default. Alt-X can cycle through any healing items you have in your inventory.

Use Antidote – V: Once you start fighting enemies with poison weapons, you’ll need to carry antidotes on you to counteract it. This button will automatically use one.

Use Ometochli Tincture – F: A special rare potion that gives significant boosts to all your combat parameters, chug one of these to make yourself God-like for a short period of time. This button will automatically use one.

Change Ammo – B: Switches which ammo type you are using. At the start of the game, you will only have access to lead balls, though you’ll quickly unlock the paper cartridge. You won’t use this button much.

Fire Weapon – Q: As long as your pistol or rifle is loaded, this will blow a hole in some poor sap. If you just tap it, you’ll quickly fire at whatever target you are facing, however if you hold and release, you’ll be able to aim your shot, targets are highlighted in red. Make sure not to blow your shot, any allies or obstacles in the way will block it.

Block – Spacebar: Hold this button and you can block most attacks coming your way. Heavy attacks will always ignore blocks, and higher-level enemies or pretty much all enemies on higher difficulties tend to have the Irresistible Strike perk, which gives 20+S% chance to ignore blocks with any attack. Not super reliable, but good to fall back on for weak enemies.

Slash Attack – Left Mouse Button: This is your basic attack. It’s not that fast but not that slow either, and uses a moderate amount of Energy. Can be blocked. Medium and Heavy weapons favor this attack.

Fast Attack – Right Mouse Button: This is, well, your fast attack. It’s much faster than the Slash Attack and uses less energy. Can be blocked. Light weapons favor this attack, even more so if you are a Duelist.

Heavy Attack – Middle Mouse Button: This is, say it with me, your heavy attack. It’s very slow and can easily be parried or even just interrupted. Uses a lot of energy, but cannot be blocked. The Heavy Weapons specialty. The Hard Hitter perk increases damage dealt by 30%.

Group Attack – Shift + Left Mouse Button: This is your area-of-effect attack. You’ll give a wide sweep of your sword, striking any nearby enemies twice. It’s about as fast a Slash Attack, can be parried or interrupted, and uses a lot of energy. Can be blocked. Also pushes back enemies slightly, be careful as enemies often like to shoot when there’s any distance between you and them. The Medium Weapons specialty. The Blade Dance perk increases damage dealt by 30%.

Parry – Shift + Right Mouse Button, or C: Where blocking fails, the Parry picks up the slack. Requires the right timing, but can avoid any melee attack. What’s more, it drains the enemy’s Energy and leaves them briefly exposed. No Energy cost. Any weapon can and should use this, even muskets.

Feint – Shift + Middle Mouse Button, or Z: The Parry’s cousin, Feint also requires the right timing but can avoid any melee attack. However, instead of draining the enemy’s Energy and leaving them exposed, you will immediately counter-attack. Uses a little Energy. The Light Weapons specialty.

A note on timing for Parry and Feint: Getting the hang of the timing can be tricky. Generally, both moves will have a decent window for the enemy attack to actually connect, so it doesn’t have to be too precise. Once the enemy’s weapon starts moving, use the move and you should get it off just fine. Heavy attacks, however, are much slower and have more of a windup. When the enemy starts raising their weapon, wait until they stop raising it and use the move as it starts to drop. Once you get a feel for the flow of combat, you don’t even need to rely on visuals that much. Enemies tend to attack with a specific cadence, so once you’ve parried an attack you can just go with the flow and get into a rhythm, and not even worry about reacting. If you mess up your timing and move too early, you can cancel the move by quickly tapping spacebar, and then do it again.

An additional note on timing: If you really can’t get the hang of it, you can use the Time Dilation controls to slow down combat. Typically, you use this to speed things up, but remember that by pressing the minus key you can also slow time down to 0.5x speed. This will give you a much wider window to move when the enemy strikes.

Loot Body – 1: So, you’ve just killed a man, good work! Now go through his pockets! Enemies will often have nice goodies. Remember, A.B.L. Always Be Looting! No matter what he’s got on him, take it with you and sort it later.

Change Weapon – 2,3,4,5: Any time your sword is sheathed, you can quickly swap to any other weapon in your inventory with these buttons. 2 will select a musket, 3 will select a light weapon, 4 will select a medium weapon, and 5 will select a heavy weapon. Unfortunately, there’s no button to swap pistols.

Dodge/Strafe – A/S/D: While in Combat Mode, moving in any direction other than where you’re facing will cause you to jump in that direction. Whether jumping to the back or side, it will cost a small amount of Energy and allow you to avoid some attacks. It’s helpful for quickly repositioning, and with the right timing you can even dodge bullets this way. Generally, you want to try to bait an opponent to shoot, and then jump behind an obstacle, be that a wall or another enemy.

Weapon Damage

Now, how to fight is all well and good, but how do you deal the most damage? Well, it varies depending on what kind of weapon you’re using. There are many factors that impact how effective a weapon is, from how much damage it deals to how much Energy it costs to use.



Attack: This is the raw damage of a weapon. There isn’t much to say about this, higher numbers are always better. The different weapon types have different caps for Attack: Light is 60, Medium is 80, and Heavy is 100.

Balance: Ranging from 0.0-2.0, this determines how the weight of the weapon is distributed. When Balance is closer to 0, Fast Attacks and Feints are more powerful, the ideal Balance for a Light weapon. When Balance is closer to 2, Slash and Heavy Attacks are more powerful, the ideal Balance for a Heavy weapon.

Type: Whether the weapon is Light, Medium, or Heavy. This will determine what weapon skill is being used and which attacks the weapon will favor. The higher your skill in a specific weapon type, the more damage you’ll deal with it and less energy it will cost to use.

Weight: The weight of a weapon, generally ranging from 2-3 for Light Weapons, 2.4-3.6 for Medium Weapons, and 3-4.5 for Heavy Weapons, except for a few unique outliers. This affects how much damage it deals and how much energy it will cost to swing.

There are a few additional, more hidden aspects of a weapon that also affect damage. Each weapon has a length and a curve. Longer weapons are more effective at Slash, Fast, and Group Attack, while shorter weapons are more effective at Heavy Attack and Feint. Curved weapons are more effective at Slash, Heavy, and Group Attack, while straight weapons are more effective at Fast Attack and Feint. You can generally tell how long or straight a weapon is just by looking at it on your hip. These metrics can have a surprisingly pronounced effect on the output of the weapon; consider replacing a long and straight Heavy Weapon for a short and curved one, even if the base Attack is lower, as the multiplier from those two aspects can lead to higher damage overall.

Tips for Land Combat

The objective of any fight is to reduce your opponent’s Health to 0 while maintaining your own Health above 0. Pretty simple stuff, right? Well, if you think so then feel free to stop reading here, and good luck. Fights can really go many different ways, there’s no single guaranteed strategy, but there’s plenty of tricks to give yourself as much advantage as possible.

Parry, Parry, Parry!: An enemy can’t fight effectively if he has no energy, use that parry as much as you can, and you can completely control the flow of a fight. Watch the enemy’s movements and parry every chance you get, not only will they not be able to attack as much, but they’ll also get staggered every time and be open for a counterattack! Alternatively, you can feint instead of parry, but that’s better suited for Light Weapons than Medium or Heavy Weapons.

A.B.S. – Always Be Shooting: If you didn’t disable Handguns auto-reload, then your pistol will be magically reloading itself while you fight. Any time that thing is loaded, find an opening to fire it. You can usually parry and follow it up with a shot, or even jump back to put some space between you and your opponent to fire. Be warned though, any time you put on some distance, your enemy will likely fire back.

DOOOOOODGE: When the enemy does fire back, you don’t just have to stand there and take it. Dodge those bullets! This is more manageable if you have terrain or other opponents to jump behind, as the bullet will just harmlessly hit a wall or another man’s back. However, it is possible to dodge bullets altogether with the right timing, simply bait your opponent to fire and quickly maneuver out of their line of sight. Sometimes they can turn fast, but if you move faster, you can trick them into completely blowing their shot.

Bodyguards: You don’t need to fight alone! Assign officers as Vanguards to have extra bodies following you around. You can have up to three, and a lot of the time they’re even gonna be a lot stronger than you, so make sure to take advantage of numbers.

Squeeze: If you’re in a fight and find yourself stuck behind crew or Vanguards, put away your weapon and you should be able to squeeze past them. Reposition yourself and get back into the fight!

Chokepoints: If you find yourself in a situation where you’re fighting multiple enemies at once, and let’s be honest, that’s most of the time, the first thing you should do is scan your surroundings for a tight corridor. Guide the fight in that direction, and reap the benefits of being able to fight enemies one at a time, just watch out for any enemies trying to squeeze in or even potentially flank you. If you have Vanguards with you, you can even use the terrain to isolate and flank enemies to be quickly dispatched.

Collateral Damage: If you happen to be fighting in a Town, try to lure your opponent close to a nearby guard. Normally, those jerks will just stand around and watch the fight, but if you trick your opponent into accidentally striking a guard, all bets are off. Stand back and watch the slaughter. Just be careful not to end up striking a guard yourself.

Additional Personal Perks

I went over most of the Personal perks as they came up, but as there are a few that didn’t, I’ll explain those here.

Skirmisher: After you’ve acquired the Musketeer perk, or started with it as Sharpshooter, you can acquire the Skirmisher perk. This upgrades your reload speed and accuracy to 25% rather than 10%, and also gives you access to multi-barrel firearms. The tooltip on many of those guns is outdated, so just know that any weapon that can fire more than one bullet at a time requires this perk to use. The only exception to this is the Superimposed Pistol, a unique weapon you acquire during the Caleuche questline that simply functions as a double-barrel pistol without requiring the perk.

Irresistible Strike: I briefly mentioned that enemies will often have this perk, it gives a 20% chance at base, boosted by your Serendipity stat, to ignore an enemy’s block. Not terribly useful for the player, as you should be smart enough not to attack an enemy’s block, but can be useful for Vanguards, as they are not smart enough.

Iron Will: A critically important perk in this game. This grants you the ability to survive a lethal blow every three minutes. As many fights in the game, particularly on higher difficulties, have a habit of one-shotting you, this perk is a lifesaver. Pick it up yourself and make sure your Vanguards get it too. Additionally reduces the chance of a mutiny and can force an officer to stay in your service if they demand to leave, nice bonuses but not that important.

Emergency Rescue: Requires Iron Will, allows you to survive if your ship is sunk. While not terribly useful for the player, as you’ve got much bigger problems if your ship is sinking, it can be useful for any officers you plan to use as companions on additional vessels in your squadron, as they will survive if their ship is sunk.

Pack Mule: Increases your carry weight by 30. Depending on which archetype you picked, you may find your carry weight insufficient, this perk helps with that.

Quick Learning: Another very useful perk. This grants the equivalent of a point in Talent, which means faster XP gain and perk progression. The earlier you pick this up, the better. I would even argue one should pick it up as their first Personal perk. It also shares certain percentages of any XP the player earns with officers, allowing them to level up faster as well. You can also have an officer acquire this perk for them to gain the same effect.

Alchemy: Required to do any alchemy. There are only a handful of recipes you can craft without this perk, as pretty much everything else requires you to understand alchemy. Not that important to pick up early on, as many recipes require specific items you only acquire in the story, but I would generally recommend acquiring this perk sometime after The Dutch Gambit.

Moonlighting and Jack of All Trades: These perks are exclusive to officers, and allow them to serve multiple roles at once. I’ll talk about that more later.

As a final note on Personal perks, you will be able to acquire all of them regardless of when, so I even more so recommend to acquire Quick Learning as early as possible to get the most out of it. Other than that, and Iron Will, there’s no consistent recommendations for what perks you should acquire, it simply depends on your playstyle. If you favor firearms, go for Skirmisher quickly to get even more reload speed and multi-barrel firearms; if you’re a Duelist, go for Professional Fighter quickly to buff your defense and crits more. Everyone will want Growing Life and Growing Energy eventually, but as they are now retroactive you won’t lose out on any benefit from getting them later on.

The F# Menus

There’s a lot going on in the various menus in the game, so I’ll explain what each offers here. You can also Right Click on a lot of stuff in these menus for additional tooltips. In the top left, you’ll see your current and max carry weight, and any money you have on hand. Barring extreme circumstances, you can’t exceed your max carry weight, in those cases that you do, you’ll be unable to run and receive penalties to all skills. Keep an eye on how much weight you’re carrying, you often need to pick up more stuff. Top middle allows you to alternate between any of the menus, alternatively you can use Q and E. Top right is your current Rank and your progress towards the next Rank.

F1: Items

This screen is where you manage the inventory of yourself and your officers. You can also assign officers to roles here, but I’ll go over officers in another section.

On the left are your officers, passengers, and captives. You can cycle through them to assign them to roles or manage their equipment, though if you want to exchange any equipment with them, you’ll need to face them and use the Exchange option in the Enter Menu.

To the right of that is the character information. From the top:

Name and Portrait: It’s you! Or your officer. Or a passenger or captive. Nothing to do here.
Fame and Honor: At the start of the game this will say Unknown Adventurer. The left word is your Fame, and the right word is your Honor. As you perform actions throughout the game these will go up or down. Obviously, good actions increase your Honor, and bad actions decrease them. There are various points throughout the game that require your Honor to be at a specific rating, and some that even check your Fame. Your Fame is much more fickle: the more active you are, the more it will increase. However, if you slow down, people will start to forget you. I’ll go over both of these more in another section.

Authority: This bar is simply a measure of how much weight you throw around. It will start half full, and either increase or decrease based on your actions. Generally, making money and keeping your crew content will raise your Authority, while incompetence and inaction will drop it. I will also go over this more in another section.

I already covered Health, Energy, Vitality, Crit Chance, and Defense in the Combat Section. All that leaves is Title, which is simply your rank in the French Navy. This won’t come up until a specific questline late in the game.

In the middle is your inventory, split into 5 categories:

All: A bit deceptive, as it doesn’t actually include any items in the “Other” category. But everything else is here. Some items, like herbs, will only appear in this category.

Equipment: All your gear. Here you can easily manage any of your weapons or armor, along with any spyglasses or navigation instruments.

Potions: All your healing items. If you need to use one of these there’s hotkeys for them that I went over earlier, but you can also use them here.

Amulets: All your amulets, talismans, and wards. These are generally items that give temporary bonuses before expiring after a set number of days. You can only have one ward equipped at a time, and up to three talismans or amulets. Also note that you cannot equip a Christian amulet and a Pagan amulet at the same time, you can generally tell what type of amulet it is by the color in the corner, though it’s also fairly obvious.

Other: Maps and a few other miscellaneous items will be sorted here. If you have a map that is not in your atlas, you can add it here. Treasure maps can be viewed here, you must read a treasure map in order for the treasure to become active, and you can only have one active at a time. If you have two parts of a treasure map, you can combine them into a treasure map, though only if you don’t already have a treasure map active. Also, you will occasionally get purses of doubloons as random loot or quest rewards, they can be opened here, adding doubloons to your inventory.

On the very right is a visual of your equipped items, you can also manage each individual spot by Left Clicking to view any items that can be equipped in that spot.

F2: Fleet

This screen is where you manage all ships in your squadron. At the start of Story Mode, you don’t actually have a ship yet, but you’ll get one soon.

On the left is your squadron. You can have up to five ships in your squadron and cycle through them here, the portrait above is the captain of the selected ship. Any time you are escorting a ship, they will also be shown here, and count towards your five-ship limit. Double-clicking on a ship will prompt you to enter an exchange between the two ships, where you can exchange cargo, crew, or even change the captain. Note that if you remove a captain and don’t place a new one, the ship will be scuttled, along with all its cargo and crew.

To the right is your crew and cargo. Your crew experience is a measure of how capable they are at sailing, cannons, and fighting. High skill in each will see your ship moving faster, your cannons reloading faster, and your crew fighting better in boardings. Morale is a measure of how happy your crew is, generally as long as you keep them supplied with food and rum you shouldn’t have to worry about it. Below that is your cargo list. This will show the name, quantity, weight, pack, and pack weight of every cargo type. Pack and pack weight don’t really matter, as pack only really determines how many pieces of the cargo type you buy or sell for the given price.

Top middle are options to pay off crew debts or raise morale. Check the Current Debt periodically, to get an estimate of your expenses and make sure you don’t have any unpaid debts. Debts can sometimes sneak up on you, so make sure you always pay them off to keep your crew happy. If morale has dropped critically, you can raise morale by paying off your crew, this is a last resort to prevent a mutiny. Below that is the current flag of your fleet. By default, this is French, and you can cycle through any other flags you have access to. You get the Pirate Flag for free, but you’ll need to spend a perk point to acquire any other Nation Flags.

In the middle are all the stats of your ship, from Hull to Cannons. A colored stat means it has been upgraded.

Hull: The current state of your hull on the left, and the maximum on the right. This is obvious, your ship’s health. If you Right Click on this, you’ll notice a third number in parentheses, this is the true max hull value of your ship. As your ship takes damage, its condition will deteriorate and the max hull value will be reduced below its true max. Early game you’ll be swapping ships often enough that this doesn’t matter, but for big ships and quest ships, you’ll want to keep an eye on this number. If your max hull value declines too much, you can repair it at a special shipyard on Isla del Tesoro, but I’ll go over that more later.

Sails: The current state of your sails on the left, and the maximum on the right. This will be the same for every ship, simply out of 100. As your sails take damage, your speed and maneuverability will suffer as a result.

Speed: The current speed of your ship on the left, and the maximum on the right. Put simply, bigger number means faster ship. A lot factors into your ship’s speed: Deadweight, crew skill, captain/navigator skill, navigation perks, and sail condition. To get the most of your ship’s speed, you need to minimize how much deadweight you use and maximize the skill of yourself and your crew, and of course keep your sails in good condition.

Maneuverability: The current maneuverability of your ship on the left, and the maximum on the right. Put simply, bigger number means faster turning. The same things that affect speed, affect maneuverability.

Off-bow Angle: These numbers can be a bit difficult to understand. This determines at what angle your ship catches the wind. To simplify this, ignore the first number and only worry about the second number. This will dictate the angle, in degrees, from the tip of the wind arrow your ship needs to face to reach its top speed. In the screenshot shown, that value is 113, which means that my ship will need to face 113 degrees away from the direction of the wind to go the fastest. There isn’t strictly a “best” value for this, as it can depend on the situation. If you’re trying to outmaneuver an enemy, a higher Off-bow Angle will allow you to sail more into the wind and control your position in a fight better. If you’re trying to outrun an enemy, a lower Off-bow Angle could actually allow you to outrun a ship that is technically faster than you, since you’ll get a better speed in the direction you’re going than the enemy will. There’s a lot of nuances to this value.

Deadweight: The current weight of your ship on the left, and the maximum on the right. This includes any weight from your cargo, cannons, and crew. The less deadweight you have, the higher your speed and maneuverability values will be. In the extremely rare case where your ship becomes overloaded, its speed will be crippled and you will not be able to exit to the Global Map. Managing the deadweight of your cargo is straightforward, but if you really want to focus on speed for your ship, try replacing your cannons with smaller ones, or even get rid of them altogether, along with limiting your crew size.

Crew: The current number of crew on the left, the minimum in the middle, and maximum on the right. Your ship requires at least the minimum number of crew to function, and you cannot exit to the Global Map without that. However, you can actually overload your crew up to 125% of the maximum, 150% when upgraded. Note that this reduces the morale of your crew over time, along with reducing your Authority. It can be very useful to overload your crew when you know you’ll be fighting a lot, but if you’re just traveling or trading, try not to.

Armament: The maximum caliber of cannons you can equip on the left, and the maximum number of cannons you can equip on the right.

Cannons: The current caliber of cannons equipped on the left, and the current number of cannons equipped on the right. You can sometimes find ships that somehow have cannons equipped that exceed their Armament values, it’s weird, don’t question it. You cannot have two different calibers of cannons equipped at once, it’s all or nothing. You can manage your cannons by double-clicking on this or pressing S.

Below that is your Food and Rum supply, and Ship Upkeep. This screen will always keep track of how many days of supplies you have of both food and rum, so there’s no need to micromanage those values, just make sure you stock up any time you’re in Port. I would recommend having at least two weeks of each. Your ship upkeep is just how much debt you owe per month: This totals up the cost of maintaining your ship along with the officer crew salaries, and any shares of plunder they’re owed. High trade skill will reduce this.

On the right is a picture of your ship, the number is the class of your ship, and on the bottom is the name of your ship. If you right click on the picture, you can read a description of the ship, a little lore! You can also rename your ship on the bottom if you so please, though any sailor knows it’s bad luck to rename a vessel.

F3: Logbook

This screen is where you keep track of most information in the game. Refer to this menu often!
Quests: These are your active quests, in order of acquisition. Unread entries are highlighted. Pay attention to your quest log, if a dialogue hasn’t told you what to do next, this will.
Archive: These are your completed or failed quests, in order of completion or failure. Unread entries are highlighted. Good to refer to if you forgot an important detail from a quest you’ve already finished.

Documents: These are your documents. Many quests and events will provide you with supplemental information that is stored here. These usually aren’t required reading, but many of them at least provide additional lore that may not be mentioned in dialogue or your quest log. Some documents are important to read to progress a quest, however, so just read this stuff.

Cash Book: On the left is investments you’ve made, on the right is loans you’ve taken. This book will fill up as you deal with Banks, which I’ll cover later. From left to right: What city an investment/loan is in, the amount of the deposit/loan, the date the investment/loan was made, how long you have to pay back the loan, the interest rate, and whether the deposit is pesos or doubloons. Keep track of this tab, while you likely won’t be taking any loans, keep an eye on your investments. Interest is always deposited one month after making the investment, but it will reset if you alter the investment at all.

Ships Stored: This is where you keep track of any ships you have on moor at a Port Office. From left to right: The name and type of ship, the officer in charge of the ship, what Port the ship is moored at, what island that Port is on, the date you moored the ship, and the cost per month. If you want to pick a ship back up, you will need to pay for every month you left it moored.

Store Book: This is where you keep track of any warehouses you rent and the cargo you’re keeping there. From left to right: The Nation of the Port, the name of the Port, the island the Port is on, the current deadweight being stored on the left and the maximum allowed on the right, and the rent owed. When you have a warehouse, you can select it, and on the right page it will show you what cargo you have stored.

Trade Book: This is where you keep track of the prices of any Store you’ve visited. For those really interested in trade, this is useful, as prices do fluctuate occasionally. From left to right: The Nation of the Port, the name of the Port, the island the Port is on, the last date the price list was updated. If you select one of the price lists, on the right page it will show all the merchandise that was available when you visited the shop. You can sometimes receive price lists in random dialogues, this will update your Trade Book.

Statistics: This stuff is pretty straightforward, it’s a record of a bunch of your accomplishments. There’s nothing really important here, it’s just nice to look at.

M: Maps

Technically not an F# Menu, as you access this by pressing M. This screen is where any maps you’ve added to your atlas are kept. You’ll find more maps as you play the game, and if you collect everything, you’ll get a speed boost on the Global Map.

The Trick to the Island Map: Are you confused about what purpose these island maps actually serve? They’re actually a lot more useful than you may think. Every map will show a line between the locations on the island, be that a Port, a beach, a cave, or any other important locations. These lines occasionally fork in multiple directions, this actually correlates to forks in the Jungle screens. If you’re trying to reach a specific location on the island, referring to a map of the island for when to take left or right turns can actually guide you in the correct direction!

F4: Character

This screen is for all things character. Same as the Items Menu, you can assign officers to roles on this Menu, and otherwise view the stats, skills, and perks of yourself or your officers. This is all stuff I cover in other sections, so there’s not a whole lot to explain here. If you right click on anything here there will be additional tooltips, though their helpfulness is questionable. The main thing you’ll be doing here is acquiring perks for yourself and your officers, check back here often to make sure you’re not sitting on any unused perk points!

F5: Nations

This screen is where you can keep track of the different Nations’ relations with each other, and your Reputation. In Story Mode, Nation Relations will never change. France will always be at war with Spain, England will always be at war with Holland. You don’t need to worry about checking here often as once you get familiar with which Nations are hostile to which, this becomes fluff.

On the right is your Reputation with each nation. Note that this does not affect any Nation Relations. Even if you have Neutral or better relations with Spain, they will still attack you if you fly the French Flag. This is a metric of how favorably each Nation views the player, Positive Reputation will lead to more favorable outcomes when dealing with various events that concern the nation. Positive Reputation with Spain will also make it easier to sneak into Spanish Ports. If your Reputation drops, however, you can get a bounty placed on your head. A bounty can go up to 100,000 pesos, and whenever you have a bounty active you will be pursued by bounty hunters and interceptors from that Nation. You can remove bounties just through increasing your Reputation, though this may be a slow process. To help take bigger cuts out of bounties, Abbot Benoit in the church of St. Pierre can fix your relations with Holland and Spain, while Fadey in his house in Basse-Terre can fix your relations with France and England. Each will require 600 doubloons, and after a few weeks your bounty will be reduced by 20,000. Later in the game, you will also meet the lawyer Albert Loxley in Port Royal, who can remove bounties from any Nation for pesos rather than doubloons. Make a habit of keeping your Reputation high, so that when you do end up antagonizing a Nation, you won’t immediately get a bounty placed on your head. Bounties tend to spiral out of control if not dealt with swiftly.

In the bottom right is the current flag of your fleet. It functions here the same as it does on the Fleet Menu. Note that any time you take a hostile action against a Nation your current flag is not at war with, you will automatically switch to the Pirate Flag, making everything hostile to you.

Ship Combat

Finally, the ship stuff! This is a pirate game after all, isn’t it? If you’re playing the tutorial, you’ll quickly run into your first ship battle as soon as you try to depart from Martinique, but it’s a pretty brief fight and you may not actually learn a whole lot. You can refer back to the Fleet Menu section for how the various parts of your ship function, but now it’s time to actually use them in a fight!

Ship Controls

Sails – W/S: First thing you need to do when you start a battle is unfurl the sails! The sails have three states: Full, Half, and No Sails. At Full Sails, the ship will move at its best speed, but maneuverability and accuracy are penalized. At Half Sails, the ship will have its best maneuverability, but speed is penalized. At No Sails, the ship won’t be able to move forward, but can still turn a little and will be the most accurate. Manage your sails accordingly to outrun or outmaneuver your enemies!

Rudder – A/D: This turns the ship. Your ship will turn fastest when at Half Sails, but it can still turn at Full or No Sails. Try not to crash into anything, unless that’s your plan.

Mini-map Zoom – E/F: This zooms the mini-map in or out. The mini-map will show your cannon radius along with any friendly ships in green, hostile ships in red, and neutral ships in gray. Zooming out can be useful to get your bearings on the positions of any ships in combat.

Fire Broadside – LMB: Any time your cannons are facing a ship in range, simply click to fire. You can tell the range of your cannons by the white cones around your ship, they will turn red when reloading, or you can turn this visual off with Q. Alternatively, you can switch to a first-person view with Tab, and aim manually. Walk around your ship with RMB and fire in the direction your crosshair is aimed with LMB. This will even allow you to sucker punch friendly ships, should you desire to.

Spyglass – LCTRL: While in first-person view from pressing Tab, you can hold LCTRL to look through your spyglass. You obviously need to have one equipped for this to work. Looking at a ship through a spyglass will give you various information about the target, like their speed and distance. A higher quality spyglass will give you even more information, with the best ones even giving you crew numbers.

Load Ammo – 1, 2, 3, 4: This selects the type of ammo to load in your cannons. 1 is Cannonballs, which do moderate damage to Hull and have a long range. 2 is Grapeshot, which do high damage to crew but have a short range. 3 is Chainshot, which do high damage to Sails and have a long range. 4 is Bombs, which do high damage to Hull but have a short range.

Squadron Load Ammo – 5, 6, 7, 8: This functions the same as 1, 2, 3, and 4, but instead commands the ammo to be loaded in all ships in your squadron.

Squadron Sail Away – O: Commands all ships in your squadron to attempt to flee the battle. Still not terribly reliable as the AI can be stupid, but always an option.

Squadron Lower Sails – L: Commands all ships in your squadron to come to a full stop. They will no longer move, but they can still fire on any targets in range.

Squadron Protect Flagship – P: Commands all ships in your squadron to move towards your ship and engage any hostile targets nearby. Useful if your squadron starts to scatter during a fight and you want to quickly bring them back in line.

Necessary Supplies

Your ships won’t just fight through magic, you need to make sure to keep the proper supplies on board at all times in order to keep your crew fed and ready for combat. You want to avoid oversupplying for your needs, as that slows down your ship and leaves less room for loot, but you have to make sure not to undersupply either, running out of something critical can be a death sentence.

Basic Needs: Food, Rum, and Medicine are mandatory for your ship to function. Without food, sailors will starve and slowly die off, and your morale and Authority will plummet. Sailors don’t need Rum to survive, but they won’t be happy without it, steadily dropping morale and Authority. Running out of Medicine won’t have any particularly negative effects on morale or Authority, but some sailors will die off due to random illness, and you’ll need it more for combat.

Combat Needs: Weapons and Medicine are needed for your crew to fight efficiently when in combat. Having medicine on board will reduce casualties taken from grapeshot and boarding, it’s good to keep enough on hand to cover your crew, and extra just for the basic needs. Weapons are needed for your crew to fight in boardings, and while they can technically fight without it, they’ll suck at it. Keep enough Weapons on board such that you have one per crew member, but it never hurts to carry extra blades to account for losses to rats.

Ammunition: In order to load a cannon, you will need one ammo type and one piece of gunpowder per cannon. This obviously means that bigger ships will want to carry more ammo than smaller ships, as they will go through it a lot faster. Smaller ships generally don’t need to bother with Cannonballs and Bombs as much, as they simply lack the firepower to efficiently destroy enemy vessels and are better suited to targeting sails and crew to board. You’ll get plenty of ammunition from captured vessels so you don’t need to carry too much, but as a general rule it’s good to carry at least 10 ammo per cannon, you’ll likely not to fire more than 10 broadsides in a single fight. Gunpowder is always good to carry extra of, as you need 200 gunpowder to drop a mine, which can be a great source of hull damage when firepower is otherwise lacking. You should carry gunpowder to match how much ammo you have, and setting aside at least 1000 gunpowder just for mines is never a bad idea. Be careful though, as carrying too much gunpowder runs the risk of an explosion on your ship.

Materials: Once you have a good enough Carpenter, you can use planks and sailcloth to make repairs to your ship even while at sea. The most important perk to keep an eye on is Combat Repair, which spends these materials to restore your ship up to 80% Hull and Sails durability. While you may not need to worry about this for every fight, it’s never a bad idea to carry spare materials when needed, especially if you know you’ll be going into a hard fight. The materials you consume will depend on the repairs needed to be done and the skill of your Carpenter, so how much you should carry will vary, you’ll get a feel for it based on your needs.

Cannons: Make sure your ship actually has all of its gunports occupied. Cannons often explode during combat either through getting hit or just simple wear-and-tear, and will need to be replaced. You can usually find any cannons you need at shipyards, though larger calibers will be harder to find.

Ship Damage

The damage your cannons deal depends on a lot of factors. The Ammo selected has the most obvious effect, Grapeshot will shred the crew while Chainshot will shred the sails, and Bombs deal more damage than Cannonballs at the cost of range. The number and caliber of your cannons also has a significant impact. Generally, bigger cannons will deal more damage, but that comes with the drawback of having slower reload time and taking up more deadweight. There are also Couleuvrine-type cannons, which have significantly farther range at the cost of damage. When you can’t outshoot your opponent, you can always try to outrange them. Certain Cannoneer perks can also impact damage dealt, but I’ll go over those in a later section.

Make sure you are actually hitting the correct target depending on ammunition. While Cannonballs and Bombs only need to make contact with the hull, Grapeshot will need to hit the crew on deck and Chainshot will need to hit the sails. If the enemy’s sails are furled, there won’t be anything to hit with Chainshot, though it may still be possible to destroy a mast.

Destroying ships with cannon fire is a great way to train your skills, as it grants a lot of XP for Navigation, Accuracy, and Cannons. However, it can be a difficult process when you have a smaller ship, and you can’t recover as much cargo as flotsam. There has to be a better way.

Boarding

The sails have been shredded, the crew is suppressed, Arrr! It’s time to launch the grappling hooks! This is where the real booty comes from, climbing aboard the enemy’s vessel and killing them all! Once you’ve reduced the enemy’s crew, sail in close and position your ship to match its speed and angle in order to get the prompt to initiate boarding. Certain Boatswain perks can help with this process, but I’ll go over those in a later section as well. The size of the ship you’re boarding will impact how long the boarding fight goes, the biggest ships will have multiple phases.

The Deck: The first stage of any boarding. Both ships are lined up and connected by various planks and ropes, and it’s an all-out brawl on deck. The amount of crew on both sides of the fight along their Health and Skills will depend on the amount of crew on both ships at boarding time, your boarding skill, the enemy captain’ boarding skill, your crew’s Soldiers skill, the enemy crew’s Soldiers skill, and any Musket Salvos present. There are a lot of factors in play, but as a general rule, just try to board when you outnumber your opponent enough and you shouldn’t have too much trouble. Once you clear the deck of enemies, make sure to walk around and loot the bodies, along with checking any doors or hatches as those are containers that have additional valuables. A.B.L. Always Be Looting! Once you’re done looting, press LMB to proceed to the next stage of boarding.

Below Deck: The second stage of almost every boarding. This stage will generally be about equal to the first stage, so long as you keep as much crew alive as possible. If you already outnumbered them significantly, there should barely be any enemies at this point. A.B.L.!

Crew Quarters: The third stage of bigger ship boardings. Some ships will have this as the second phase instead of the previous one. Typically, starting at Class 3, ships will start to have a third stage, the enemy numbers should be thinning out at this point but if you started on equal footing, they may still be putting up a significant fight. A.B.L.!

The Captain’s Cabin: The final stage of boarding. You’ve cornered the captain and it’s time for a duel. It would be pretty embarrassing to die at this point, would he become the new captain of your ship if you do? Is that how this works? Dispatch the captain and reap your rewards. Captains often have good loot on them, but not always. However, cabin chests should almost always have valuables. One chest in particular will have the lion’s share, but make sure to loot all other containers just in case. Search every nook and cranny, it’s sometimes not obvious what actually counts as a container. I can’t make this any more clear: A.B.L.! ALWAYS BE LOOTING!

Pillage Menu

Time to claim your booty! On this screen you can manage the exchange between your ship and your prize. Generally you’ll just hit “Take all goods” and move on, but sometimes you may have more to do. If you want to take the ship as your own, you can hit “Swap ship” to do exactly that, just make sure you move any cargo and crew over with “Crew transfer” if you don’t plan on keeping both. If you want to keep both ships, select “Assign captain.” Note that you have to have enough crew on board to meet the minimum crew requirement for both ships in order to do so. Move enough crew and some provisions over as well. Once you’re done, press Escape and you’ll exit this menu. Note that if you haven’t assigned a captain, you will be prompted to scuttle the ship, along with any remaining cargo. You cannot leave a ship floating without a captain, unfortunately. One last thing, any cargo taken from another vessel will be marked as stolen, which I call “Hot cargo.” Hot cargo needs time to cool off if you want to sell it for full price, so hold onto it for a while or store it at a warehouse for a few weeks before you go selling it.

Surrendered Vessels:

Occasionally, rather than initiating a boarding fight, an enemy vessel will instead opt to surrender. This will generally happen when you outnumber the enemy crew significantly enough, and is even more likely the higher your Authority is. This can happen with any random vessel that isn’t part of a quest or event, though it will happen much more often with trade vessels than military or pirate vessels. Any ships part of a quest, event, or unique interception will never surrender, those always fight to the death. Hardcore.

When a ship does surrender, you will be immediately brought to the Pillage Menu. Surviving crew may request to join you if you have the room, a decent way to top up while at sea. You can loot the cargo as normal, but you’ll have additional options for resolving the encounter.

Release: If you opt to exit the Pillage Menu without any further action, you will be prompted to release the ship. The ship will no longer be hostile, even if other hostile ships remain in combat. Doing this can increase your Fame and Honor significantly, at the cost of Authority.

Remove Captain: If you choose to remove the captain, you will have two options to deal with him: “Throw overboard” or “Take captive.” Throwing the captain overboard will reduce Honor and increase Authority, while taking the captain captive is a neutral action that will bring him on board your ship as a prisoner. Regardless of your choice, you’ll be prompted to deal with the remaining crew.

Remove Crew: You have three options to clear out the remaining crew on board: “Throw everyone overboard,” “Lock them up in the hold as slaves,” or “Set them free on lifeboats.” Similar to the captain, throwing the crew overboard will reduce Honor and increase Authority. Taking slaves will convert every crew member into the “Slaves” cargo, really only worthwhile to do if there’s a significant amount of crew left. I’ll talk more about slavery in the Smuggling section. Setting the crew free simply just releases them without any loss to Honor.

Once you have removed the captain and crew, the Pillage Menu will now function the same as it would for a regularly captured ship.

Tips for Ship Combat

Ship Combat can be tricky, especially early on. There’s a lot you can do to really maximize your effectiveness in battle, make sure you get the hang of It because there is a lot of Ship Combat in the game and it’s generally not nearly as cheesable as Land Combat.

Cannoneer: This can easily be the most critical aspect of improving your odds in ship combat, just get a better Cannoneer. Especially in the early game, a good Cannoneer should be one of the first things you look out for.

Manual Aim: If you find yourself in a situation where your shots just won’t connect, try aiming manually. Press Tab to switch to a first-person view and move around your ship with RMB. When you’re aiming, you’ll see a crosshair that will become highlighted when the fire arc can connect with a ship. Use this to make sure your Grapeshot is actually hitting the crew, or your Chainshot is actually hitting the sails.

Blind Spots: As you can tell from your own ship, your cannons can only fire a specific radius. If you can manage to outmaneuver your opponent, you stay within the corners of their ship and avoid their cannons altogether. At the very least, you can try to stay in front or behind the enemy, so they at least can’t hit you with broadsides.

Try Spinning: This is a good trick. When your reload speed is fast enough, you can often reload one side in the time it takes you to do a full rotation of your ship. Especially with smaller ships, a single broadside lacks the firepower to deal with enemy vessels, so just start spinning. This works even better if you have access to Quick Turnaround and Prepared Reloading.

Mines: Don’t underestimate mines! As long as you have enough gunpowder, and the maneuverability to bait a ship into them, mines can make quick work of any hostiles. This is easily the most reliable way to sink enemy ships when you otherwise lack the firepower.

Ramming Speed!: This is pretty simple, big ships don’t care about smaller ships. Just plow right through them. Be very careful with this strategy though, as sinking ships are sometimes crazy enough to ignite their gunpowder stores to take you with them. Also, there’s an awkward bug where your ship can get caught in a shipwreck and immediately lose all its hull. Make sure you save before trying this.

Range: If you can outrange the enemy, they won’t be able to fire back. Couleuvrine-type cannons have much longer range than regular cannons, and if you manage to shred the enemy’s sails you can easily keep your distance and whittle them down. Cannonballs especially have the longest range of any ammo type, don’t underestimate the ability to sink a ship from relative safety.
Cover: This obviously won’t apply if you’re in the wide-open sea, but if you’re near land you can always just sail behind some rocks to block incoming volley. Just make sure you get back out when you fire back. You can also use other ships as cover, and friendly fire is a thing in Ship Combat, so you can even get enemy ships to hit each other! Just remember that the ship you’re hiding behind can still shoot you.

Ammo: If you’ve got the patience for it, you can wait for the enemy to deplete their ammo stores. Best if you have cover to hide behind, you can just let the enemy blow through all their bullets or gunpowder and close in once they do. A ship without gunpowder is a sitting duck.

Rocks: Those rocks aren’t just good cover! If you’ve got a small enough ship to slip through, you can run the enemy aground as they try to chase you. If the AI is stupid enough, they’ll sink themselves without you having to fire a single bullet.

Forts: If you can, try to either lure or push a ship you need to fight close to a Fort hostile to it. Ship AI can be dumb sometimes so it won’t even try to flee the Fort, and you can just sit back and watch a ship be blown to pieces by overwhelming firepower.

Bonus Ship Info

Now that you know everything you should need to know about how to use your ship, check out this guide by Kaiser1417 about all the different kinds of ships and cannons in the game. It should be a helpful resource for finding out about all your options and which kind of ship is most suitable for how you want to play.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3217907290

Things to do in Town

Once you’ve earned your sea legs and have a ship of your own and the whole Caribbean at your fingertips, it’s time to really start getting familiar with what you can do in Towns. There’s a lot of people you can talk to, things you can buy, and quests you can receive. Completing the tutorial should also give you a general run-through of what to expect around Town.

Items and Vendors

So, now you know how to loot, and once again, remember that you should Always Be Looting. Enemies drop a lot of stuff that seems like junk, but I can guarantee you, you will find a use for everything. You have bottomless chests in your ship cabin, dump everything you don’t immediately need in there, and just hoard as much as possible. You’ll thank me later. If for some reason you’re very desperate for money, you can sell some extra gems and jewelry, but you should really hold on to them. The only items I can say for certain that you don’t need in any capacity are weapons. They can be resold to vendors for a quick profit in the early game, but other than that you can just generally ignore them, all you need them for is as equipment for yourself and your Vanguards. The only exception to this is the Harpoon. While you’ll never want to use it as an actual weapon, it's used as part of a recipe for a special ammo for a gun you’ll get later in the game, so hold on to any harpoons you find! And hold on to everything else too! Now that you know you should be hoarding everything, let’s talk about the Vendors!

The important thing to know about vendors is that their equipment will always randomly draw from a pool of potential items they can carry on any given day. If you are particularly desperate for a specific item, you can savescum their daily inventory by saving in front of one, waiting 24 hours, and then speaking to them. If they don’t have the item you need, reload and repeat. Make a habit of visiting vendors regularly, the pool of items they can have will increase with your rank as well. Also, some Ports have multiple vendors of the same type, while other Ports are missing certain vendors. If you can’t find a specific vendor in one Port, try checking another. Vendors will also on rare occasion sell alchemy recipes for various things, this can be specific ammo recipes for late-game guns, specific potion recipes like the elixir or antidote, or otherwise various talisman recipes. I’ll go over all of these later, but generally just buy recipes when you spot them.

The Weapons Vendor

The tough looking fella behind the stall is your liaison for any and all things combat. You should be visiting this guy every time you’re in Port, as he sells weapons, ammo, armor, and other various equipment. Stock up on ammo any chance you get, you and your vanguards will be going through a lot! Can also sell some random amulets. Two somewhat important uncommon items this guy sells are the hourglass and the chronometer. You will need one of each to craft the Working Chronometer, which is a special amulet that you need to complete a few specific quests in the game. I think there’s really only one quest where it’s strictly required to have and the quest will also provide you with the two items to craft one, but it pays to have some extras for later.

The Potions Vendor

The homely lady behind the stall is your procurer of potions and their ingredients. You should also be visiting this girl every time you’re in Port, as she sells health potions that you will need in high supply for the early game, and then also sells herbs and empty vials which you will need to do alchemy to craft your own, stronger healing items later. She also occasionally sells antidotes, but no longer sells elixirs or mixtures, which can now only be acquired through alchemy. I’ll go over alchemy in more detail later, but just make a habit of buying out her inventory any time you’re in Port. She’ll also sell rum, which can be used as a healing item or sold to Lighthouse Keepers for a tidy profit in the early game.

The Monk Vendor

Charles won’t have much need for this man of God. He generally sells random jewelry, but he can also sell Christian amulets. I’ll go into amulets in detail later, it pays to check him from time to time but he can be generally ignored.

The Romani Vendor

Charles won’t have much need for this woman of not-God either. She’ll generally sell random items used in alchemy, along with the occasional Pagan amulet. As with the Monk Vendor, it can pay to check occasionally for any helpful amulets, but you’ll generally ignore her.

The Junk Vendor

This stall can actually have either a man or a woman behind it, depending on the Port. Easy to confuse with the Potions Vendor when it’s a woman. Generally, they sell random junk items used in alchemy, you’ll almost never need to visit one unless you for some reason are missing an item you need for a recipe you want to craft. Can also sell some random amulets.

Additional Vendors

There are a few other vendors you can visit that aren’t on the streets, though also aren’t as critical to visit either. Some vendors you used to need to visit often for amulets, as in TEHO you needed to be buying up one of every amulet in the game for the sake of a specific quest with a harsh time limit later in the game, but due to changes in CL it’s no longer actually required.

The Wandering Indian: Out in the jungle, you will occasionally find a lone native walking around the screen. If you speak with him, he will generally have three outcomes when you ask to trade. This might be a hidden skill check, I’m not sure. Sometimes he will just decline, claiming to be a warrior and not a trader. Otherwise, he will either agree to trade with you and show an inventory, or offer you a specific item in a specific quantity. If the former, he tends to sell similar items as the Romani Vendor. If the latter, you will need to type in the amount you want to buy, if you type more than he offered, he’ll walk away, so be sure to type the correct amount. You’ll typically be able to buy around 30 pieces of gold, silver, or pearls for a very cheap price, which you can turn around and sell to a Banker for a tidy profit.

The Warrior Indians: Unlike the Wandering Indian, you will occasionally come across a group of Indians in warpaint in the jungle. If you pass a skill check and have spare firearms on you, you can trade with them as well. Otherwise, they will just attack.

The Lighthouse Keeper: Some islands have lighthouses, but not all. If you enter the small shack on the side, you’ll meet the Lighthouse Keeper. He can serve multiple functions, primarily you can just buy some random beach-related items from him or sell him rum for a high price. Sometimes he’ll offer you some cargo that washed up on the beach for a cheap price, which you can turn around and sell at the Store for a tidy profit. Any Lighthouse Keeper will occasionally sell random amulets, but three in particular allow you to order specific amulets for a doubloon fee. These are at the Guadeloupe, Santiago, and Cartagena lighthouses. Each of these Keepers offer different amulets to order, if you are looking for something specific you can acquire it from one of them.

The Graveyard Keeper: A few islands also have Cemeteries, which serve little purpose outside of a few specific quests. Next to the Cemetery, however, is a small house where the Keeper lives. The first time you meet a Keeper, he should offer you a brief quest and provide a lantern, it can be completed immediately and the lantern, when equipped, provides a source of light on the player. Not critical, but nice for some poorly lit sections of the game. Otherwise, Keepers have inventories that are sort of a hybrid of the Weapons and Potions Vendors. You can buy up some extra ammo and herbs from them, and the occasional amulet. For the most part, you’ll never even speak to one of these guys.

Important Buildings

With the various Vendors out of the way, let’s get on to the important locations in every Port you need to familiarize yourself with. I’m going over everything important you can do in each place, along with any quests they can offer. It always pays to check for quests even while you’re doing something else, in case you’ll get something you can do in the same direction. However, unless you have the Trustworthy perk, you will generally need positive Honor to receive quests from most of these locations, as they otherwise don’t trust you. You can walk around Port manually to enter any of these buildings, but you can also fast-travel to them. Note that you can’t fast travel in hostile Towns, so make sure to familiarize yourself with these buildings anyway. Also note that the buildings in each Port may look a little different, you’ll get the hang of recognizing them, though.

Store

Usually the first stop when arriving in Port, the store is where you handle all of your cargo needs. Make sure to sell off your loot and restock on any provisions any time you disembark. For those looking for the most profit, you shouldn’t just sell to any store, certain Ports have different goods in demand than others, but I’ll cover Trade later.

If you’re looking for a job, the Shopkeeper will typically have two kinds to offer you: The first is a simple freight mission: take a batch of goods from one Port to the other. Any time you’re going in a specific direction and have the deadweight to spare, you should try picking up one of these jobs, it’s a great source of extra money and XP in the early game. Note though that this will often spawn a Gentleman of Fortune to chase you, so wait around near the Fort a bit before you depart in case one does. The second job he’ll offer you is more sinister, asking you to sabotage a competitor. He’ll give you a tip on a trade vessel, and you will need to go to the location on the final day and enter the Local Map. If you pull it off, you’ll get some nice plunder from the vessel and payment from the Shopkeeper. If you fail, Charles will decide to eliminate the competitor altogether, and you travel to the Port the merchant is at, and kill him. The Shopkeeper won’t be as happy about this outcome, but will still pay you.

Shipyard

The place to go for all ship-related matters. You’ll typically be coming here to repair your ship before you have the means to do so yourself. You can also buy and sell ships here, though I wouldn’t recommend buying ships as it’s much better to capture them. Selling prize ships can be a nice profit source, just make sure to empty the hold first. You can also replace your cannons here, as they tend to blow up after a lot of fights. If customization is your thing, you can change the paint job of your hull or sails, along with various other options for sails.

Not the best place to come for a job, as the shipwright will rarely have anything to offer you. He’ll sometimes offer a simple job of tracking down a stolen tool for him, which just involves running around Town and talking to people until you track it down. Otherwise, he might request a specific type of ship. This can usually pay well, but can be annoying actively hunting for it.

Last thing to note, there are five special shipyards in the Caribbean where you can open a warehouse to store goods, and also spend strategic resources and doubloons to get powerful upgrades or full restorations for your ship, but I’ll talk about those later.

Tavern

The beating heart of every Port, the tavern is the place to go for crew and rumors. The Barkeep will let you hire crew and stay the night, and if you’ll often need to ask him for intel and rumors to progress quests. If you don’t have anything going on, you can also toss a few coins his way and he might give you a tip on a vulnerable merchant vessel. Sitting at tables are a variety of different people to talk to:

Officers: Unique looking fellas with weapons, you can speak with them to get a breakdown of their skills and hire them if you wish, I’ll talk more about Officers later.

Merchants: Well-dressed men, they can either ask you for an escort to a specific location, or challenge you to a race. If an escort, you simply take them to where they want to go. Upon arrival, you may occasionally be ambushed by pirates. So long as you get them to where they want to be without letting them take too much damage, you will be rewarded. They will either pay you upfront, or offer you a tip on a competitor, which you can hunt down for a great profit in plunder. If they instead challenge you to a race, you place a bet and are tasked with getting to the target location in a certain number of days. Upon winning you just have to wait for the merchant to arrive and speak to him in the tavern, then return to where you started to collect your winnings from the Barkeep. Island hopping can trivialize races, and I’ll explain that later.

Smugglers: The seedy-looking fella is your contact with the smugglers. If you ever have loot to sell that you can’t take the Store, the smugglers are who you go to. I’ll talk about Smugglers more later.

Treasure hunters: Sometimes, there will be a second seedy-looking guy sitting at a table with a marker over his head. These guys sell treasure maps, usually for around 100-300 doubloons. Note that you can only have one map active at a time, if you already do, he won’t sell you anything. You don’t need to have the doubloons on you, you can pull them automatically from your cabin. Upon reading the map, you may determine it to be fake, woops! Throw it away, and punch a hole in your punch card. Five punches and you get a free achievement! If it’s real, it will give you a location, X marks the spot! It will always be a specific chest in a specific cave on a specific island. Finding these can sometimes be difficult, as some areas have multiple caves, and those caves have multiple chests. The game will at least always notify you when you find the right cave, and then further notify you when you find the right chest, it’s always just a matter of trial and error. Treasure hunting can be very profitable, especially for Accountants! Be warned though, you’re rarely the only one hunting for that treasure…

Gamblers: The regular looking guys are usually gamblers. You can play dice or cards with them, for low stakes. It’s not much of a source of profit, unless extremely early in the game, but can help train your Opportunism.

Drunks: Some regular guys will not be interested in gambling, and will instead invite you to drink with them. Some quests require you to speak with drunks to progress, otherwise they can sometimes give you random tips about world events or easy prey. If you drink too much, you’ll pass out and get robbed.

Soldiers: On rare occasions, you can find a very soldier drinking his sorrows away. He’ll inform you of a man he insulted and has gotten himself into a duel. It’s a Matter of Honor to help him, so you can track down the offended party and duel in his place.

Governor's Mansion

Also known as the Residence. A great source of quests that pay well and even give a small bump to Reputation, you can also ransom captives to the Governor for extra cash, and if you pass a skill check, you can even gamble for high stakes! Gambling with Governors is a great way to make some money if luck is on your side, and trains your Opportunism skill a lot. Ransoming captives can also make you money, but there’s a bit of a catch to it. First of all, ransoming pirate captains is a waste, Governors will barely pay for them and you’ll take a hit to your Honor and Officer Loyalty. It’s much better to release pirate captains, you can even get leads on treasures or merchants from them when you do. When you capture captains from one of the four nations, however, there’s a lot of money to be made. Ransoming a captive back to a Governor of his own nation pays the best, but in the case of the Spanish, it requires you to sneak in successfully, as you cannot speak to the Governor without passing a stealth check. It’s much simpler, if less profitable, to ransom Spanish captives to the French or English, if you can’t manage to sneak into a Spanish Port. Missions from Governors will always have fairly strict time limits, and you can only have one active at a time, no matter who it’s from, so make sure you return to the Governor for payment to be able to start another. Now let’s go over the different missions Governors can offer:

Hunt Gang: The easiest mission you can get from a Governor, he wants to hunt down a local gang that hangs out in the jungle. Just exit the Town and walk around the jungle until you find a screen with bandits on. The dialogue will indicate if it’s the gang you’re looking for. You need to kill them to complete the job.

Destroy Pirate Vessel: A rather simple mission. The Governor wants to kill a pirate. He will give you a location and a time frame to do so. Simply enter the Local Map of the target region within the time allotted, and you will be notified of the pirate vessel being in the distance. Sometimes it can spawn very far away, sail around for a bit and you’ll eventually spot it. The pirate will often have valuable cargo or even rare items in his cabin, so it pays to board. You need to sink or capture the ship to complete the job.

Destroy Enemy Vessel: There are two variants of this quest: Capture a courier vessel to retrieve documents from the cabin, and destroy a munitions ship. Note that the nation of the target ship for this job depends on the nation of the Governor. A Dutch Governor that gives this mission will have you attacking an English ship, so be careful taking this mission if you don’t want to antagonize a nation you aren’t already at war with. For this job, same as the previous, you will be given a location and a time frame. Enter the Local Map of the target region within the time allotted, and you will be notified of the enemy vessel being in the distance. Sometimes it can spawn very far away, sail around for a bit and you’ll eventually spot it. There might be an escort along with the target. For the courier variant, you need to board the ship and retrieve the package from the captain’s cabin to complete the job. For the munitions variant, you need to sink or capture the ship to complete the job.

Destroy Smugglers: The Governor will inform you of a smuggling deal taking place nearby within five days. He tasks you with breaking up the deal and sinking the smugglers. Simply wait four days, then wait until midnight, then get on your ship. In the Sail-To menu, you’ll notice two identical ships, those are the smugglers. They will be flying a friendly flag, but once you approach, they will become hostile. One of the ships will have a load of slaves on board, which you have been allowed to keep. Time to do some smuggling yourself! You need to sink or capture both ships to complete the job.

Infiltrate Spanish Town: A somewhat difficult mission, depending on your skillset. The Governor will task you with sneaking into a Spanish Town and speaking with a specific person there, one of the building owners, to receive a package. Strangely, no matter which Nation of Governor gives you this job, the target Town will always be Spanish, even if the Governor is also Spanish. In order to complete the job, you cannot be detected while in the Town, or it will mark it as failed. Having a Spanish flag and high sneak skill is helpful, or even a trading license, but it’s also possible to complete without deception, just more difficult. If you’re good at avoiding guards, you can sneak in through the jungle and navigate around the Town to speak to the person you need, and then get out. You need to get in and out undetected to complete the job.

Capture Criminal: The Governor wants you to intercept a ship and capture a specific person on board. Note that the nation of the target ship for this job depends on the nation of the Governor. A Dutch Governor that gives this mission will have you attacking an English ship, so be careful taking this mission if you don’t want to antagonize a nation you aren’t already at war with. He will give you two time frames, the first is when the ship will depart it’s starting location, and the second the estimated time it will arrive at its location, you need to intercept it within that time limit. It’s best to head for the departure location and arrive before the ship departs, you will need to wait on the Global Map for a ship with purple sails to appear, and intercept it. Make sure not to sink it. Upon successfully boarding the ship, the target will be taken captive. You need to deliver the captive to the Governor to complete the job.

Capture Deserter: This can be a very long mission if you’re unlucky, I don’t really think it’s worth the effort. The Governor will task you with seeking out a deserter that is hiding in one of the pirate Towns in the Caribbean, and gives you a month. You will just have to check anyone who can give you intel in each of the five pirate Towns until someone gives you a lead. That can be the Barkeep, a drunk, or the Shopkeeper. Once someone actually knows the guy, they’ll direct you where to find him. Once you confront him, he’ll bribe you to let him go, paying with gold and silver nuggets. You can sell these to a Banker for likely more than the Governor would pay you for bringing the guy back. However, choosing this counts as failing the quest. If you decide to take him, he will attempt to fight for his freedom. Defeat him and take him captive. You need to deliver the captive to the Governor to complete the job.

So yeah, a lot of different quests Governors can offer. These all pay well and some even have side opportunities for additional profit. There may even be a few more quests Governors can offer, but after testing for a while this is all I got. I feel like there’s at least one I’m missing… If you know of any I missed, please let me know!

Bank

Also known as the Usurer. For all your financial matters. You can either take loans or invest money here. You can take a loan, the size of which depends on your Leadership and Trading skills. There might be more to it, but you’ll likely never need to take a loan anyway. It’s not much money and the interest rate is pretty exorbitant; you’d have to be exceedingly desperate to take a loan. You only have a few months to pay it off, failing to do so will put a target on your back.

Otherwise, you can invest money here, and each Bank has different limits to how much you can invest. Your interest rate will also depend on the same factors as taking a loan, and the best return you can get is 6%. Interest is always deposited one month after making the investment, but it will reset if you alter the investment at all. Once you have millions of pesos invested and can get the highest return, this becomes one of the most profitable things in the game, imagine getting a million pesos a month for free. You can also invest doubloons, but I generally don’t bother as the interest rate on doubloons will never compare to pesos, you’d really only get a few hundred extra doubloons a month, it’s best to just keep doubloons safe in your cabin. The downside to investments is that you actually have to return to the Bank to collect that interest, though there’s no penalty for not collecting the interest, it will wait for you and keep adding up. Be careful though, as if a Town ever gets plundered by an enemy fleet, you will lose any investments you have there. These attacks are rare, but you should try to keep an eye out for them by talking to people around Town periodically and protecting your investments as needed.

Last thing you can do is trade with the Banker. He’s the best place to sell valuables, like gems and jewelry, so you can make some quick cash by selling off excess you don’t need. Remember that it’s good to hold on to most of the stuff you find, though. Also, if you need a rare gem for a recipe, you can randomly find them here. Otherwise, the Banker sells a random number of doubloons every day, so if you come up short for something, you can buy more.

The Banker doesn’t offer any random quests, seems like a missed opportunity for some debt collection or repo, if you ask me. The only quest you’ll ever get from the Banker is the Slave Trader questline, which a random Banker somewhere in the Caribbean will offer the first time you speak to him, and I will go over in the walkthrough.

Church

The place of worship. If for some reason you decided to enable Hardcore Mode, this is the only place you can save so you’ll actually visit a lot. Otherwise, there’s not a whole lot to do here. On St. Pierre, this is where Abbot Benoit resides, who can help fix any negative Reputation with the Dutch or Spanish for doubloons. Some quests you can pick up from random people walking around Town will ask you to meet them here at a certain hour to collect your reward. The pastor here only has a few options. You can donate up to 5000 pesos, which gives you a small boost to Honor and your Reputation with the nation of the Town you’re in. You can confess, which I think can be a boost or a hit to your Honor based on how you answer his question, but it seems negligible if I’m being honest. Last thing you can get from the priest is healing, in a very specific context. If your Vitality has dropped significantly enough, it will no longer recover on its own, and you will need to visit the priest and do an expensive ceremony to recover your health, requiring you to rest for a while after. The priest will ask for 10,000 pesos, but it actually costs 100,000 pesos. There are also some quests you can get at the Church, though they’re somewhat rare:

Church Robbery: The priest will only offer this with a special dialogue the first time you speak to him on a day. He will be giving a righteous sermon about something or other, and you can learn from him that a brigand has stolen from the Church’s coffers. Head to the tavern and have a drink with one of the patrons to learn of the theft in more detail. Seems to be a local group hanging out in the jungle. Head out of Town and look around until you find the robbers, they’ll actually try to mug you as well. Loot the stolen money off the leader, and return to the priest. If you return the money, you’ll receive a small cut as payment, however you can also try to deceive the priest and keep it all for yourself.

Return Manuscripts: When you press the priest a little when asking for work, he will tell you of a delicate matter of wanting back some manuscripts he leant to another parish, so head to the target location and speak with the priest there. Sometimes he will just give you the manuscripts and you can immediately return, however other times he will inform you that he already tasked someone else with returning them. Great… Now you’ve got to track down a random ship to get the manuscripts from the layabout to return them yourself. I’ll be honest, this job really isn’t worth it if this happens. Check with the Harbor Master, you’ll ask him about the ship you’re now looking for. He’ll tell you where the ship was headed next. Head to the next Port and probably repeat this process a few times, you have to move really fast if you want to catch up. Eventually, the Harbor Master will finally tell you that your target is waiting in Port. Hop back on your ship, send a boat to your target, and speak with the captain. Wasn’t that fun? Once you finally retrieve the manuscripts, return them for payment, in the form of chests of doubloons. Very nice, as long as you didn’t have to run around the Caribbean to find some random ship!

Brothel

This may not be the beating heart of every Town, but something sure is throbbing. Not every Town has one of these, by the way. When you step inside, you’ll be met with a variety of women of the night. Feel free to lay on the charm, but you’ll need to head into the next room to speak to the Brothel Madame anyway. Here you can either rent a girl for yourself, or a group of girls for your crew. It pays to do both regularly. Sex is good for your Vitality, and your crew will respect you more if you buy them women, which increases their morale and your Authority. If you frequent a Brothel enough, the Madame might ask you to deal with someone who has been bothering her establishment. There are a few variants of how you confront him, but however you deal with him, the Madame will reward you very intimately. They’re very rare, but there are two quests you can acquire at the Brothel, only for regulars:

A Reason to Hurry: This may actually be a unique quest and not repeatable, but I haven’t tested it enough yet. It can be very finicky, sometimes it may just bug out and be incompletable. After renting a girl from the Madame, go upstairs and sleep with her as usual. Speak with her after, and you’ll have a little post-coital talk, there will be a second dialogue option so pick that and she’ll tell you about a guard she slept with earlier who ran off to some meeting at a cove, how odd… You’ll need to investigate this, but you have to do it alone, so remove any Vanguards. Check the different beaches on the island, you can do this either by going through the jungle or mooring from the sea, but it will lead to a slightly different encounter. I’ve found it simpler to just moor at the beach from the sea. You should encounter a patrol, if the sergeant introduces himself as a regular patrol, either you failed some invisible check or the quest bugged, I’m not really sure which. In my testing, reloading did not change the dialogue, so I don’t really know. In either case, you can’t progress the quest any further. Ideally though, he should have a special dialogue for the quest. Play along, they will attack if you select the wrong dialogue, and then the sergeant will ask for 30 diamonds, emeralds, or amethysts. If you happen to have that many stored in your cabin, make sure to bring them with as payment. Otherwise, you’ll have to pay in cash; a couple hundred thousand pesos. The cash values may vary, it’s not clear what it bases the price and rewards off of. Regardless, an order of magnitude greater than the value of 30 gems, that’s for sure! You almost definitely won’t actually make a profit if you pay in cash, unfortunately, so it’s really best to avoid this quest unless you have the gems available. There are few different outcomes to this quest, which are determined when you rent the room:

A Reason to Hurry (Cargo): The sergeant will tell you about a vessel full of a random trade good that they have detained the crew and kept the vessel sitting unguarded nearby, the specific cargo can be savescummed. Easy prey, just watch out for the Fort or any other random ships. Attack it and take it for yourself, note that this is piracy, though. It will be absolutely loaded, and you can make a lot of money selling the loot where demand is high, as long as you let it cool off first. You will also be attacked by a purple sail ship as soon as you exit to the Global Map, lure it into the Fort for help, you can just sink it.

A Reason to Hurry (Robbery): The sergeant will tell you about an opportunity to rob the Governor before a courier ship arrives. He will give a passphrase and a response, write these down, I’m serious. Head to the Governor’s Mansion and go into a side room to find someone standing around. Speak with him, play along, and he’ll prompt you with the passphrase, type the response, don’t mess this up! He’ll hand you about 5 treasures and 5 chests of doubloons, though this can vary. Reassign your Vanguards now, as on your way out you will be accosted by pirates wanting their booty. Kill them and reap the rewards. You will also be attacked by a purple sail ship as soon as you exit to the Global Map, lure it into the Fort for help, you can just sink it.

A Reason to Hurry (Treasure Map): The sergeant will hand you a treasure map. Note that you can get this map even if you already have another treasure map active. If you have positive Honor, you can report this to the Governor, and he will give you a weapon as well as let you keep the map. Though, I never noticed any new weapons in my inventory... Either way, go hunting for it and it should yield the same as the Robbery variant. Reassign your Vanguards, as you will be attacked by pirates on your way out of the cave.

A Reason to Hurry (Positive Honor): Regardless of what the sergeant tells you, if you instead go to the Governor to report them, he will reward you with a treasure map. Reassign your Vanguards now, as on your way out you will be accosted by pirates wanting their booty. Beyond this, it turns out the same as the normal Treasure Map variant.

A Reason to Hurry (Negative Honor): Make sure your ship isn’t moored at Port for this. Regardless of what the sergeant tells you, if you instead go to the Governor to report them, he will get pissed off at you for blowing some sting operation he was setting up and sic his guards on you. Uh oh! Don’t bother fighting, you can’t even take your sword out in here. Just bail! Get back to your ship! Once you board, you’ll be pulled to your deck where one of your sailors will inform you that they managed to loot a couple hundred grand from the Bank while everyone was chasing you. Not bad! The Fort is shooting at you though, good thing you’re not moored at Port, right? If you are, you better get outta there! This also puts up a pirate flag automatically, so make sure to switch your flag back.

A Reason to Hurry (Kill Patrol): Make sure your ship isn’t moored at Port for this. If you mess up the dialogue at any point, the guards will attack you. After defeating them, you can report it to the Governor anyway. If you have positive Honor, the Governor won’t fully believe you but will look the other way, and you’ll walk out having gained nothing but lost nothing. However, if you have negative Honor, you’ll be branded a murderer and attacked. Don’t bother fighting, you can’t even take your sword out in here. Just bail! Get back to your ship! Once you board, you’ll be pulled to your deck where one of your sailors will inform you that they managed to loot a couple hundred grand from the Bank while everyone was chasing you. Not bad, especially since you didn’t have to pay anything for this! The Fort is shooting at you though, good thing you’re not moored at Port, right? If you are, you better get outta there! This also puts up a pirate flag automatically, so make sure to switch your flag back.

A lot is going on with that quest, and I’m still not sure if it’s unique or not. If I can determine that it is, I’ll move it to its own section and test it further.

Found Documents: Sometimes, while upstairs with a girl, there will be a parchment sitting on the ground, pick it up. There seems to be a lot of moving parts in this quest, and it’s a bit difficult to test due to how rare it is. If you take it to the Madame, she may or may not recognize the name. If she does, take it instead to the Banker, and pay him for more information. If he identifies the owner as a smuggler, then you can turn it over to the prison commandant for a few thousand pesos in profit. If the Madame doesn’t recognize the name, just take it to the Harbor Master and turn it over for a smaller profit. It seems to have a few variants and you can talk to just about everyone important about these papers though, so there might be an even more valuable outcome somewhere, I haven’t found one yet though.

Harbor Master

Also known as the Port Office, a very important stop while in Town! Aside from quests, the only other reason to visit the Harbor Master is to moor ships you don’t currently need. You’ll have to pay a small fee up front and then an additional fee when you pick it back up, and you need to leave the assigned officer to watch the ship. There are many points in the game where you’ll want to moor a ship for safe keeping, especially the quest ships you’ll earn throughout the game. Note that any time you moor a ship, the crew will be disbanded, though any cargo on board will remain. Be careful though, just like with the Bank, if a Town ever gets plundered by an enemy fleet, you will lose any ships you have moored there, officer included. These attacks are rare, but you should try to keep an eye out for them by talking to people around Town periodically and protecting your moored ships as needed. For many quests involving tracking a ship, you can also ask the Harbor Master for any information on ships that have registered in Port.

For the most part, you’ll usually be coming here to pick up jobs. All jobs you can acquire at the Harbor Master increase your Reputation by notable amounts, they’re a great place to work. Many of these jobs will often include ambushes or interceptors, so be careful. Note that your ship must be moored in Port to accept a job, the Harbor Master will not give you a job if you snuck in through the jungle.

Freight: Similar to what the Store offers, you can offer to charter your vessel to carry freight from one location to another. This job is much bigger, however, and until you get a ship or even multiple ships with capacious enough cargo space, you won’t be allowed to take this job.

Escort: If you have a strong ship, you will be tasked with escorting some trade vessels to another Port, similar to the job you can get from a merchant at the tavern. You will often be ambushed so be ready for combat.

Mail Delivery: If you have a fast ship, you will be tasked with delivering mail to another Port. You only have a few days so move quickly, as your pay is docked for every day late.

Once you have done a job a few times, the Harbor Master will trust you to handle more advanced versions of these missions.

Supply Request: You are simply asked to supply the Town with a massive amount of a specific good, usually food or medicine. It can be difficult to acquire the amount in the specified time, but the job pays about twice as much as you could sell the cargo for.

Defend Convoy: You will be tasked to fly to the rescue of a trade convoy that has been beset by pirates out of range of the Fort. You really need to jump to action as the pirates will sink the vessels if you aren’t quick. You will be paid per ship rescued, try to save them all!

Top-Secret Delivery: Mostly the same as regular Mail Delivery, you are tasked with delivering a highly sensitive document to another Town. You will often be approached by a shady man who will pay you to let him copy and reseal the document, it is possible to fail the quest if you accept his offer, though it seems to rely on a hidden skill check, likely stealth.

There are also some inconsistent quests you can ask for; this draws from a random assortment when you select the bottom option.

Stolen Ship: Simply the best mission the harbor master offers. You are tasked with tracking down a ship that has been stolen, and returning it. You can ask other Harbor Masters if the ship you’re looking for has passed through recently and they will tell you where it was heading, and people around Town will also often give rumors of sightings of the ship. These are unfortunately unreliable as the information you can find will often be very old. Your target will be a ship with orange sails on the Global Map, your best bet is genuinely to just carry on with other tasks and get lucky while sailing around, there is no time limit! Returning the ship yields a significant boost to Reputation, and rewards chests of doubloons based on the size of the ship. Merely a few of these jobs can get you from Neutral to Admiration with any Nation. Also of note, you don’t actually have to moor in Port to return the ship and receive your payment, so if it’s for a Spanish Town, you can sneak in through the jungle if you’re struggling to get into Port. The only downside to this job is that the same Harbor Master will not offer you any other jobs while this one is active. I would recommend picking a few islands for each nation to serve solely as Stolen Ship missions, and take regular jobs from the Harbor Masters of other Ports that you frequently visit. I cannot stress enough how valuable this job is.

Burnt Ship: Similar to a job the Shipwright can offer you, you are tasked with bringing back a specific type of ship, the only catch being that it must meet certain criteria. You have six months, it’s still not terribly hard but it can be a bit tedious. I find this mission all around inferior to the Stolen Ship.

Return Logbook: A trivial task, you simply need to catch up to a ship and speak with the captain to return his logbook. A green sail ship will depart from one of the Ports or beaches on the island as soon as you exit to the Global Map. Quickly catch up to it to complete the job. If you happen to miss it as it departs… yikes. Good luck catching up to it, have fun with that.

Prison

A rare trip indeed, there is very little you will ever have to do here outside of quests. A few quests will require you to speak with the Commandant here, or speak to a prisoner but as for a random visit, there’s barely anything available here. If you have 20 doubloons on hand, you can bribe the commandant to let you inside the prison, though he won’t always let you in.

Prison Business: Once you’re in, you can talk to the prisoners inside, and one of them might give you an offer to get them out of there, to the tune of pirate treasure. You may be able to convince the commandant to release the man, but most likely you’ll have to break him out. This is, obviously, an explicitly evil action. You’ll need to clear a path to the entrance, which isn’t very difficult as the prison is full of chokepoints, however every guard you kill will reduce your Reputation with the Nation you’re in, so you’ll likely have a bounty before you even get out the door. Once you are out, make for your ship immediately, and try to do so before your new friend gets killed. If you’re moored at the Port, you’ll be taking fire from the Fort, so you may want to moor at a beach ahead of time. When you finally get out of there, make for the location you were given, though you’ll likely be pursued by interceptors. Once you arrive at the cave his stash is hidden at, he will hand you the goods. Expect a few chests of doubloons, a few treasures, and a big haul of various gems and jewelry. Fairly profitable, if you don’t mind antagonizing a Nation for it! It’s likely the chests of doubloons alone will pay off any bounty you earn, so all around a net gain.

People of Interest around Town

With the Vendors and main buildings covered, you can still take a stroll around Town to speak to a few people. Obviously, anyone with a marker over their head is worth talking to. There’s a variety of benefits and even a few jobs you can pick up from these people.

Sailors: You’ll often find a sailor with a marker wandering around, if you speak to him, he will give you an offer to hire a group of sailors for your ship. Very helpful if you’re low on crew and the tavern doesn’t have any left.

Romani Women: Identical to the one at the stall, these girls serve two purposes: You can get your fortune told, or you can buy arsenic. Getting your fortune told seems useless, but if you pay enough money, you’ll actually gain XP for a few skills. Toss five thousand her way every now and then for a nice boost. Alternatively, you can sometimes ask if he sells rat poison. This seems to be either a Leadership or Stealth check, could even be Serendipity/Opportunism, or maybe it’s just entirely random. Honestly, she’ll rarely actually sell the stuff, but make sure you carry a few handfuls of doubloons on you in case she actually says yes, because arsenic can be helpful if you’re not an Accountant, and it’s also used in a few recipes. You can find them as random loot or quest loot as well, but always pays to have extra.

Gentlemen: This regular looking guy will ask you to ferry him to another island. It doesn’t pay much, but if it’s on the way for something you were already doing, it doesn’t hurt to pick him up. Your Fame will rise if you do these often enough.

Noblemen: This wealthy fellow has a proposition for you. There are a few variants to this one: He can either ask you to track down someone who has offended him, track down an old friend, or he may ask for a batch of slaves. The first two are simply a matter of finding a green sail ship on the Global Map and speaking with the captain, then returning to the man at the church at a specified hour. The latter you need to capture some slaves and deliver them to the man, he will pay a nice price per head. All of these pay in doubloons. Rarely, he’ll ask you to buy out a debt for him, depending on how much you pay you’ll receive double your investment in a few months, but you have to return to retrieve it.

Monks: Identical to the one at the stall, these men serve a few purposes: If he has a marker, he may ask you to ferry him to another island for a small payment. If not, he will ask for a donation for the local Church. You can donate more here than you can to the priest in the Church, so this is a nice source of Honor and Reputation for the Nation you’re in. If he doesn’t have a marker, you can either ask for a job, ask to christen your ship, or ask to baptize and free any slaves you have on board. The job will typically be delivering manuscripts to a Church in another Port, while christening your ship will increase the morale of your crew and the number of sailors available for recruitment at taverns. Freeing slaves is an honorable way to dispose of any slaves you can’t bring yourself to sell, it will give a huge boost to Honor.

The Ship Priest: Identical the wandering Monk, this is a unique encounter in Port where you will be offered to hire a priest to serve on board your ship full time. This provides a significant boost to morale, and even mitigates many of the penalties of overloading your ship. Note that if you raise the Pirate Flag for any reason, the Ship Priest will immediately leave, he’d rather swim home than serve on your ship another moment. You will only get two opportunities to hire one of these, from the start of the game and then again after Flying the Jolly Roger, as you are required to raise the Pirate Flag during that questline. While the Ship Priest isn’t that critical to have on board, it pays to keep him around.

Kidnapper: This rough-looking fella has an interesting tip for you about a hostage you could take to ransom for a nice prize, though you’ll have to pay doubloons for the tip. It’s a simple matter of intercepting a passenger ship in time, you may not even need to fight it, and then taking your hostage to be ransomed. If you take too long, your buyer will mysteriously die, and you’ll have to take the hostage to Barbazon, the Baron of Le Francois, instead. He will either offer you a pitiful payment, or give you a tip on some cargo. Taking the latter will lead you to a beach where you’ll fight off a group of defenders and claim some valuable cargo for resale. You can alternatively report the man to the Prison Commandant after paying for the tip, but you don’t really receive any reward, aside from maybe a boost to Honor and Reputation.

Hot Raid: This guy actually looks like the captain of his own ship! Finally, someone who may actually be your equal! He will have an interesting proposition for you, but you need to discuss it away from discerning ears. Get on your ship and send a long boat over to discuss… The Hot Raid! There are two variants to this quest: One where you team up to plunder a trade convoy, and one where you team up to take on a pirate with a cargo full of gold! The former is fairly straightforward, just note that this is piracy unless the target is Spanish. The latter is the far more profitable variant, you can savescum before going to the captain’s ship to try and get this variant. Once you’ve agreed, it’s a simple matter of pulling off the job. Your share depends on how many ships you bring, so it’s possible to buy a few small ships before speaking to the captain to increase your cut of the booty. They just need to survive the battle, so make sure to order them to fly once the shooting starts. You can also just let your partner sink on purpose, and keep all the loot for yourself, but why would you do that? 😉

Damsel in the Jungle: This is technically outside of Town, but I’ll put it here. Occasionally, when wandering the jungle, you’ll encounter a young maiden fleeing from a group of thugs. There are many variants of this mission and they’re all very straightforward so I don’t need to go into much detail. For the most part, you save her from the thugs and take her back to Town. Sometimes she’ll reward you with sex, sometimes money, sometimes she’ll have an additional task. Helping or ignoring her will greatly impact Honor. There is a rare variant of this encounter that can lead you to a big haul of treasures, so keep rescuing those damsels!

Captive Smuggler: Also technically outside of Town. Occasionally, when wandering the jungle, you’ll encounter a group of pirates wandering around. Speak to them and they’ll task you with bailing out their leader in exchange for amulets or pesos. You can simply turn them in by speaking to the Governor for a quick payment, but if you choose to retrieve their leader, the amulets can be helpful. You may be able to convince the Prison Commandant to release the man for free, otherwise it will cost you a few thousand pesos. Take the captive to the meeting point, and get your pay. Sometimes, they’ll just try to kill you though. Jeez, rude.

State Convicts: Once more in the Jungle. You’ll occasionally be approached by a group of escaped… workers. They’ll ask you to buy a small boat for them. You can alternatively recruit them into your crew, which basically functions the same as conscripting slaves. Buy a class 6 ship from the shipyard, and you’ll receive double what you paid for it. Sometimes, they’ll also just try to kill you though. Seriously, you guys too?

Trading and Smuggling

If plunder or treasure hunting isn’t your thing, there’s a lot of money to be made in legitimate businesses as well. As you travel around and deal with the various Stores, you’ll slowly collect price lists for every Port in the Caribbean. While prices will fluctuate from time to time, and these price lists will need to be updated, you can get a good idea of how much a single trade good costs around the world. Some Ports will be mainly production colonies, while others will be mainly importing colonies. Knowing what to buy, where, and where to sell it, will quickly make you a very rich man.

Demands

The basics of trade come down to buying low and selling high. While prices will fluctuate, there are four important indicators to keep track of, color coded for convenience:

Green – Local Production: Goods highlighted in green are a locally produced resource. This good will always be in high supply in the Port, and sell for a low price. The savvy salesman should take stock of where he can pick up different goods for the best price to plan out trade routes.

Blue – Imported: Goods highlighted in blue are imported from outside. This good will generally be in low supply in the Port, and sell for a good price. For shorter trade routes, this is a good indicator to sell, just make sure you pay attention to any fluctuations in prices and don’t oversell.

Peach – High Demand: Goods highlighted in peach are an aggressively sought-after commodity. This good will always be in low supply in the Port, and sell for a very high price. You’ll notice that this color is exclusive to the major Ports in the Caribbean, like Willemstad and Port Royal. Setting up longer trade routes to buy up as many cheap goods as possible to offload in these Ports should be the end goal of any trader, this is where the real money lies.

Red – Contraband: Goods highlighted in red are controlled by the local government and cannot be sold. While they can still be purchased in small supplies if available, this is generally off-limits for sale. Some Ports have different rules on what goods are contraband, but there is a consistent list, which I’ll go over in a bit. In general, contraband can be very valuable, but difficult to acquire and sell.

How to Make Profits

Unfortunately, profits aren’t as easy as just buying and selling. Your Trading Skill has a significant impact on prices, along with three perks connected to it. The first thing to do if you want to start trading is to find yourself a competent Purser. Early on, it will be difficult to make much money in trade at all, so it can be beneficial to do freight jobs for the Store and look for special deals from lighthouses. These will add up some early profits and train your Trading Skill as you go. Find a few quick trade routes that have low risk of piracy and high returns, the French islands north of Curacao produce many goods that sell for a high price in Willemstad.

Once you’ve got some profits going, seek to expand your enterprise. Trade ships have far more deadweight for cargo than military ships, those like the Snow or the Fleut can carry far more profits than the Brigantine. Seek to expand the range of your trade routes as well, there are many isolated colonies that produce very valuable goods for cheap, making the journey and bringing the goods to a High Demand Port can make massive profits. Keep things moving and you’ll be drowning in pesos in no time.

The Trade License

There are many Spanish Ports that offer valuable cargo for low prices, but it can be difficult to enter them without the proper stealth skill. That’s where the Dutch Trading License comes in. In Willemstad on Curacao, there is a large yellow building called the HWIC Headquarters – the Holland West Indies Company. In the left corner sitting at a desk is Mynheer Gerritz, who will sell you some random maps and navigation instruments and also offers the Trade License. You can set the limits of how long the license lasts, a minimum of 20 days and a maximum of 180 days, and must pay in doubloons based on the duration. As long as you fly the Spanish or Dutch Flag, you will now be able to freely enter any Spanish Port without issue. Note that any hostilities against trade ships will immediately revoke your license, seems they’ve got some sort of instantaneous communication technology at the HWIC. In Story Mode, you’ll get a lot of licenses for free during various questlines, but you’ll also be fighting a lot of trade ships and getting them revoked just as much.

Contraband

There are seven goods in the game marked as contraband, though these can vary as some unique Ports will deal in some goods that are otherwise restricted. Generally, you won’t trade these in normal circumstances, as they can’t be regularly purchased, but acquired from other sources instead. You’ll typically be selling these to Smugglers.

Gunpowder and Weapons: Restricted depending on the Nation; English and Dutch Ports will not buy Gunpowder, while French and Spanish Ports will not buy Weapons. You generally don’t need to worry about this much as you can always just go to a different Nation if you have excess to sell.

Strategic Goods: There are four kinds of goods of strategic value that are heavily controlled by the governments of the world: Ropes, Resin, Shipsilk, and Ironwood. While you can technically sell one type of these in a specific Port for each Nation, I wouldn’t. It’s best to hold on to these for Ship Upgrades, which I’ll cover later, but you can also sell to smugglers for a solid price if you really want to. I will note, you’ll unlock a special buyer for Ironwood during the story that will make insane profits compared to the Smugglers, so at least hold on to Ironwood even if you are just selling everything. You won’t find any of these resources in stores, they’re rare and highly valuable; only possible to acquire in freeplay from Floating Barrels, Trade Expeditions, and plundering Towns. I’ll go over these more when I talk about Ship Upgrades.

Slaves: While slavery is still in full swing in this setting, it’s heavily restricted, and you won’t find any legitimate businessman willing to buy or sell slaves. The only way to acquire slaves is by simply taking regular men captive at sea, or as part of the Destroy Smugglers job for Governors, so definitely not part of a regular Trader’s portfolio. Slavery can be disgustingly profitable, especially if you expand your enterprise as much as possible, though it’s not easy to transport them. Any time you have slaves on board you run the risk of a revolt, and if you really want to make huge profits, you’ll need to carry a lot of them.

Smuggling

If you want to really start making some money, you’ll need to find a way to get around those pesky taxes and restrictions. You can find a shady-looking pirate fella in the tavern to speak to about setting up a deal with the local smugglers on a nearby beach, who will not only sell cheaper goods but also buy Contraband off you as well. Note that you cannot set up a deal with Smugglers if your ship is too big, they generally won’t deal with anything bigger than Class 3, though this requirement varies based on your difficulty level. Pay attention to their prices though, they don’t always have the best deal. Sometimes smugglers will betray and try to rob you, a risk you take dealing with criminals. Smuggling can be a valuable source of additional profits, but the local government is always on the lookout to catch smugglers in their net. This will depend on a stealth check, but if you are caught smuggling, a patrol will ambush you as you finish the deal. It’s possible to deceive them or convince them to look the other way, or even offer a hefty bribe, but you’ll probably end up needing to fight your way out. It’s best to put away your weapon and run back to your ship, as any guards killed will quickly rack up a bounty. Once you’re back on your ship, you’ll likely have patrol ships pursuing you as well, so be sure to cut and run quickly. If for some reason you have upset the local smugglers, you can visit Fadey to repair your relations with them for 600 doubloons.

Fame, Honor, Authority, and Reputation

These have all come up in various capacities through the guide so far but I’m going to more fully explain these concepts here. To reiterate, Honor is the term I use for the measure of morality of your character. The game also refers to this as Reputation in many places, but I prefer Honor to make it distinct from the other Reputation, which measures your relationship with the four nations.

Fame

Fame is the degree to which people recognize you around the Caribbean. At the start of the game, and for most of the early game, this will be Unknown. As you consistently make a name for yourself, however, your Fame will start to rise as follows: Unknown – Ordinary – Well-Known – Famous – Legendary. Fame doesn’t impact that much, it’s largely flavor. The only thing I know for sure that Fame impacts is how much crew will be available for hire at taverns. There are more minor things that Fame can impact, but there are enough other factors that Fame isn’t as pronounced as other metrics.

There are a few surefire methods to increase your Fame. First, just simply be consistent. If you’re going out and constantly attacking ships, doing jobs, just generally making a name for yourself, then your Fame will rise. Missions for the Governor and the Harbor Master have the most impact on fame, along with general escort or ferry missions. Releasing ships with their captain and crew intact rather than capturing them will also give a nice boost, but note that this also reduces your Authority. Throwing crew overboard when you capture a ship can boost both Fame and Authority, but is a very evil action and will harshly penalize Honor.

Fame isn’t forever, it will always drop over time no matter what, so it’s an active process to keep it high. There is a unique armor you can earn during the story that will lock your Fame to Legendary, however it’s a bit late in the game.

Honor

Honor is the rating of your morality, either positive or negative. Honor determines whether or not certain individuals will deal with you, and also has a flavor effect of altering certain dialogue. Honor also affects officers, but I’ll talk about them later. Honor is pretty straightforward, good deeds will raise Honor, while bad deeds will drop Honor. The only important thing your current Honor specifically affects is whether certain quest givers, like the Governor or Harbor Master, will give you jobs, however this can be circumvented with the Trustworthy perk.

Honor goes as follows, from Positive to Negative: Saint – Hero – Hidalgo – Honest Captain – Adventurer – Rascal – Pirate – Miscreant – Monster.

Similar to Fame, Honor will gravitate towards the middle over time no matter what. If you don’t do enough deeds good or bad, it will slowly reset back to Adventurer.

There are two tricks to quickly dump Honor, in case you need low Honor for some reason:

Walk the Plank: Any time a ship surrenders, you have a few options for what to do with them. If you elect to throw captain and crew overboard, you’ll take a massive hit to Honor. As an added benefit, this also increases Authority. Trade ships tend to surrender frequently, so if you need to dump honor you can sail around attacking merchants and throw them all overboard when they surrender until your Honor drops enough. Arr!

Sacrifice: Sinking an allied ship also gives a massive hit to Honor. If you go to the shipyard and buy a random ship, you can manually fire upon it or ram it until it sinks. As long as you have some officers you don’t need, or even better an officer with the Emergency Rescue perk, you can easily repeat this process to quickly lower Honor.

Authority

Authority is the measure of how much people respect you. At the start of the game, this bar will be half full, and will increase or decrease based on your actions. As a rule, you want to keep your Authority as high as possible, as it impacts many things regarding your ships, officers, and crew.

When your Authority is high, your officers and crew will be more content with your leadership, and anything that negatively affects morale or loyalty will be less damaging. This allows you more room to make mistakes or go longer periods of time without satisfying their needs, in case that becomes necessary. When your Authority is low, however, you will constantly be running the risk of mutiny. Your crew may revolt, sometimes even led by officers, and any companion ships in your fleet may desert you altogether. It can be a tricky act to keep your Authority up, but it’s very important to do so.

The most consistent way to keep your Authority high is to keep your crew satisfied. Running out of Rum will hurt not only morale, but Authority as well, and running out of food is even worse. Missing crew payments will seriously antagonize your crew, and having debts for too long will drastically reduce Authority. Overloading your crew will normally have a negative effect on both morale and Authority as well, however this can be counteracted by hiring a Ship Priest, or using the Janissary talisman. Attacking ships without profitable plunder will generally upset your crew, and decrease Authority as a result. Your crew doesn’t want to be risking their lives for nothing, even if you’re throwing survivors overboard. Lastly and most critically, you can visit the Brothel to buy women to service your crew. This can add up in expenses early on, but provides significant boosts to morale and Authority, and your Authority should remain high as long as you visit the Brothel regularly.

In a pinch, there is a cheesier method to raise Authority, that I would only recommend doing if you neglected it long enough that it’s far in the negative. Raising morale will normally raise Authority, but it doesn’t actually scale to how much crew you have, therefore raising the morale of a single crewmember gives the same effect as raising the morale of an entire crew. Start by disbanding your crew at the tavern, and then hire back a single crewmember. Use the Raise Morale option in the Fleet Menu until morale is maxed out, then disband the crewmember again and repeat this process. This costs almost nothing, and doing so should immediately recover your Authority, but is really only necessary to do in absolutely dire situations.

Reputation

Over on the Nations Menu, this is how each Nation views you as an individual. I already mostly explained this in a different section, but here I’ll mainly talk about what decreases it and how to increase it.

Positive Reputation goes as follows, from best to worst: Admiration – Excellent – Good – Neutral – Hostile – Bounty up to 100,000.

Your Reputation with a nation impacts your chances at passing as friendly when near a Nation’s ship or Fort. For England, France, and Holland, you simply need Neutral or better Reputation and you can always freely pass ships and Forts. However, if your Reputation drops to Hostile or below, you will have to succeed a stealth check any time you enter within range of one, as they will otherwise recognize you as a pirate. It’s important to note that being Hostile with a Nation is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s more of a warning that any further hostilities could become a problem, try to fix Reputation before it becomes a bounty. For Spain, you will always have to pass a stealth check to fool a ship or Fort, and this check is modified by how positive or negative your Reputation is.

Any hostilities you take against a Nation will decrease your reputation. Once it gets low enough, the Nation will place a bounty on your head. Whenever you have an active bounty, you will be constantly pursued by bounty hunters and interceptors. At sea, these interceptors cannot be evaded, and must be fought. Note that fighting interceptors counts as further hostilities, so having a bounty can quickly spiral out of control. On land, you may be approached by a group of men claiming to be after the bounty on your head. You can try to resolve matters peacefully, but otherwise you will have to fight them. If your bounty is low enough, it’s possible to sneak into a Port and speak with a Governor to pay off the bounty, however this seems to have a few checks and caveats to it, and isn’t a reliable method. If you raise your Reputation while you have a bounty, the bounty will be reduced until removed, and your Reputation will then return to Hostile. Alternatively, you will have to go to Fadey or Abbot Benoit, or later Albert Loxley in order to deal with bounties. Fadey and Benoit will charge 600 doubloons to reduce a bounty by the equivalent of 20,000 pesos, and will take about two weeks to do so. Benoit only deals with Spain and Holland, while Fadey only deals with France and England, however he can also repair your relations with Smugglers, in the rare case that comes up.

Raising your Reputation can be a bit more of a process. Any significant deeds you do for a nation will increase their opinion of you, and if you do enough, your rating will increase. Having positive Reputation serves as a bulwark against bounties when you do inevitably antagonize a Nation. During the story, you will regularly upset the Spanish and Dutch, and even the English a few times. If you want to avoid bounties, it pays to keep high Reputation whenever possible.

Things that raise Reputation: Any successfully completed quest will raise your Reputation for the Nation you did it in, though this can be hard to notice. Harbor Master jobs will have the most pronounced effect, none more so than the Stolen Ship mission. A few of those bad boys and you’ll quickly reach Admiration with any Nation. You can also donate to the priest in the Church or a Wandering Monk for a small boost to the Nation you’re currently in.

Things that lower Reputation: This should be obvious, but attacking a Nation is akin to a declaration of war. Attacking guards on land, ships at sea, or especially sacking Forts will rapidly accrue a bounty. Even if you’re technically acting in self-defense, killing military personnel of a Nation will hurt your Reputation, so be careful if you already have a bounty, because every interceptor killed will just make it worse. Failing missions from Governors and Harbor Masters can also negatively affect Reputation, along with certain outcomes of various quest events. Try not to antagonize them too much.

Officers

The backbone of your whole operation, let’s finally go over these guys! The A in PIRATES stands for Authority, and that number dictates how many officers you can have on your ship at one time, equal to A*2. These officers can fill a variety of roles on your ship, take on ships of their own in your squadron, and even serve as bodyguards.

Officer Basics

How to recruit Officers: In normal play, you’ll regularly find officers for hire in the tavern. They’re hard to miss, they’ll look unique and have weapons. Talking to one will tell you what role they can serve, and from there you can view their full abilities or hire them. Some officers will ask for doubloons instead of pesos, but you should be able to pull doubloons from your cabin chest automatically to hire them. Alternatively, you can recruit captive pirate captains as officers, simply go into your hold and speak to them, one of the dialogue options will let you hire them. This can be a good source of officers with a spread of skills and perks, that can serve as competent Companions for other ships in your squadron. There are also a handful of unique officers you can recruit during the story that serve as fantastic additions to your roster, some of them are even immortal and cannot die in combat.

Honor and Loyalty: Similar to the player, officers have an Honor rating of their own. Officer Honor goes as follows, from Positive to Negative: Hero – Man of Honor – Honest Captain – Jolly Good Fellow – Ordinary Sailor – Swindler – Scoundrel – Villain – Bloody Killer. The Honor rating of an officer determines how their loyalty will be affected by the player’s actions. Actions that increase Honor will increase the Loyalty of Positive Honor officers and decrease the Loyalty of Negative Honor officers, and vice versa. High Authority will reduce Loyalty loss. Loyalty is simply a meter of how content an officer is in your service, if Loyalty drops too quickly, the officer will want to leave. This can happen any time you enter a tavern. Any hired Officer will ask to leave your service eventually regardless, but you can attempt to keep them depending on their Loyalty. If an Officer has high Loyalty, you can reject their request to leave and offer them an extra payment to stay, for a time. If an Officer has low Loyalty, you may have to force them to stay, which can even lead to a fight if they refuse. The Iron Will perk will help in this matter. Generally, I advise to let officers go most of the time, you’ll just have to keep paying them off and you can probably find a better replacement anyway. Give them a little gift as they leave, and they’ll hand over any equipment they have.

Officer Roles

Naval Skills are the main thing to pay attention to when assigning roles, unless you are seeking a Vanguard, in which case you’ll want to check their Weapon Skills. Depending on the role assigned, an officer will share their related skill with you, making you more competent as a result. The difference between your skill and an officer’s skill is represented by the green number in parentheses, that’s how much your skill is being increased by your officer. Simply click on one of the roles in either the Items or Character Menu to assign an available officer.

Navigator: Shares Navigation with the player, a very critical role to fill as you likely won’t have sufficient navigation to pilot a big enough ship early on without a navigator. Note that in CL the highest Navigation an officer can start with is 75. Any higher must be trained.

Boatswain: Shares Boarding with the player, not a very important role to fill as the player will quickly train Boarding anyway.

Cannoneer: Shares Accuracy and Cannons with the player, another very critical role to fill as with low Skill you will struggle in ship combat.

Surgeon: Shares Defense with the player, can be a useful role but it’s not all that necessary to fill.

Purser: Shares Trading with the player, very useful to fill as better Trading skill means more profit and fewer expenses, which can help a lot especially early game and the very late game. You can also speak with your purser in the Wardroom to have him manage your purchasing and selling while in Port, though this feature isn’t that important to use.

Carpenter: Shares Repair with the player, a useful role but not in the early game, as it relies on multiple perks to really shine.

Vanguard: Does not share any skills with the player, however there are three slots for this role and it serves as additional fighters that can be equipped and accompany the player in most situations, and also help with boarding ships. Make sure these have high Weapon Skills and Health, and equip them accordingly. Personal perks are important for these officers, rather than Naval perks.

Companion: Does not share any skills with the player, however serves as captain of an additional ship in your squadron, of which you can have up to four. It is important that an officer selected as a companion has a wide spread of skills, as they will have to manage all aspects of the ship alone. Most important is to make sure the Navigation skill is high enough for the ship you have assigned them to, as they will receive penalties just as the player would.

Passenger: An unassigned officer or otherwise regular passenger on the ship. Does not do anything. The Ship Priest will function as a passenger and provides various bonuses to morale, but will automatically leave if you ever use the Pirate Flag.

Captive: Any prisoners you have taken will appear in the Hold. You can speak to them there to either release, execute, or recruit them. Nation captives cannot be recruited, however are valuable to ransom to Governors. If you have Vile Little God, you will need 30 captive captains for one task, so hold onto them.

Officer Perks

Highlighted perks are ones the player has acquired, while unhighlighted perks are unacquired. Any perk highlighted in green is being shared by an officer. In case it isn’t obvious, an officer needs to acquire a perk in order to share it. Each perk falls into a specific role, which I’ve separated into different color categories, and only officers assigned to that role will share those perks with you. Some perks can only be acquired by the player. The crossed-out perks are archetype-exclusive, which I went over earlier.

Moonlighting and Jack of All Trades: Not shown here, these are the two perks on the bottom right of the Personal Perks section, and are exclusive to officers. Moonlighting allows a single officer to fill two roles, three with Jack of All Trades. Using these two perks, you could fill every ship role with only three officers. Very useful perks to give to competent officers.

The Flags: Circled in white on the top, these perks are exclusive to the player. These allow you to disguise yourself as different nations, and can only be acquired by the player. At the start of the game, you are provided with the French and Pirate Flag for free, the rest must be acquired. In order for your ship to enter a Spanish Port, it must have either the Spanish or Dutch Flag, as French, English, and Pirate are hostile to Spain. These perks will also allow you to attack a ship of a specific nation without using the Pirate Flag, which you can do to prevent your Ship Priest from leaving. You should pick up the Spanish and English Flag at some point, but the Dutch Flag is generally unnecessary.

Cannoneer Perks: Circled in orange, these perks are shared by your Cannoneer. These will generally increase the damage of your cannons along with the accuracy and reload speed. Critical Shot will add the ability to crit with any broadside, which can deal significant damage. Prepared Reloading can be activated in combat to significantly boost the reload speed of the ship for a short period by pressing B.

Boatswain Perks: Circled in yellow in the middle and bottom, these perks are shared by your Boatswain. Musket Salvo will kill some of the enemy crew as you board, improved by any Vanguards assigned, and also provides two musket crewmembers on deck. Higher level enemies will often have this perk as well, so watch out. Effective Boarding increases the range at which you can board, while Professional Boarding increases it further and allows you to board regardless of the speed or angle of your ship. Brander allows you to command a companion ship in your squadron to ram an enemy and detonate the gunpowder in the hold, the strength of the explosion depending on how much gunpowder there is. A very dangerous perk, but your companion will die unless they have the Emergency rescue perk. Siege Tactics is unnecessary for regular Ship Combat, but absolutely critical when assaulting Forts, as it allows you to combine the crew of all ships in your squadron for the land attack. Only the player needs access to this perk, it applies to the whole squadron regardless of companions. Do not bother attacking Forts without it.

Purser Perks: Circled in green, these perks are shared by your Purser. These simply decrease the purchase price of items and cargo and increase the selling price. This applies to inventory items bought or sold at vendors along with cargo bought or at sold at stores or smugglers.

Surgeon Perks: Circled in purple, these perks are shared by your Surgeon. These simply reduce crew deaths in combat by up to 20%.

Carpenter Perks: Circled in blue, these perks are shared by your Carpenter. These are twofold, increasing the effectiveness of ship repairs, and increasing the defenses of your ship. The defense-focused perks simply reduce damage taken from any source, even reducing the chance of receiving a critical hit. The repair perks are required to repair your ship without the services of the shipyard, but these all require you to have planks and sailcloth on board. Autonomous Repair will slowly repair your ship over time. Emergency Repair allows you to save your ship from sinking when reduced below 10% Hull by pressing X, which will otherwise be a death sentence, and also increases the speed of Autonomous Repair. Combat Repair allows you to immediately repair your ship while at sea up to 80% Hull and Sails at great plank and sailcloth cost by pressing Z, this can still be activated outside of combat and should generally always be used if resources allow it. Professional Repair reduces the plank and sailcloth cost of all repairs, and further speeds up Autonomous Repair. Broken masts cannot be restored by any of these, however. Full Repair allows you to fully repair your ship, including masts, while docked at a Port or beach without the use of a shipyard.

Navigator Perks: Circled in pink, these perks are shared by your Navigator. You should eventually acquire all of these perks yourself, in order to acquire the Scourge of the Seas perk. These will generally increase the speed and maneuverability of the ship, along with its ability to survive in storms. Quick turnaround can be activated in combat to significantly boost the maneuverability of the ship for a short period by pressing V. Skilled Seafarer allows you to bypass many ships on the Global Map, but note that they do not despawn this way and will continue to chase you.

Scourge of the Seas: Circled in white on the bottom, this perk prevents random ships on the Global Map from attacking you, but is exclusive to the player and requires all Navigator perks as a prerequisite. Interceptors and Gentlemen of Fortune are not affected by this perk. Ideally, the player should eventually be their own navigator in order to acquire this perk.

Officer Equipment and Orders

Officer equipment functions the same as the player, and they can even equip certain amulets, talismans, and wards. Exchange equipment with an officer using the option in the Enter Menu, or have them pull it directly from a chest, and then manage their gear in the Items Menu. Officers can sometimes be finicky about their equipment. Sometimes, they will arm themselves based on what they feel is best in their inventory, despite what you may want them to actually equip. Sometimes, items in their inventory will be locked, but this generally shouldn’t happen if Loyalty is high enough. If it does, it seems to be some annoying bug, there’s not much you can really do about it. If an officer ever attempts to leave your service, make sure to give them a parting gift, that way they will return any items in their inventory.

Make sure to provide your officers with potions and ammunition, they use it the same as you. You can manage their ammunition in their inventory simply by equipping it, but you can also speak with them to order them which type of ammo to use, make sure they actually have the right ammo type equipped, as otherwise the idiots will not load their guns. Tichingitu, a unique officer acquired at the start of the game, is currently the only officer in the game who can equip a musket, and if he has one you can speak with him to set the distance he will try to keep from a target. 5-10 yards is generally a good distance to have him keep, just keep an eye on him in combat to make sure he’s actually firing his weapon and not just running around in circles. Officers can equip wards and amulets just like the player, although some will only apply in specific roles. Giving all your officers an Adder Stone can help give a little boost to their parameters, though you may want to give specific wards to specific roles, like the Thor’s Hammer to the Cannoneer or the Jonah to the Navigator.

You can also order your officers to take specific stances. Press H to order them to Hold, press G to order them to Follow, and press J to order them to charge. You’ll generally want them to just follow you, in which they will automatically enter combat when you do. However, it’s sometimes advantageous to order them to hold if you are trying to set up a certain position or chokepoint. If you ever notice them standing around instead of fighting, give them the order to charge.

Unique Officers

There are a few officers you’ll meet during story segments that will join your crew under certain criteria. In case it isn’t obvious, these are exclusive to Story Mode. Some of these won’t actually be permanent despite having unique names and portraits, still wanting to leave like a hired officer after enough time passes. Seven in particular, that I know of so far at least, will be permanent no matter what, and are even immortal to boot, getting back up after combat should they fall in battle. However, not all seven can be recruited in the same game, only four. These are all the unique officers I’m aware of so far, in general order of acquisition. I’ll expand this list if I find any new ones.

Folke Deluc: The first officer you’ll meet in the game, this guy is the only reason you were even able to get off Martinique. He’s not great, but fairly competent for the start of the game. He used to be a punching bag, but honestly? He’s kind of grown on me. After you clear the tutorial, he’ll get himself locked up again, and if you spend the 100 doubloons to bail him out, he’ll rejoin your crew as a permanent, immortal officer.

Tichingitu: A deceptively clever Indian you can bail out of jail when you first meet Fadey. It will cost up to 100 doubloons to bail him out, and he can be missed if you don’t do it quickly, but he then joins your crew as a permanent, immortal officer. A very competent Vanguard and the only officer in the game who can use a musket.

Clod Duran: Probably supposed to be Claude, but who knows maybe his parents were just weird. A very competent and comically evil Vanguard that you can recruit during Just Like Home. If you aren’t high enough level to convince him, you’ll have to kill him instead. One of the better Vanguards in the game, but unfortunately not permanent or immortal. If you aren’t evil yourself, he’ll leave your service rather quickly. Will come to your aid during the Final Lesson if both he and Prosper Trubal are alive, and will most likely die in the fight, so try to keep him alive if you want to keep him.

Ship Priest: Technically not an officer or really even unique, merely a passenger. At one point a Wandering Monk in Port will offer to join your ship, so long as you never fly the Pirate Flag. Keeping him on board helps with your crew’s morale and reduces penalties from overloading. You will get another opportunity to recruit one after Flying the Jolly Roger, as the first one will leave during that questline.

Longway: Exclusive the Dutch route of the Dutch Gambit, a great Navigator and solid Vanguard as well. He first joins as a temporary officer, leaving shortly after, but can join again later on in the route. However, he will only join your side if you are polite to him when you first meet, and he must survive the final fight against John and Hercule. If he does, he joins your crew as a permanent, immortal officer. You may already have or even be a better Navigator yourself, but Longway still makes for a great Vanguard.

Charlie Knippel: Exclusive to the English route of the Dutch Gambit, an incredible Cannoneer but an absolutely abysmal Vanguard. He first joins as a temporary officer, leaving shortly after, but can join again later on in the route. You can only miss him if you reject his offer to join. Otherwise, he joins your crew as a permanent, immortal officer. Unfortunately, he’s such a terrible Vanguard that you really shouldn’t use him as one despite that immortality.

Hercule Tonzag: Exclusive to the Secret Organization route of the Dutch Gambit, one of the best Vanguards in the game and a good Boatswain as well. He first joins as a temporary officer, leaving shortly after, but can join again later on in the route. You can only miss him if you reject his offer to join. Otherwise, he joins your crew as a permanent, immortal officer. He is hands down one of the best Vanguards in the game, I think only beat out by Mary. He’s also a great Boatswain, but he would need to acquire the Moonlighting perk to do both, which he doesn’t start with.

Hugo Avendell: A pathetic coward you can recruit during Long Way to the Gallows. A halfway decent Purser if you don’t already have better, but I personally wouldn’t trust him with my finances. Despite being a unique officer, he is not permanent.

Helen Sharp: Only recruitable if you fulfill a prophecy and start a romance with her during the Pirate Saga, which locks you out of Mary. She’ll join your crew early on during the Pirate Saga, but will only stay afterwards if you fulfill a bunch of criteria, and spurn Mary. She’s got solid performance in all areas, and due to a lot of new content added in CL, has quite a lot going on. Permanent and immortal.

Mary Caspar: Only recruitable if you save her life on Justice Island multiple times and start a romance with her during the Pirate Saga, which locks you of Helen. She won’t join your crew until you pick her up from Justice Island on your second visit, and only if you aren’t romancing Helen. If you acquire the Narwhal sword for her on your first visit to Justice Island, she will probably be the best Vanguard in the game, her only real competition being Hercule. If you have both? Hoo boy, I wouldn’t want to fight you. The stunning Red Mary is an easy fan favorite around here, but unfortunately has not (yet, I hope?) received any new content in CL. Permanent and immortal.

Raymond Backer: Rescued during the Pirate Saga, a very nice Surgeon, though one you might not even need by the time you recruit him. Permanent, but not immortal. Don’t use him as a Vanguard either way.

Ole Christiansen: Technically not an officer, merely a passenger. Can be recruited on your second visit to Justice Island if you befriended him during the first visit. His mere presence on your ship eliminates all rats from any ship in your squadron, but he has a chance to appear and ask for a pearl any time you enter a tavern, and will leave immediately if you don’t have one on you. Make sure to always carry a few pearls once you have him. After you give him enough pearls, he will ask you to find his mother, but there’s no penalty for not doing so, and you can keep him as your ultimate Rat God forever.

Hubert Dassier: Also called Uber Dassen, for some reason. Granted to you as the captain of the Eclatante if you become Governor-General during Hero of the Nation. An absolutely phenomenal companion with amazing performance across the board, keep him in your squadron and he will do a lot of work. I’m not sure yet whether he is permanent or not, or even immortal, so I need to test him further.

Manga Rosa

This rare and exotic plant is much sought after by the locals for its relaxing and restorative properties and it can even be- It’s weed. It’s just weed. These are scattered around the Caribbean in set locations, always in the same place. You can pick these up whenever you spot them, there’s even a mod I suggested earlier that makes them pretty much impossible to miss. From what I can tell, there’s at least 50 of them total in the game, either growing out of the ground to be picked up, or obtainable during certain quests. There may even be some new ones that I haven’t found yet, so let me know if you find one not listed here. In CL you can no longer miss these if you don’t pick them up the first time, so there’s no pressure, but there’s still a few in locations you can only visit once. I’ll be sure to point them out in the guide when they can be missed. Strictly speaking, you only absolutely need 15 of these to be used at the end of Caleuche, or an additional 15 if you have the Vile Lil’ God DLC. However, the rest can be used to craft special potions that not only temporarily buff various combat parameters, but restore your Vitality as well. Very useful in a pinch, though you’ll need to complete a brief quest and pay in doubloons to unlock the recipes for the potions, which then require alchemy. In Sandbox, you can only use Manga Rosas for the potions.

Once you collect your first Manga Rosa, a quest will be added to your journal. Keep one on you at all times, and you’ll be able to learn more about it. This can take a while, so it’s best to pick up the first Manga Rosa immediately and just have this advance in the background. Your first lead will be from the Potions Vendor, keep pestering them about it until one directs you to speak with a wandering Romani woman. She’ll try to buy it off you, but don’t sell, you’re looking for information. You may not get that information from the first one you speak with, so just keep trying every time you see one of those girls until one finally directs you to a woman called Amelia. Amelia lives in a shack at Chiriqui Lagoon, west of Portobello. Bring 3 Manga Rosa and 1500 doubloons. Once you meet Amelia, she will offer you three recipes for special potions, for a plant and 500 doubloons each. Afterwards, you can also ask her about the adder stones you’ve been finding, and she’ll request 113 of them. This won’t be marked anywhere as a quest, but if you return with 113, she’ll unlock one of the chests in her room, which is full of alchemy ingredients!

Here is a list of all the regularly accessible locations of Manga Rosas, which I have double checked myself. You can pick all of these up from the start of the game, and these are the only ones available in Sandbox. Some may genuinely be hard to spot so use the Better Herbs Visibility mod if you want to save yourself the trouble. You can pick these up as you go but it really doesn’t take long to just do a circuit around the Caribbean and grab them all at once when you have the spare time, which is what I prefer to do. You won’t miss any of these if you don’t grab them the first time. This is also a great order to grab them in if you’re doing it all in one go, should pretty much take you in a circle starting from Guadeloupe. A lot of these are in different sections of the Spanish Main, so instead of an island I’ll list the nearest Port, beach, and the general location.

Guadeloupe (1): One screen in from Cape Inaccessible, by the wall behind the stone pillar.

Antigua (1): One screen in from the Entrance to the Jungle, immediately to you right next to a small palm tree.

St. Christopher (1): One screen past the Cemetery, on the left side next to a palm tree.

Isla del Tesoro (2): First one is at Benures Bay, next to a rock straight ahead. Then go through the next screen and to the left to find a cave, where it is inside an alcove on the left, before a chest.

Hispaniola (2): First one is at the Port-au-Prince Lighthouse, next to a palm tree to the left of the path to the jungle. Next one is inside the cave on the island, in the water under the stone bridge, opposite from the chest.

Cuba (2): First one is at Cape Camaguey, in front of a fallen tree to the right. Then go one screen in, and then one screen to the right, and it will be next to a palm tree in the middle of the forked path.

Cayman (1): Desert Coast, on your right.

Belize, Bay of Peril/Cape Catoche (2): On the Northern tip of the Yucatan are the Bay of Peril and Cape Catoche. The first one is at the Bay of Peril, inside the shipwreck to your left. The second one is at Cape Catoche, one screen in. It’s next to a palm tree on the left.

Belize, Amatique Cove (6): South of Belize you’ll find Amatique cove, and six plants in total. First one is on the beach, immediately to your left. Then go left for two screens to the second forked path (the one that leads to the Temple) and the second one will be on the left. Keep taking lefts and you’ll find another forked path with a statue, the third will be on the left again. Go right to find a cave, inside the fourth will be in the back. Head back out and continue left from the statue, then take a right at the next fork. From here you can reach Papagayo Bay and Nicoya Bay, the last two are on these beaches, near the water. Have fun walking back to the ship.

Blueweld, San Juan Del Norte (5): South of Blueweld you’ll find the Bay of San Juan Del Norte, and five plants in total. The first one is on the other side of the beach cave, on the right. Continue until the forked path and go right, then continue another screen to reach an Entrance to the Cave, where the second one is on the left. Head back to the forked path and go left this time to immediately find another Entrance to the Cave, and head inside, where the third will be in the water over the stone bridge, right of the chest. Continue through the cave until you find a rope and exit that way, the fourth will be on the left outside the cave. Continue to the forked path and take a left to reach Coronado Bay, where the last one is hiding behind a palm tree. Time for another fun trek back to the ship!

Portobello (1): This is gonna be a lot of walking just for a single plant. Starting from Portobello’s Passage to the Jungle, keep taking lefts until you reach another Passage to the Jungle, you’re now outside Panama. Take another left, and advance until you can finally take a right to reach San Miguel Bay, where the plant is in the back next to a tree. Good luck getting back.

Cartagena, Covenas Cove (1): Mostly underwater next to a rock on the right.

Maracaibo, Guajira Bay (1): One screen from Guajira Bay, next to a palm tree on the right.

Cumana, Carupano Cove (2): First one is on the beach, in the water on your right. Then take lefts until you reach a cave, the second one is in the water over a stone bridge, left of the chest.

Should get you 28 in total, four of which you need to acquire all the recipes, leaving 24. Far more than you’d ever need in Sandbox Mode, and plenty even after spending 15 at the end of Caleuche in Story Mode. However, there are a few more locations you can find Manga Rosas in that are only available in Story Mode, most of which you only visit once. Beyond that, about 20 more from quest rewards. For all those, I will point them out in the walkthrough section to make sure they are not missed.

Alchemy

I’ll kick this off by saying this section is really going to be a work in progress for a while, as I haven’t taken the time to catalogue all the recipes yet.

Let’s go over alchemy! This is one of the big things you’re hoarding all those items for, though not the only thing. Hit K to access the Crafting Menu, if you access this in your cabin you can automatically pull from items you have stored in the various chests, no need to dig out specific ingredients! There’s a lot of recipes you can unlock throughout the game, from ammo, to potions, to talismans, along with a few extra doodads here and there. Except for a few really early game recipes, you will need the Alchemy perk for almost all crafting. I’d recommend picking this up relatively early, at least before you start the Pirate Saga, as a lot of the stuff you can craft in alchemy can really come in handy at certain points in the game and you never know when you might want to craft some potions or a specific talisman you can’t otherwise find. There are also a few specific tools you need in order to craft a lot of recipes that you can either find through vendors or will acquire during the story.

Alchemy Instruments

These are all unlimited-use items that are required for a variety of recipes. You only need one of these for the purposes of alchemy, but there’s no reason to get rid of duplicates either. It is critical to acquire these when they come up, and I’ll be sure to point them out when they do, as many cannot be acquired elsewhere if missed. If you happen to find one of these in freeplay or otherwise in a location that I haven’t stated, please let me know.

Alchemist Chest: Given by Gino when you meet him at the end of the Dutch Gambit. A duplicate can also be found during Caleuche. Mostly used for potions, though some changes in CL reworked recipes so you could still do some alchemy if you get the perk before this.

Bench and Tool Box: Given by Henrik on your second visit to Justice Island, though one guy on Discord reported finding one randomly in a Shipyard chest somehow. Used for all sorts of ammo and talisman recipes.

Bullet Mold: Acquired from a chest on Justice Island. Required to craft bullets for the Colt Revolver.

Crucible: Acquired from a chest on Justice Island. A duplicate can also be found during Caleuche. Required to craft bullets for the Colt Revolver.

Tailoring Tools: Acquired from a ship cabin during Sharp’s Testament, though that same guy on Discord reported finding one randomly in a Shipyard chest as well. Required to craft bullets for the Colt Revolver, along with a few other Talisman recipes. Used to be called Sartorial Tools.

Icon Lamp: Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. Used in some ammo and talisman recipes.

Silver Spoon: Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. Used in some potion and talisman recipes.

Wooden Spoon: Surprisingly, less common drop than the Silver Spoon, but can also be acquired from vendors. Used in some potion and talisman recipes.

Mortar and Pestle: Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. Used in most potion recipes and some talisman recipes.

Mirror: Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. Used in some talisman recipes.

Flintstone: Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. Used in some talisman recipes.

Whetstone: Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. Used for the Arrow Bolt recipe, used to be a component but is now an instrument.

Writing Implements: Bizarrely rare drop, can also be acquired from vendors and shows up in a few containers. Used in some talisman recipes.

Silver Ewer: Not to be confused with the Copper Ewer, which is more used as a component. Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. Used in some talisman recipes.

Copper Ewer: Not to be confused with the Silver Ewer, which is only used as an instrument. Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. It’s rarely used as an instrument and is mostly used as a component, so make sure you hoard these. Used in many ammo, potion, and talisman recipes as either instrument or component.

Old Mug: Pretty generic drop, can also be acquired from vendors. Similar to the Copper Ewer, it’s sometimes used as an instrument but also used as a component, hoard these. Used in some potion and talisman recipes as either instrument or component.

There may have been a few I missed, I’m still working on this section, but that should cover instruments. Make sure you have at least one of each of these for alchemy.

Alchemy Components

Unlike instruments, these are all single-use items that are consumed to craft recipes. If you’ve been wondering what the hell I’ve been telling you to hoard so much stuff for, this is one of the big reasons. I’m not going to go over every individual component because there’s a lot and I also haven’t fully catalogued them yet, but I’ll summarize them into categories.

Herbs: Pretty much anything green and leafy, and don’t forget about Ginger either. You’ll find these all over as random drops, and you can even spot them growing in the jungle, even more easily if you have the Better Herbs Visibility mod. Mostly you’ll find these at Potions Vendors, I’d suggest you buy those girls out every time you’re in Port. Mostly used in potion recipes, but show up in some other recipes occasionally.

Alcohol: Rum and Wine are both used for some recipes, fairly common drops though and also double as healing items on their own.

Vials: Vials are used for all potion recipes, and you can usually find a few at the Potions Vendor, buy them up whenever possible.

Silver Fulminate Components: There are two very rare components you’ll only find three of each during the story that are used for crafting the Silver Fulminate required to make bullets for the Colt Revolver. These are Nitric Acid and Ethyl alcohol: one set is found on Justice Island, one set provided by Gino, and one set looted during the Caleuche. In TEHO, those were the only sources of the components, only allowing you to craft enough Silver Fulminate for 60 bullets, and I will be sure to point them out so they are not missed. However, in CL, you can now also find this incredibly rare resource as a reward from plundering a Town, allowing you to craft effectively unlimited bullets should you wish to farm them.

Harpoons: These are a fairly generic drop and you can also get them from vendors, make sure to buy them up. Used for a few special ammo recipes that you won’t want to miss out on.

Gems: Pretty much anything you can buy or sell at the Banker, including pearls and gold or silver nuggets. Some jewelry too. If the Banker will buy it, you should hold on to it. There are even some rare stones the Banker will sell occasionally that you may want to buy up when you spot, like Meteorites. You use these for all sorts of recipes so you should hoard them as much as possible rather than selling.

Arsenic: An obscenely rare item in my experience. Can be purchased from the wandering Romani women if you pass a skill check and have enough doubloons on hand, but she rarely sells to me for some reason. You’ll find a few of these during the story and they can also rarely show up in treasures. Normally can be used as a 30-day amulet to prevent rats, but is also used as a component for some talismans.

Cursed Items: You’ll often find random stuff like Vampire Wings or Shoes or whatever that gives you a penalty to some skill while in your inventory, make sure you pick these up to dump in your cabin chest as they’re used in a lot of talisman recipes.

Random Junk: I’m telling you; this stuff isn’t useless. Stuff like nails, cords, belts, tobacco. You’ll find these as random drops all the time, grab them. You’ll also find a lot of this stuff at the various vendors, especially the Junk Vendors. If you ever see something that seems specifically named and you don’t think you’ve seen before, like the Bosun’s Pipe or the Deck of Cards, make sure to grab it too.

You never know what you might need for any given recipe so it really truly is just best to hoard as much as possible, your chests are functionally bottomless. Remember: A.B.L. Always Be Looting!

Alchemy Recipes

I’ll fill out this section in the future once I actually have access to all the recipes myself, as I’ve already noticed a few changes to recipes so I want to make sure I get them right. For now, just make sure you’re keeping an eye out for any recipes as loot or sold at vendors. They’re fairly rare and a lot can only be acquired through the story and can otherwise be missed, I’ll be sure to point them out. Once you equip a recipe, your Recipes document will be updated, and it will show up in the Crafting Menu, though it may not be there if you don’t have the Alchemy perk yet.

Capturing Forts

When plundering traders just simply isn’t enough anymore, it’s time to really throw your weight around and start going for the biggest prize of them all. Town plundering is some pretty late game stuff, so don’t expect to go doing this until you’ve got a few big ships under your command. It’s a serious undertaking that requires a lot of firepower and even more manpower, not to mention plenty of cargo space to haul away the booty. These are particularly valuable undertakings due to the rare rewards you can find through plunder that you will generally struggle to find elsewhere. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to capture Towns, you can only plunder them and sail away.

Siege Preparations

While each Fort is different and some are easier to conquer than others, there are some general preparations you should be sure to make before starting any sieges. While the rewards can be incredible, the expenses can also be great as well. Be sure to have enough money to pay for your ships and crew while sailing around with a massive squadron.

Pesos: Commanding a squadron is ludicrously expensive in CL, as Class 1 and 2 ships have had increases to their upkeep costs across the board. If you’re running a full squadron of five ships, you should be expecting to shell out upwards of a million pesos a month, so make sure you’ve got the coffers to support any long-term squadrons.

Officers: You need an officer available for each ship in your squadron. These officers will have to be good at every aspect of Naval Skills if you want to succeed, so don’t go assigning some 50-something Navigator to a Line Ship, they play by all the same rules you do. Navigation and Accuracy/Cannons are obviously the most important aspects, but good Defense and Repair will also help keep the ships alive.

Perks: Any normally important perks for Ship Combat are useful here, but there is one absolutely mandatory perk you’ll need to assault a Fort, Siege Tactics. Without it, you can’t combine the crew of your squadron for a single consolidated ground assault, and Forts are practically unassailable otherwise. Beyond that, having the Combat Repair perk for both yourself and on your companions as well will help keep your ships afloat during the siege. Emergency Rescue will also save a companion should their ship be sunk.

Ships: Anything less than Class 2 won’t get you anywhere against Forts, and you’re going to want multiple to really get anything done. There are many powerful Class 1 and 2 ships you’ll acquire during the story that will make powerful additions to your squadron, but for generic ships make sure you’re at least bringing a Line Ship, or even better yet a Man-o-War, along with nothing smaller than a Heavy Galleon or Heavy Frigate. You need a lot of firepower to bring down a Fort, so don’t skimp on the ships.

Crew: Suppressing the Fort is only the first step of the siege, you’ll need to land troops and take the Fort and Town by force afterwards. It would be a huge waste to go through all this effort just to be stopped on land, so make sure you load up on crew before the siege. Class 1 and 2 ships can generally hold anywhere from 400-800 crew, more if overloaded, though these numbers will wildly vary especially for unique ships. As a general rule, 2000 crew is a good number to start out, which should be at worst four fully loaded ships. If you have bigger ships and the money and supplies to accommodate it, it’s always best to bring as much crew as possible. 2500 is a great number to aim for, but go as high as you can manage. More crew is always better when it comes to taking Forts, and expect a lot of casualties along the way.

Supplies: So, you’ve got about 2500 men across multiple ships now. If you remember everything you need to supply on your ships normally, start multiplying those by a lot. Your crew will be going through a LOT of food and rum, so make sure you load up before you get started. They’ll also need plenty of medicine to reduce the many casualties, and of course enough weapons to fight. Some sieges will be decisive, but others you may want to drag out and hammer the Fort from long range, so make sure your whole squadron has plenty of ammo. You only really need Cannonballs to use against Forts, though you can also use Bombs if you’re willing to risk getting close enough. Don’t forget about repair materials either, Forts can absolutely obliterate your ships, so you’ll need to bring a lot for Combat Repair.

Deadweight: There’s gonna be a lot of booty to take with you once you’ve captured the Town. Those big military vessels you’ve got will likely be using most of their capacity just to support the cannons, crew, and supplies you brought with. If you plan on doing multiple sieges with the squadron you gathered, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to just bring an empty ship in your last slot solely for carrying cargo.

The Siege

Once you’ve rolled up on a Fort with your fully prepared squadron, it’s time to actually get this siege moving. You’ll want to be sure to sink any defending ships that happen to be in Port before they become an annoyance, but your main target is obviously the Fort. Forts don’t necessarily have Hull values or any kind of health bar, so fighting them is a bit unusual compared to ships.

The objective of your siege is to suppress the Fort, which involves destroying enough cannons until it can no longer fight back, allowing you an opening to land your troops. This will vary per difficulty, on lower difficulties you may only need to destroy about half of the cannons, while higher difficulties could require you to almost completely level the Fort. Gunports will have a plume of smoke rising from it when a cannon has been destroyed, and will have cannons lined up all around it, so you may need to reposition if you’re firing at a section of the Fort that is already covered in smoke. You don’t need Grapeshot or Chainshot here, Cannonballs will suffice. If you feel like taking the risk to suppress the Fort faster, you can use Bombs instead, but closing in to get in rage will leave you wide open for counterattack. A simple, if slow, strategy to suppress a Fort is to bring long-range Couleuvrine-type cannons and use Cannonballs to outrange the Fort, allowing you to shell it with artillery from relative safety until suppressed. This can take a while and use a lot of ammo, so make sure you come prepared if you want to do this.

Land Assault

Once the Fort is suppressed, it’s time to land troops and take the Town! This is what you brought all that crew for, and it functions like a boarding fight, except within the walls of the Fort and on the streets of the Town. It will be an all-out melee on both sides, make sure you’re cutting through them efficiently and minimizing casualties. As each phase progresses, you’ll eventually make your way into the Town proper, and eliminate the last of the resistance. Once you’ve done this, head into the Governor’s Mansion and speak with him to reap the rewards of your hard work.

If you lack the firepower or want to do a faster assault but for less reward, you can land your squadron at a nearby beach and use Thinking Out Loud to assault the Town by land. This will be generally easier, but the rewards are much lower.

Town Plunder

There is currently no way to capture a Town for yourself or a Nation, you can only take your prize and leave. Once you speak with the Governor you will be taken into a cargo menu where you can load up your ships with your rightly-earned spoils. You can sometimes even acquire valuable and rare items, like Excellent Maps and Silver Fulminate components, or high-caliber cannons that you otherwise can’t find in shipyards. Probably most valuable of all, Strategic Goods that are otherwise very hard to come by, which are extremely valuable to smuggle or can be used for Ship Upgrades. Hope you’ve got enough deadweight to carry all this loot out, make sure to focus on the most valuable goods first. Once you’ve got everything, go ahead and hop back on your ship and go find a warehouse to stick all this Hot cargo in for a few weeks before you sell it off for massive gains. Then, go hit another Fort!

Ship Upgrades

There are six special Shipyards in the Caribbean that have special offers for you, both allowing you to open a warehouse to store goods safe from the outside world, or spend rare resources and doubloons to upgrade your ships beyond their usual limit. These Shipyards are also noteworthy as they’re all found on what is effectively the capital of each nation, so it’s not too difficult to remember where they are or even just find them yourself.

In TEHO, you used to only be able to choose one upgrade per shipyard, and upgrading one metric would come at the expense of the other. However, in CL, this is no longer the case, and you can acquire every single upgrade at all shipyards. Upgraded parts of your ship are highlighted in blue on your ship stats, so you can’t acquire an upgrade your ship already has. Also, if you manage to acquire every upgrade on a single ship, you’ll get a bonus in the form of faster movement on the Global Map.

All upgrades will require a specific Strategic Good, and cost doubloons. In the current translation, the Shipwright will ask for X doubloons, when he really means X chests of doubloons, a separate item that is a chest full of 150 doubloons. You can pull these from your cabin chest automatically, but make sure you actually have doubloon chests as he will not accept doubloons. You get these from many quest rewards or treasures, and can occasionally find empty chests in freeplay or purchasable from the Banker to craft yourself.

Capsterville: Found on St. Christopher, the French Capital. Here you can upgrade the maneuverability of your ship or the minimum crew size. These are both pretty straightforward upgrades, better turning and less required crew, and both cost Ropes to acquire.

Willemstad: Found on Curacao, the Dutch Capital. Here you can upgrade the Hull durability of your ship or the maximum crew size. While the Hull part is straightforward, the crew size specifically upgrades the overload capacity of your ship, not just the regular capacity. You can normally overload your crew to 125% of its capacity, while this upgrade allows you to reach 150% capacity. Hull durability costs Resin to acquire, while crew size costs Ironwood.

Port Royal: Found on Jamaica, the English Capital. Here you can upgrade the maximum speed of your ship and its off-bow angle. These are both straightforward upgrades, faster speed and your ship can sail better against the wind. These upgrades used to be bugged in TEHO but now works properly. Both upgrades cost Shipsilk to acquire.

Portobello: Found on the Southwest coast of the Spanish Main, though Havana is really the Spanish Capital. Here you can upgrade the maximum number of cannons on your ship or the maximum deadweight. These are both straightforward, more firepower and more cargo capacity. Max Cannons costs Resin to acquire, while Deadweight costs ironwood.

Havana: Found on Cuba, the Spanish Capital. Offers the same upgrades as Portobello, though I mainly prefer Portobello as it’s simply in a more convenient location, with the other shipyards being closer by. Use whichever suits you.

A note on Portobello/Havana: These are Spanish Ports, so you are required to fly either the Spanish or Dutch Flag to enter, as you cannot upgrade a ship unless it is moored in Port. This can be easily managed if you acquire a Dutch Trade License beforehand, which allows you to enter any Port without issue, though you still need to fly the right Flag. Otherwise, you’ll need to succeed a stealth check, which is difficult with multiple ships especially when they are bigger. If you’re doing ship upgrades here you should really have the doubloons to spare, so just head to Willemstad first and pick up a short trade license for a few hundred doubloons to make your life easier.

Sharptown: Found on Isla del Tesoro, the Pirate Capital, in a manner of speaking. This shipyard doesn’t offer any upgrades, but rather allows you to repair your Hull to its true maximum durability. This is the number in parentheses when you Right-click on your Hull value in the Fleets Menu, your maximum Hull will decline from this number over time as your ship takes damage. Once it declines enough, Master Alexis can repair your ship back to pristine condition, but will require all four Strategic Goods and doubloons, not doubloon chests, as payment. Note that if you fail the Pirate Saga, you lose access to this shipyard.

Warehouses

In a second door inside each of these six shipyards will also be a man sitting a desk. Talk to him twice and he’ll offer to rent you a warehouse for storing goods. Sharptown is the one exception to this, as rather than a room connected to the Shipyard, you must speak to the Shopkeeper in the Store in order to open a warehouse, and do so again any time you wish to view it. These have negligible monthly upkeep you’ll have to pay any time you visit, and allow you store large amounts of cargo completely safely. Unlike investments or moored ships, warehouses will not be lost if a Town is plundered in an enemy attack. There are many resources you’ll want to hold on to in warehouses, mainly the Strategic Goods you’ll be using for Ship Upgrades. Another great use is for Hot cargo: Store anything you’ve stolen in a warehouse and come back in a few weeks to sell it; it will have returned to full price. An added bonus is that the Towns warehouses are in generally have the best sell prices in the Caribbean as well. You can also store excess food, rum, medicine, weapons, and ammunition in warehouses so you can quickly load up your squadron for assaulting Forts.

Where to find Strategic Goods

So, if you want to get the most out of your ships, you’ll need to upgrade them, but you need a LOT of materials to get that done. In TEHO it was possible to find them more often from random sources, but CL has removed many random sources so there’s now more consistent, specific sources of materials. Let’s go over where you can actually acquire these:

The first source is simple, if limited. Floating Barrels. These are random, so they won’t always have Strategic Goods, but if you engage a Floating Barrel on the Global Map and there’s cargo and flotsam sprinkled around, you can potentially find what you’re looking for by picking it up. Not terribly reliable, but a decent source of extra materials if you keep an eye out for them.



The next source is from Trade Expeditions. These are a special variant of Traders on the Global Map that will generally be a small convoy with an escort, and can potentially carry Strategic Goods. Note that only Trade Expeditions can yield these materials, it will be specifically called such when you view the prompt upon engaging. If it’s not called Trade Expedition, it’s not what you’re looking for. These can be somewhat tedious to find, as you just have to keep checking random ships on the Global Map until the right kind pops up, but are a fairly easy to farm source of Strategic Goods if you make the time for it.

The biggest source comes from plundering Towns, a new reward in CL. I went over this whole process in detail earlier but just to reiterate, Town plunder will often yield Strategic Goods in high quantities. While it can be a very difficult process, and one you certainly can’t pull off until later in the game, it’s a very solid source of materials.

A consistent, if somewhat expensive and infrequent source comes from “Goods of Strategic Value.” As you progress through the game, you’ll come across four special NPCs that will offer you a once- or twice-monthly purchase of a specific Strategic Good, paid for in doubloons. When you unlock one of these, your quest log will update with this title, though it’s not actually a quest, and should really be in the Documents tab if you ask me. You have to arrive on the exact day and pay the full amount to receive a full batch; you can’t receive partial batches. This isn’t the best source of these materials, but is still a reliable one to keep in mind.

Ropes: After returning the first missing sword, Fadey will sell you 50 Ropes on the 20th of each month for 500 doubloons.

Resin: A month after completing Price of Consumption, return to San Jose to meet Sergio again, who will sell you 60 Resin on the 5th of each month for 600 doubloons.

Shipsilk: A week or so after completing the Dutch route of the Dutch Gambit, go meet the new Vice-Director of the HWIC and he will offer to sell you 30 Shipsilk on both the 1st and 15th of each month for 600 doubloons, so 60 for 1200 doubloons total. Since this is unique to one of the three Dutch Gambit routes and isn’t even a very good deal anyway, literally twice the price of the previous two, you shouldn’t worry too much about it.

Ironwood: During Sharp’s Testament, you’ll have the option to set up a small enterprise with Jan Svensson to buy 25 Ironwood on the 14th and 28th of each month for 750 doubloons, so 50 for 1500 doubloons total. Not a great deal either, this time three times the price of the first two, but you’ll also get set up with a special buyer who will buy ironwood off you once a month for even more. I wouldn’t bother buying Ironwood with this method unless desperate, but it’s important to set up to get that special buyer, so you can make insane profits off Ironwood that you acquire elsewhere, should you so desire.

There is also one new source of Ironwood I’ve been made aware of but haven’t been able to check myself yet, a factory on Isla Mona. Once you unlock the island during Flying the Jolly Roger, you can set up a source of Ironwood which will produce batches for you that you then pick up. I don’t have much more information on this yet but I’ll expand this later once I can actually test it myself.

As a final note, you’ll acquire various Strategic Goods as rewards from some story missions as well, though not really in any particularly noteworthy amounts. In general, whenever you come across a Strategic Good, I would recommend sticking it in a warehouse until you need it. There’s plenty of other ways to make money, so you really don’t need to sell them.

Tips and Tricks Part 1

In this section I just wanted to go over any miscellaneous subjects, tips, tricks or any other details that I didn’t cover enough before. Some of these tricks are little… exploit-y, and some involve savescum, so it’s really up to you if you want to use some of the methods I’ll be going over here. A lot of these are more intended with Classic Mode in mind, being much less necessary in Exploration Mode due to the less strict requirements and removed timers. Expect this section to grow as I come up with more things worth mentioning.

The Art of Savescum:

Let’s kick things right off with savescum! A lot of encounters in this game have a random element to them, and can be somewhat exploited by saving and reloading to change an outcome or a reward. This sort of thing is never strictly required to progress, but can make your life easier if you have the patience to keep reloading until you get the result you want. Here’s a few things you can take advantage of with savescum:

Vendor Inventory: The items vendors have for sale is randomly pulled from a pool of potential items at the start of every day, and can be exploited in that regard. Simply save your game, advance 24 hours, and speak to the Vendor to check their inventory. If they don’t have the item you need, reload, and then repeat this process. If you are desperate for a particular item, like a piece of armor or a specific component, you can keep trying this until you get what you need.

Quest Givers: Similar to Vendors, the quests offered are also randomly pulled from a pool of potential quests every day. Furthermore, the specifics of the quest are random each time as well. If you’re looking for a specific quest, say a Destroy Smugglers quest from the Governor or a Stolen Ship quest from the Harbor Master, you can use the savescum process here. Save, advance 24 hours, and speak to the NPC. Simply reload and repeat if they don’t have the quest you’re looking for. Note that some NPCs have a cooldown period before offering jobs again, if they are telling you that no jobs are available you may need to wait multiple days to be offered a new quest.

Officers: The patrons at the Tavern are also randomly determined whenever you enter for the first time each day. If you are desperate for a particular kind of officer, savescum will work here too. Be sure to save outside of the Tavern, then advance 24 hours and enter. If the kind of officer you are looking for isn’t present, you know the drill, reload. This also works for other potential NPCs in the Tavern, like Merchants or Treasure Hunters.

Stealth: I’ll talk about stealth in more detail in a bit, but stealth checks will roll a different result every time they are attempted. If you desperately need to enter a Port or slip past a guard, you can just keep reloading a save and attempting the check again until you get through.

Cargo: A ship’s cargo is randomly generated upon entering the Local Map. If you’re hunting traders looking for a specific good, like a Strategic Good for example, you can save on the Global Map and then engage the ship, and reload if it doesn’t have the cargo you want.

Fights: Is a fight just absolutely kicking your ass? Unless you’re on a ship, you can actually just pause the game and make a manual save, though sometimes you may only be able to do this with your weapon sheathed. Savescum your way through difficult fights this way.

Gambling: Make sure you don’t try to savescum when playing dice or cards, as the game actually has a Sharptown sort of savescum-protection built into gambling that will almost guarantee your opponent wins after loading a save. If you really tried you could probably eventually win out, but it’s a huge waste of time.

There’s plenty of other minor things you can likely impact with savescum, but that’s really the gist of it. My advice? Don’t rely on savescum too much, it’s tedious and can drain a lot of fun from the game. If you keep failing at something, just move on. There’s not really anything you have to savescum to get through the game.

The Art of Saving Often:

Savescum aside, make sure to just save often regardless. A recent update has expanded the autosave feature so you’re much less vulnerable to losing progress on crashes now, but it’s important to not only rely on quicksaves and autosaves. There are many unfortunate quirks to this game where you can fail an important quest or some trigger can just break and you end up completely unable to progress. Make manual saves, name them, keep them. If you don’t like the clutter, go into your local files and just move the old saves to some backup folder so that you still have them in case you need them. It’s entirely possible to mess something up tremendously enough that you can lose the whole game, and if you don’t have a viable save file to go back to, you’d need to restart from the beginning. It’s happened to me, don’t let it happen to you. Also, don’t overwrite save files, I’m not sure if they’ve fixed the issues with this or not, but just don’t do it.

Tips and Tricks Part 2

The Art of Stealth:

I’ve mentioned stealth in quite a few different sections of the guide but I wanted to just fully go over it here to just have everything in one place. While you’ll also use the Stealth skill for various random checks in dialogue, its main use comes from sneaking into Spanish Ports. For the main way to do this, you’ll need the Spanish or Dutch Flag skill in order to disguise yourself and your ship. However, it is also possible to undertake some stealth operations without acquiring those perks, though they can be much trickier.

Spanish Disguise: This is your basic stealth method, put up a Spanish flag and start faking an accent. A lot of factors go into how successful you are at this. While at sea, you’ll need to deceive any nearby ship or Fort, and failing against any present will reveal your French colors and turn them hostile. The size of your ship and the number of ships in your squadron will heavily affect your chances; it’s much easier to sneak in aboard a Lugger than with three Frigates. The Accountant also has an exclusive perk that significantly boosts the success chance of fooling Forts and ships. Once on land, you’ll also need to fool any guards you come across. As with this method you’ll be landing at the Port, there will always be two guards stationed at the dock during the day, and you must fool them in order to enter the Town. This relies entirely on your stealth skill, which will likely be very bad at the start of the game. However, the Trustworthy perk will guarantee success against guards, though you won’t gain Stealth XP. This also only works early on, as once your Fame gets high enough the perk will no longer work for this.

Trade License: As an alternative to relying on Stealth, you can simply acquire a Dutch Trade License to get guaranteed access to any Spanish Town, so long as you have the Spanish or Dutch Flag. This is always reliable, just make sure you don’t get your license revoked by attacking any trade ships.

If you’re seeking to do trade, shipyard work, or any kind of random quest in a Spanish Town, primarily from Governors or Harbor Masters, you’ll need to do one of those two methods. Most NPCs in the important buildings won’t deal with you if your ship isn’t in Port, and the Governor requires a Spanish or Dutch Flag to speak with at all.

Sneaking In: If you just have a single task you need to do in Town and you haven’t been able to fool the Fort, or perhaps don’t even have the required Flag perk at all, you can instead moor at a nearby beach and sneak into the Town through the jungle. If you have the Trustworthy perk, you’ll be able to fool guards even without the Spanish Flag, but otherwise you’ll need to avoid them. Wait until midnight to enter the Town, that way there won’t be any guards at the gate. You’ll still need to avoid the patrolling guards though, so hold shift to walk and just try to keep your distance while avoiding eye contact. Make your way to the nearest building and then wait until morning. Since you’ve gotten past the gate you don’t need to worry about the posted guards anymore, so you’ll just need to avoid the few guards that patrol during the day. Once you’re done, if you need to get out undetected for a mission, wait until night to get out quietly. Otherwise, just make a run for the gate.

Tricking Ships: If you have the right Flag perks, you can take advantage of your Stealth skill to set yourself up for a perfect attack on a ship. Simply fly a friendly Flag and as long as you pass the check, you can sail right up in front of the ship as it will likely have lowered both its sails and its guard. Switch back to a hostile flag and open fire with the element of surprise! You’ll get a nice sucker punch off and already be in a great position to control the flow of the battle.

The Art of Looting:

Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking about this here too. A.B.L. Always Be Looting! You’ll have a lot of dead bodies as you play, a lot of times they won’t have anything on them, but loot them all anyway. If you’ve looted everything off a body, select “No Search” to prevent the body from being looted again, allowing you to loot other bodies nearby. There are all sorts of valuable junk you’ll find from corpses, and big fights in particular will often have rare or even unique items as loot, so make sure you don’t miss anything.

There are also lots of containers you need to be searching. Chests and cabinets and the sort are obvious, but there are a lot of less intuitive things you can also search. During boardings, almost every door is a container, check around and you’ll find lots of extra stuff. In caves, there are obvious chests lying around but many caves also have hidden containers just in a small crevice or under a pile of rubble, be diligent and you’ll find lots of extra stuff.

Lastly, there’s also just free stuff lying around out in the open sometimes. Keep an eye out for anything that seems to stick out in the environment, this could be a small item on the floor, or a pouch or bottle sitting on a table, and also plants sticking out from their surroundings. All this stuff can be picked up by getting close and pressing Spacebar, so keep those eyes peeled! There are a few very important items you can pick up this way during quest lines, though I’ll be sure to point them out when they come up.

The Art of Avoiding Fights:

There are a lot of fights in this game, but you can actually avoid a lot more of them than you may think. It’s rather simple to avoid them even, you just walk away. If you encounter a fight in the jungle, just put your weapon away and proceed to the next screen. If you encounter a fight at sea, just put enough distance on the enemy to exit back to the Global map. If you get caught sneaking into a Town, just put your weapon away and make a bolt for the gate. It’s the sort of thing that seems obvious when it’s pointed out, but you might not even think you were allowed to. Note however that this only really works in freeplay, most fights in quests cannot be avoided.

An Extra Escape Trick at Sea: When a hostile ship starts approaching you on the Global Map, watch it closely and engage it at the farthest possible range. This will drop you into the Local Map already over 1000 distance away from your enemy, which will allow you to immediately return to the Global Map. Unless the ship pursuing you is special, it will despawn after and you can continue on your way. A great trick for traders that can’t defend themselves as effectively against pirates.

Tips and Tricks Part 3

The Art of the Island Hop:

Has this ever happened to you? You need to deliver this letter to another island, but it’s over a week away and you only have three days left before time runs out! What if I told you… you could make it in a day? That’s right folks, introducing the latest innovation in teleportation technology: The Island Hop!

This is really a quite simple trick, made easier if you’re using the Global Map Boundaries mod. It relies on using Sail-To and Local Map sailing to quickly travel around the Caribbean and spending as little time on the Global Map as possible. You’ll need to get familiar with where the various Ports and beaches of islands are geographically to get around, but you’ll get the hang of it over time. The bigger your ship is and the better your spyglass is, the farther distance you’ll be able to travel with Sail-To.

As an example, start by entering a region at the very Southern edge of the border, and sailing towards the region’s island. Hope for a favorable wind and accelerate time. Once you get close enough to the island, keep an eye on your Sail-To options, and as soon as you can, hop over to the nearest beach. From there, just hop around to the Northern side of the island, and continue sailing. Once you’ve put enough distance from the island, return to the Global Map and navigate across the border into the next region, and then repeat the process. Congratulations! In just a few hours you were able to travel a distance that could have taken you over a day on the Global Map! Taking advantage of the Island Hop can get you all over the Caribbean in days rather than weeks.

While it’s really the same thing, don’t forget about its variant: The Main Hop! It’s really easy to travel from the tip of the Yucatan to the edge of Brazil in a matter of hours since all the beaches along the Spanish Main are so conveniently located and the region borders are so tightly knit.

For Classic Mode the Island Hop is pretty necessary in many parts of the game due to strict timers, those playing Exploration mode shouldn’t really need to worry about this.

The Art of Money-Making:

You’ve got plenty of options when it comes to making money in this game, whether by plunder, trade, or questing, but there’s a few really important money-makers that can really turn you into a proper multi-millionaire.

Cooled Cargo: With a few rare exceptions, any cargo you’ve taken from another ship will be marked as stolen. Don’t just go selling that stuff right away, stick it in a warehouse and let it cool off first! It only takes a few weeks, just go about your business and when you come back you can sell for it typically twice as much as you could if you just sold it Hot. Don’t let your hard work go to waste, get the most out of your cargo!

Slave Trade: Yeah, this is pretty messed up, but it’s undeniable that slavery is obscenely profitable. Trade ships will often surrender without a single shot being fired, so while they may have some valuable cargo in the hold already, that crew of 200 or so is even more valuable if taken prisoner. Selling slaves in small batches is inefficient, you’ll want to make as big a sale as possible to avoid clashing with the authorities during smuggling operations too much. Even though slaves can’t be stored in a warehouse, you can actually just leave them in the hold of a moored ship, they won’t even need food while moored funnily enough. So, fill up a few spacious holds with slaves over time, and bring them to a smuggling deal all at once to make the most out of your time. Just remember that you can’t bring ships larger than Class 3 to smugglers, and it will need to be even smaller on the highest difficulties. Also remember that any time you’re carrying slaves, you’ll run the risk of a revolt at midnight, so either keep enough crew on board or simply save before midnight to savescum if a revolt happens.

Investments: Once you’ve got your first million, don’t just hand it over to bail your brother out of jail, make that money make money! Investing in Bankers is a fantastic source of background income. The highest interest rate you can get on pesos is 6%, and will be deposited exactly a month after making the investment. Note that if you adjust the investment in any way, whether depositing more or withdrawing, it will reset that monthly timer. While each Bank will have a different maximum investment you can make, interest has no limit, so fill up a Bank and come back a few months later to pick up your free money. 17 million pesos at 6% a month will earn you just over a million per month! Just be careful, as you’ll lose any investments in a Town that gets plundered by an enemy attack.

The Art of Freeplay:

There’s a lot you can do in this game even without the story. Combat, Trade, Side Quests, Treasure Hunting, the list goes on. If you’re playing Sandbox, this doesn’t really apply to you, freeplay to your heart’s content. For the rest of you on Story Mode though, you need to be careful about freeplaying too much. While CL no longer has Rank limits for certain questlines like TEHO did, you’ll still end up outpacing many quests if you take too long to do them. Challenges will be less challenging, rewards will be less rewarding, you’ll find much of the story disappointing if you approach it at too high a level, even if it does usually try to scale the difficulty to your Rank. Also, and this seems to even apply on Exploration Mode in some cases, there are a lot of timers between quests that can lock you out of further progression if missed. This comes up a lot in Flying the Jolly Roger, where you’ll finish one quest and be expected back in a few weeks. Many players view that as a soft timer, and spend the next month or so with freeplay or other quests, only to come back and learn they’ve failed the whole questline. Do what freeplay you can when you have downtime between quests and when it’s convenient, but I would strongly suggest avoiding freeplay and focusing on fully completing a quest line once you’ve started it. In my guide I’ll try to be as clear as possible when a quest line starts and ends.

Tips and Tricks Part 4

The Art of Questing:

Beyond just random quests in freeplay, there are a lot of major side quests and even questlines in the game you’ll want to do. In CL, Towns that have major quests available will now be marked with a yellow circle and exclamation point, making it much easier to tell where you can pick them up. Most of these quests will start by someone approaching you as soon as you enter Port, so make sure you don’t dismiss them! If you simply don’t have the time to start a new quest, try to avoid marked Ports until later, as you won’t be able to pick up a quest later if you decline it the first time. Other times, you’ll need to speak to a specific NPC in Town to start one of these. It’s not obvious who you may need to speak to, but just keep looking around Town and in buildings until you find someone with a marker over their head. Don’t neglect a quest once you’ve started it, they almost always have strict timers! I’ll be covering everything in my walkthrough, so stay tuned for that.

The Art of Paying Attention:

Please pay attention to what the game tells you. Given everything explained in this guide so far, there’s very little you should really even need a walkthrough for. I’m going to do it anyway, but I really cannot stress enough how beatable this game is if you just pay attention. If someone tells you to go to a certain location or speak with a certain person, you have no excuse for not knowing where to go. If someone tells you to return in two weeks, don’t be surprised when you fail the quest after returning a month later. Yes, there are a lot of really harsh moments in this game where you can fail an entire questline, but there are very few moments in the game where you will be expected to do anything unprompted. Pay attention to dialogue, pay attention to Charles when he shares his thoughts, pay attention to the quest log, pay attention to the world. You truly don’t need someone to hold your hand, all the information you need is out there.

Final Word Before Walkthrough

With that, I think I’ve shared everything a player should need to know to succeed in this game. This sure ended up being long, but I really wanted to make sure to make this guide as informative and noob-friendly as possible. A lot of information about more minor details in this game can be hard to come by, so I tried to include everything I could really think of. Expect this guide to still grow over time, I’m sure there will be more stuff I’ll think to add, and more new changes I’ll need to cover. Hope you learned a lot. Hope I didn’t bore you too much.

As I mentioned at the start, I’m not really going to go over what every dialogue says, you should be reading it yourself. I’ll generally summarize the broad strokes and add commentary where I feel necessary. If I haven’t mentioned anything specific about a decision in the dialogue, then your decision will be purely up to roleplay, and you can proceed as you see fit until I continue. Beyond that, I’m going to try to avoid repeating too much of what I already covered in the Manual section of this guide, for the sake of brevity. If I’m talking about something you don’t understand, just check back earlier in the guide and I’ve most likely already covered it. If I haven’t, leave a comment or message me about it, I’ll see about adding it.

Don’t forget to save often! I’ll suggest good points to make manual saves, but feel free to save even more often. F6 is your best friend. Also, if you’re starting as an Accountant, or otherwise pick up the Trustworthy perk later on, you’ll have a bonus dialogue option in some encounters. As far as I’ve seen, it never seems to be a bad choice, so you should select it any time it comes up. The last thing I’ll say is that you should always check your journal and documents every time they update just so that you can make sure you’re on the right track. There are also many random elements in quests that my guide can’t help you with, so pay attention! Following my guide should get you through everything, but it’s really easy to accidentally miss a step or a deadline. Now, I’m sure you’re really itching to play the game, so let’s finally get started!

Prologue - A Burden of the Gascon

Welcome to the Caribbean! Hope you liked that little cutscene at the start, that’s some new content right there. After a brief chat with that sailor, you’re dropped off at the dock of St. Pierre, on the lovely French island of Martinique. If you’re coming from TEHO, you’ll notice that everything looks completely different. There’s some info in your journal you should look over, along with some documents with a little backstory and lore. Once you’ve checked over what you started with, head on up the dock to meet a fine gentleman and scholar, Gregoire Valinnie. He’s just some tutorial stuff, won’t tell you much I haven’t already brought up earlier, but if it’s your first time here, go ahead and hear him out. He gives you a little tour of the island, great to learn where all the buildings are in this new St. Pierre map.

Once you’re done with your tour, you’ll be dropped right in front of the Governor’s Mansion, but don’t go in there quite just yet. If you’re playing Accountant or Athlete, you’ve probably got a decent starting weapon for your Weapon Skill, so go check at the Weapons Vendor near the dock to see if he’s got a Harpoon. If he does, great! Equip it. If not, oh well, you’re gonna lose that nice weapon. You can also sell all the random gems and jewelry you start with for some extra cash, you may need it later. Head out into the jungle and head to the right to get to the Fort, and make your way up the hill to talk to the guard out front, he’s gonna ask you to bring him a bottle of wine, accept the offer. This is a kinda hidden quest, Bottleneck Commodity, despite being really important to get through the tutorial. Don’t worry about that bottle of wine yet, we’ll get back to it. He says he’ll be waiting on top of the Fort tomorrow, but he’ll stay up there for a while. Before you leave, head around the side of the Fort to find a chest tucked away by the wall on the cliff. Dump all your pesos in here, along with the weapon you want to keep if you managed to find a Harpoon. Once you’ve done that, head back to Town and talk to the Governor, just like Gregoire suggested. Uh… Uh oh!

So, how was your stay in prison? Hope you had a nice chat with that guy in the wig, you should have a bit more of an idea of the situation now. Head outside and you’ll meet a knight who escorts you to a secret Crusader base, ooh! Before you go inside though, make a quick trip back over to the Governor, he apologizes and offers you some free equipment. Pick the bottom option to beg a little bit, and he’ll even throw in a Holy Water amulet. Get all that stuff equipped, those are your combat basics: A sword, a pistol, and some armor. Nothing too impressive, but it’s something to get you started. The Holy Water will increase your max health by a lot, making the game a lot easier while it lasts. If you’re not a Duelist, you’re probably not too happy about that Bilbo, but if you were able to save your weapon with that little trick earlier, you can head back to the Fort and grab it now. Otherwise, head into the secret base and talk to the guy at the deck, he’ll send you downstairs to meet your brother. This is a pretty long conversation full of a lot of information that isn’t that super important to be honest. The gist of it is you need to buy yourself a ship, and you’ll need to pick whether to play or skip the tutorial.

Hope you had a nice chat with your brother. Ah the love, the bond siblings share, it brings a tear to my eyes. Now he’s left you with a choice, you can either proceed with his suggestions to earn some money around Town, or skip the tutorial and take out a loan. If you’ve never done the tutorial before, I’d strongly suggest it. Otherwise, feel free to skip it. The only important note about this decision is that you’ll meet one character during the tutorial who can help you in a specific fight later on, and if you skip the tutorial, you’ll be on your own during that fairly difficult fight. It’s still completely winnable without the help, but it’s nice to have.

Once you’ve made your choice, head back outside. If you took Gregoire’s tour earlier, he’ll run up to you and take you on a tour of the rest of the Town, and then take you out of the gate for a combat tutorial. He’ll also give you some long documents with a lot of useful tutorial information, though it’s nothing I haven’t already covered. After you do some sparring with Gregoire you’ll head back to Town and start the tutorial in earnest. There’s a little easter egg in this interaction with Gregoire if you’re playing on Hard difficulty or above, allowing you to challenge him to a fight to the death after beating him in a spar. It’s a very difficult fight, given you’re Rank one with basic equipment, but you get an achievement and some really nice gear if you win. However, killing him locks you out of the entire Final Lesson questline, so only challenge him to this fight if you just want to get the achievement and reload, or otherwise already plan on skipping the Final Lesson anyway.

If you’ve decided to skip the tutorial, head to the Church and speak with Abbot Benoit in the corner to get a loan of 50,000 pesos and 100 doubloons. You’ll still want to get Bottleneck Commodity done before buying your ship, so go ahead and skip to that. For the rest of you, let’s get started with the tutorial quests. They’re very straightforward and linear now, and shouldn't really give you any trouble.

Chapter 1 - Getting your Sea Legs

Quest: The Stolen Jewel
What to Expect: A cutscene.
Reward: An Ordinary Map. Or 4000 pesos. Or 35 doubloons.
Storm’s Advice: Get the map, it’s useful if you’re not familiar with the Caribbean yet. What’s more, you’ll need two ordinary maps in the story so don’t even add it to your Atlas, just keep it in your cabin chest.

This won’t be relevant yet, but as soon as you head out into the jungle proper, you’ll get a little cutscene of a pirate being jumped by some Indians. Make sure to loot his body, he’s got some stuff on him, but most importantly, some earrings.

You’ve got a few options for this. You can take it to the Store to sell it for 4000 pesos, but this is really the worst option. Make sure you don’t accidentally pick this option when speaking to the Shopkeeper later.

You can take it to the Governor to be rewarded with an Ordinary Map, which you can either keep or sell to the Monk Vendor for around 6000, depending on your starting skills. I would recommend keeping it, but if you somehow come up short on pesos later, keep it in mind to sell.

Lastly, if you hold onto it until you can speak with the Banker, he’ll offer doubloons for it, but it’s about the same overall value as the Shopkeeper, but you’ll need a good 200 doubloons in a bit so it helps towards that.

Quest: The Missing Assistant
What to Expect: Walking back and Forth between the two Towns. A duel against a pirate.
Reward: 7000 pesos. Or 3000 pesos and 25 doubloons. Or 5500 pesos, 1 blue amber, and 10 amber.
Storm’s Advice: Go for the amber, even if you immediately sell it to a Vendor for a bad price, you’ll end up with the most money.

Check your journal and you’ll notice that Charles thinks the local Shopkeeper is a good choice to visit first. Not a bad idea! Head over there and ask for some work, he’ll task you with hunting down an employee that ran off. You’ll have to head through the jungle to Le Francois for this, go left-right-left from the gate to reach the pirate Town. Gralam will spawn randomly in the Town, he could either be in the Tavern, the Store, one of the houses, or just walking around outside. Found him? Good, turns out this was a waste of time. Head back to St. Pierre and check in with the Shopkeeper and he’ll give you a little payment and a further task: find him a new worker.

Thankfully, it teleports you back to Le Francois, it didn’t used to. Speak with the Barkeep about looking for some workers, you’ll have to hand over that money you just earned, cool. An hour will pass and three guys will walk in. Speak with them and they’ll each tell you a little story and offer a bonus to pick them. Regardless of the choice, you’ll complete the quest, but the overall best value comes from the guy offering amber. After making your choice, head back to St. Pierre, but be ready because you’re gonna get jumped by a random pirate on your way back. After you put him down, don’t forget to loot him, and then finish your journey. Enter the Store, get your bonus, talk to the Shopkeeper, an hour passes, talk to the Shopkeeper again to get your reward. What’s more, he’ll direct you to speak to the Harbor Master, so let’s head there next!

Quest: Cannibalism Does Not Exist
What to Expect: Two groups of Indians.
Reward: 8000 pesos, 35 doubloons, some amulets.
Storm’s Advice: If you haven’t already, pick up some lead balls and gunpowder from the Weapons Vendor, and some potions from the Potions Vendor. This will be the first real fight of the tutorial. Beyond that, make sure you cover Prosper and let him do his thing.

Head over to the Harbor Master, he’ll point you to a man on a mission. Head outside and over near the gate you’ll spot a man standing around with a musket, talk to him. Then head out to the jungle, left-left-right to reach the Entrance to Cave. Before you can go in, Prosper will run you through the battle plan. It’s a good plan, he can one-shot an Indian with his musket. Head to the next screen and fight off the Indians, make sure Prosper has line of sight and he’ll make short work of them. After the fight, talk with Prosper again and he’ll run you through the next plan. It’s another good plan, and don’t forget to loot!

Once you get inside the cave, just like the plan, run past the Indians and position yourself at the opening before the fight starts. Just stall there and let Prosper take out all the Indians, or try killing a few yourself if you can manage. After the fight, loot them, then speak with Prosper. Then you’ll need to double back and speak to the guy who was passed out on the floor before, then finally start heading back to Town. You’ll get your reward from Prosper and the other guy, and be directed to look around Town for someone else who needs help.

Note that the next time you head into the jungle you’ll be jumped by another Indian, but he’s a total pushover. He’s got some extra herbs on him though.

Quest: The Wh*re-Master
What to Expect: Nothing.
Reward: 1000-3500 pesos, depending on RNG.
Storm’s Advice: Not much to this one, you get paid upfront. Just do what it says.

Walk around Town a bit and you’ll find a well-dressed man with a marker over his head. Talk with him and he’ll pay you to hire a prostitute for him. Classy. Head the Brothel. When you speak with the Madame, you’ll have two dialogue options. I’m not sure if a skill affects this or if it’s truly random, you may be able to savescum to affect your outcome before speaking to the nobleman. The top option will either be the best price (2500) or the worst price (5000) and the bottom option will have slightly more middling prices (3000 or 4500). Try to get the best price, since this cuts into what you were already paid. After paying, she’ll tell you to come back at 11 to pick up the girl, and suggests you visit the Tavern in the meantime.

Once you come back at 11, you’ll need to escort the girl to your patron’s house. It’s the nice-looking house near the Store, just knock on the door and then the girl will talk to you, then you’re done. Alternatively, you can just sleep with the girl yourself, though you’ll lose Honor. To Each His Own.

Quest: Rum Matters
What to Expect: Your first taste of sailing!
Reward: Map of Martinique, cheap spyglass, 5000 pesos, some rum.
Storm’s Advice: Don’t forget about the time dilation and Sail-To.

Head over to the Tavern to get a job from the Barkeep, time to do a little smuggling! He’ll give you a very important password, but thankfully you no longer actually need to write this down. Take the job and he’ll give you a map of Martinique and a cheap spyglass, don’t forget to equip that. Head over to the dock to hop aboard the longboat you’ve been lent. Hopefully the wind is good, you’ll be heading to the North side of the island. Speed up time to get there faster, and once you’ve sailed for a bit keep an eye on the Sail-To options until Lamentin Bay comes up. Once you’ve jumped there, jump again to the Ghost, and send a boat to board. If you didn’t play this in TEHO, back then you had to literally type out the exact password the Barkeep gave you, and if you even barely got it wrong, you would fail the whole quest. Thank God they changed that. Return to your ship once the rum is loaded.

From here you need to head to Le Francois, so just head back south until either of the Port options appear and hop over, ending up at Le Francois. Once you’ve handed over the rum, look around near the rocks to your left, there will be a small item on the ground. Pick it up, it’s an Adder Stone, a new weak Ward that gives you +2 to all skills. The first of many! Get that bad boy equipped, then start the trek back to Town. You may get jumped by an Indian if you haven’t been back in the jungle since helping Prosper. Once you get back, don’t forget to deliver that girl you hired, then pick up your payment from the Barkeep and get a room for the night. You’re done with the bulk of the tutorial at this point, that wasn’t too hard!

Preparing to Leave

Quest: Bottleneck Commodity
What to Expect: A lot of running back and forth, and roughly 33,000 pesos needed for the best reward.
Reward: Up to 30,000 pesos.
Storm’s Advice: Make sure you don’t accidentally decline the second part when you deliver the first bottle of wine. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of having enough money, which you mostly should at this point.

It’s time to finally do that little wine request we picked up a bit ago. If you skipped the tutorial, welcome back, we’re moving right along. Head to a vendor and ask about buying some wine, you’ll get one for 700 pesos. If you have any extra weapons, sell those now, then just make sure you sell enough stuff that you have at least 33,000 pesos. If you come up a bit short it’s not the end of the world, you just won’t be able to make the highest profit. If you’re really short, how? Don’t forget to pick up that money you stashed at that chest near the Fort if you haven’t already.

Head back to the Fort. The guard you’re looking for is on top with a marker over his head. Sell him the bottle, then select the bottom option to get to the next stage, delivering 60 bottles! Head back to Town and talk to the same vendor, you’ll get the name of the dealer for 1000 pesos. It’s the Store, shocking. Head over there but you’ll get turned away, return to the Vendor and be polite and you’ll get a letter for another 2000 pesos. Head to the Store once more and you’ll be prompted to purchase any amount of bottles, from 20 to 60. If you have at least 30,000 pesos, you can buy the maximum amount, otherwise just buy as much as you can afford, 500 pesos per bottle. Deliver the bottles and you’ll receive twice what you paid.

All right, at this point you should have at least 60,000 pesos, or more if you took the loan. Time to finally go buy that ship! After you pick it up from the shipwright, go ahead and pop over to the Store to buy a few things, this will save you time later.

You’ll already have all the ammo you need for free, which is a nice change. Purchase 100 Food, 50 Weapons, 150 Medicine, and 10 Rum. Some other characters will require to pick this stuff up later, so getting it now just saves you the trips. You’re welcome.

Your journal reminds you that you can get a crew at the Tavern, so go talk to the Barkeep. He’ll direct you to a sailor who just spawned right behind you. He may even just be floating there, spooky. Talk to him and he’ll bring a bunch of mates on board for some upfront payment. He also requires you to buy some provisions, but you already did that. You’re welcome.

Talk to the Barkeep again for a tip on a Navigator, you won’t be able to make it to Guadeloupe without one. He’ll tell you to ask around Town, head outside and look around for someone with a marker over their head, and they’ll then direct you to the Prison. Talk to the Commandant, he directs you to Banker, geez they are really running you around, huh?

Finally, the Banker has something for you. You can either buy the debt for about 10,000 pesos, or do a job for him. Pick that one! If you still have those earrings on you, you could talk to him again and hand them over for 35 doubloons, but that’s still not a good value compared to the map.

Quest: The Spanish Engineer
What to Expect: A group of pirates, an obstinate Spaniard, and your first taste of stealth!
Reward: Folke Deluc, for as much as he’s worth.
Storm’s Advice: Pick up some more ammo and potions, you may need them. Decently hard fight ahead, remember to find a chokepoint.

So, you need to intercept a ransom. Go ahead and rest until 11 PM now, then head to Le Marin Cove, left-right-right-straight from the gate. You’ll see three pirates standing around with a Spaniard, walk up and challenge them to a fight, then immediately book it to the other side of the beach. If you hide among the rocks, you’ll have a nice chokepoint to fight them one at a time. Once you dispatch them, you’ll have to fight the Spaniard after, so be ready. Why did they even let this guy have a sword? Don’t forget to loot the pirates after you beat him, they’ve got some nice stuff.

For this next part it needs to be after midnight, so wait an hour if it’s not already. You’ll be sneaking back into Town, though it’s trivial if you’re an Accountant. Save outside the gate just in case. Hold shift to walk slowly, and keep your distance from the guards as much as you can. Head for the Bank, and you’ll be done. Head back to the Prison to bail out your new Navigator.

Leaving Martinique

You’ve finally got everything you need to get off the island. Head outside and uh, oh, this guy has a job offer too? How convenient! Let’s head to our cabin for final checks before departing, and then go pick up this job from Le Francois!

Hm, odd. The Barkeep doesn’t actually have a job for you? Better hurry back to your ship. Wolter, you bastard. That Tartane won’t really be any threat to you, you don’t even need to fire a shot. Just sail right up to it and board, it’s got a crew of maybe 18. This is your first taste of ship combat, albeit brief. Don’t forget to loot stuff!

Time to finally head for Guadeloupe! Jump over the Lamentin Bay and turn to the North, then set sail for adventure!

Well, that was a brief adventure. Dock and go straight ahead, Fadey’s house will be at the end of the street on the left. Make sure you ask him about the culprits, then promise to find his swords. He’ll then go on to tell you about some Indian that he’s set up to be executed. Head over to the Prison to inquire about that. Before you can though, you’ll be approached by a merchant when you step outside; agree to escort him back to St. Pierre. Money really does grow on trees! Head to the Prison now, and chat with the Commandant and the Indian, Tichingitu. The Commandant will then direct you back to Fadey, but head to the Bank first to buy all the doubloons he’s got. Fadey will pardon the Indian for 100 doubloons, geez, didn’t we just come to him for money? Once you’ve handed over the pardon, talk to Tichingitu and you’ll be teleported to the jungle, where you can recruit Tichingitu. Your first permanent, immortal officer! Make him a Vanguard.

Immediately after, you’ll be approached by Cocoa Leaf, a new event. He asks you to buy him some guns, which you can get from the Weapons Vendor. Once you’ve got the guns, head back out to find a confrontation. If you fight the guards, you’ll get some nice loot, but lose a good chunk of Reputation with France, so I would just let Cocoa Leaf die if you don’t have Trustworthy. Either get your reward, or loot it off a body, then head out. Back to St. Pierre! If you want, you can manually attack the merchant you’re escorting and rob him. You can do this with any escort, but it’s a very evil action, make sure to do it while alone.

Once you land, the merchant you escorted will pay you and offer you some Ropes for a very nice price. Problem is, you might be running out of money at this point. You’re gonna get a lot more money really soon, so if you can afford it you should just go ahead and buy it. You can stash it, or flip it for a profit. Head back to the Malta base, time to show off your shiny new dagger to your brother.

Well, I think that chat went pretty well. You two are thick as thieves, huh? Michel wants you to come back in 3 months, that will be the start of the first major quest in the game, the Dutch Gambit. In the meantime, he’s sending you back to Fadey to see if you can get a job from him. Before you go, there’s a few things you’ll want to do first. But anyway, congratulations! The tutorial is over, the Caribbean is your oyster!

Intermission

So, you’re all set to start your grand adventure. You just got the recipe for paper cartridges, be sure to craft a bunch of those, your gun will reload twice as fast. You’ve got a lot of time to kill before the Dutch Gambit, and there will be plenty to do. I just wanted to take this moment to let you know that the game is now fully open to you, you can do the following quests I’ll be going over or you can just ignore them and start freeplaying until Dutch Gambit. There’s nothing unique or even that particularly valuable in any of the quests up until Dutch Gambit, so you wouldn’t miss anything should you skip them. Whatever you choose, keep a few things in mind:

The Adeline: You might be tempted to replace this Lugger with something bigger, but I would caution against it. For starters, this is a really good Lugger, it comes fully upgraded and you will never find another one this good. With its decent 6-pound cannons and an overloaded crew of 60, it can manage all the way up to Dutch Gambit without much difficulty. You’ll especially need it for an upcoming quest, Chief of the Reskins, and also for another later in the game, the Regatta. Finding a random officer to moor the Adeline until you need it later is a great idea, don’t just scuttle it when you find something better.

Reputation: Start working on building Reputation now! The best job you can pick up is the Stolen Ship mission from Harbor Masters. You should try to pick those up from as many Ports as you can, it’s insanely profitable and gives massive Reputation boosts. More immediately, you may want to try doing some Mail Delivery jobs from Willemstad or Philipsburg, as that will give you a small boost to Reputation to counter a big loss you may receive from an upcoming quest. I would personally recommend picking a few Ports to save for potential Mail or Escort jobs, and picking up Stolen Ship missions from everywhere else.

Spanish Flag: Pick up the Spanish Flag perk sooner rather than later! The earlier you can start picking up Stolen Ship missions from Spain, the better! You’ll be getting a lot of Reputation loss from Spain over the course of the game, so it pays to keep your Reputation with them as high as possible. It will also help with a lot of upcoming quests requiring you to sneak into Spanish Ports.

Quick Learning: This should really be your first Personal perk, there’s nothing but upsides to picking it up. After that I would suggest Iron Will to save you from being one-shot, but beyond that your perks are up to you!

Officers: Start hiring officers! You’ll want to be sure to pick up a good Cannoneer ASAP, but a Purser and more Vanguards are also very helpful.

Slave Trader: There is one questline somewhere in the Caribbean that a Banker will offer you, called Slave Trader. You can tell which island it’s on just by panning around the Global Map, as the Port will be marked. Head over there at some point to pick up the quest; there’s no time limit for the first part but just make sure you don’t accidentally dismiss it, as you only get one chance to accept it. If you want more information about it, skip ahead to the section where I cover it. The main thing I’ll note here is that it’s a pretty dark questline, and doesn’t pull any punches; there’s no shame in skipping it if this kind of subject makes you uncomfortable.

Manga Rosa: Don’t forget to collect these when you have the chance. I provided a list of all the normal locations of them, either keep that open and collect them as you play, or find some time to do a circuit around the Caribbean to collect all of them at once. There’s one on Guadeloupe, pick it up when you get back there to start the brief Manga Rosa quest!

Fadey’s Swords: This generally won’t come up for a while. There’s three, and two of them are only found during the main story anyway. One of them, however, will randomly be part of the cabin loot of any Class 3 ship or bigger. If you spot the Scimitar, be sure to pick it up, because it can be missed and lost forever!

Vile Little God: Only for those that have the currently unavailable DLC, this will become active pretty soon, at least by Rank 5. I’d recommend looking over that section now to start preparing the many things you’ll need for it.

Adder Stones: You’re gonna be finding a lot of these, just hoard them. Something will come up later that asks for 113 of them, and gives a nice reward of alchemy ingredients. If you’ve got Vile Little God, you’ll also need 113 immediately, and another 113 later, though about half of what you need will be provided for free. What’s up with 113, is that some reference?

Doubloons: You’ll need 1500 to get the Manga Rosa potion recipes, and then lots of random things in general require doubloons rather than pesos, so it’s good to just have a bunch on hand. I’d recommend keeping chests of doubloons as is unless you really need them, as ship upgrades require payment in chests and they’re annoying to craft yourself. If you’ve got Vile Little God, you’ll need a lot of doubloons, 2000 immediately and then another 3000 later, then up to 25,000 more after that. Start buying these from Bankers when you can, and you can get a lot from random quests, treasure hunting, and especially the Stolen Ship mission.

Warehouse: You should open a warehouse to store Strategic Goods and Hot cargo, but also make a point to set aside Gunpowder and Food as well. You’ll need a boatload of Gunpowder for a quest later on, and much later on you’ll unlock an option to repeatedly sell large batches of Food for exorbitant prices.

Dutch Gambit Requirements: There’s no longer a Rank 15 limit to do the Dutch Gambit, but there are still some other requirements. The English route needs 30 Navigation and positive Honor; fairly easy to reach. The Secret Organization route requires 35 of any Weapon skill, including firearms, and negative Honor; a bit harder to reach. If you’re planning on doing one of those routes, keep in mind the requirements as you play the next few months.

That’s everything I wanted to say for now. If you just want to freeplay from here on out, go right ahead, there’s just one minor hiccup before you can leave Martinique again. There’s no longer any Rank limitation for Dutch Gambit, just needs at least 3 months to have passed, so don’t come back before then. For the rest of you, let’s get on with the next chapter!

Chapter 2 - The Caribbean, in a Nutshell

As soon as you leave the base, you’ll be approached by one of your sailors, turns out Folke had more debts than he let on and got himself arrested again. This was added to introduce the normal way to hire officers, which you can find in the Tavern, but you can alternatively bail Folke out again for 100 doubloons. Folke becomes a permanent and immortal officer if you do this, so I would recommend it. Just head to the Prison and go through the process of bailing him out again, and if you need more doubloons, you can just buy them from the Banker. Once you’ve got your Navigator sorted, there’s a few side quests to do before you head over to Guadeloupe.

Quest: Dishonest Competition
What to Expect: A 1v2 on some stairs.
Reward: Up to 35,000 pesos, along with some random gems.
Storm’s Advice: Make sure you’ve got some potions and don’t forget about chokepoints.

You’ll be offered this quest from the Shopkeeper; however, it may not be the first one you talk to. You can get this in St. Pierre, but if you do not, just check with other Stores until you get it. It only takes a day, so it can easily be completed once you actually receive it.

The Shopkeeper will ask you to go to the Tavern and find a guy he hired. He’s easy to spot. Afterwards, he’ll ask you to deliver a letter to the Prison Commandant. Return again and he’ll cue you in on his dilemma; offer to help. Looks like you need to crackdown on some smugglers. Talk to the Smuggler contact in the tavern and select the unusual business option, spin a little lie about looking for cheap goods, and he’ll tell you to meet him at the Harbor Master at night. Wait until midnight and knock on the door, and you’ll be brought to the secret shop.

If you play the role of an Oblivion guard, you’ll scare him and receive 10,000 pesos. Otherwise, you can deal with him yourself and kill his goons, make sure to run upstairs to fight them one at a time. Afterwards you can either kill him or let him go, and receive about 20,000 pesos and some random gems. Regardless of what you do, return to the Shopkeeper in the morning for another 15,000 pesos.

Quest: Rat Problem
What to Expect: A Lugger, and optionally a Barque.
Reward: 11,500 pesos, 10 doubloons, part of a treasure map, and 5 Adder stones. Or 13,500 pesos, 110 doubloons, part of a treasure map, some amulets, 6 Adder stones, and a bunch of Hot cargo.
Storm’s Advice: Make sure you hire an extra officer before starting this, and bring plenty of crew, especially since you’re probably low after the intro; you can hire from both St. Pierre and Le Francois. You’ll want to capture the Barque to hold all the cargo it has, as it won’t fit on your Lugger.

Speak with Jacques Dille do Parquet, our friendly Governor of St. Pierre. Jack Dildo will tell you about a pirate vessel he wants you to deal with, paying extra if you bring back the captain alive. He’ll be hanging out on the other side of the island, so hop over to Le Francois and sail out to meet him. This is more a proper introduction to Ship Combat, so show him what you’re made of and try not to let too much of your crew die. Once you defeat the captain, he will surrender and give you two options, either take him prisoner or release him for a lead on some easy prey. Also, loot the cabin for 1500 pesos, 10 doubloons, part of a treasure map, and 5 Adder stones.

Take Captive: If you refuse his offer and take him captive, simply return to the Governor as agreed and Mr. Dildo will pay you 8000 pesos, and an extra 2000 if you beg a little.

Easy Prey: If you accept his offer, he’ll point you to the Barque “Henry” departing soon for Curacao. I would only pick this option if you have plenty of crew left and a spare officer, as you’ll need at least 34 surviving crew to capture the ship and actually recover the loot. Wait a bit east of Le Francois and within a day or so a purple ship will spawn, that’s your target. Sail right up to it, it’s friendly so you can take the first shot manually. The pathetic Trader won’t put up much of a fight; loot the cabin for 5000 pesos, 100 doubloons, a few amulets, and another Adder stone. The hold is full of trade goods, worth around 150,000 pesos total depending on your Trading skill, cha-ching! This cargo is Hot though, so go drop off the loot at a warehouse down in Willemstad and sell it later. Head out the gate to the Cemetery, there's a quest there. Return to the Governor after and you can still get paid for sinking the Lugger, though less since you didn’t bring the captain back alive. 5000 pesos, or 7000 if you beg a little.

Quest: Noise in the Cemetery
What to Expect: The unexpected.
Reward: 1000 pesos, the Lantern.
Storm’s Advice: You’re literally only doing this to get the Lantern, which is an extra item that provides a small source of light. Press L to turn it on once it’s equipped. It doesn’t do anything else as far as I’m aware, but it’s kinda nice to have and this quest takes five seconds to do.

While you’re in Willemstad, head out the gate and straight ahead to reach the Cemetery. Talk to the Graveyard Keeper in the house and he’ll tell you about some spooky noises he hears in the crypt at night. Ghosts aren’t real, so offer to put his fears to rest, and he’ll give you the Lantern. Get that bad boy equipped, and then wait until midnight and head into the building inside the graveyard on the right. Your Vanguards have decided to split up to search for clues, so you’re on your own for this. Head to the back and- Zoinks! Jinkies! It’s a g-g-g-ghost! Oh, wait, nevermind. Awkward… After that, head back to the Graveyard Keeper and he’ll give you 1000 pesos for your trouble.

That’s everything you can immediately do after the start of the game, head to Guadeloupe now to get a job from Fadey, and don’t delay any longer, that job won’t wait.

The Caribbean in a Nutshell

Quest: The Caribbean in a Nutshell
What to Expect: A Spanish Interceptor, some stealth, and a Barque.
Reward: 10,000 pesos, 870 doubloons, a Matchlock Musket, an Ordinary Spyglass, Arsenic, Talisman “Strongman” along with its recipe, and 2 Adder stones.
Storm’s Advice: This will take you around the Caribbean a bit, so a good opportunity to pick up Manga Rosas, there’s already one on Guadeloupe. See if you can pick up some side jobs to do while you make your way around, just don’t delay too much or you’ll run out of time. Island Hop is your friend.

Once you’re back in Guadeloupe, talk to Fadey and he’ll have a job for you tomorrow. You’ve got a little time to kill, so talk to him once more and you’ll ask about the dagger he gave you. At the end he’ll offer you to drink with him, take his offer. He’ll teach you some tips and tricks about drinking that I would not recommend anyone try at home, but it’s important later. Stumble drunkenly to the tavern and sleep it off until morning, then head to the Store to pick up your job. Good ol’ Gerar Lecrua will have a freight mission for you, delivering munitions to the Fort-au-Prince, heh. This is straightforward, just get it there in time. You should probably make sure you’ve loaded up on crew, you’ll need it in a bit.

When you arrive in Port-au-Prince, you’ll notice someone running into the tavern. Curious, check that out. He’s sitting in the corner talking to some French guy, why does his name sound… familiar? Anyway, head over to the Fort to deliver your cargo. Get paid, and get an additional job: delivering cannons to a ship near Portobello. Head back to Town and, oh, I guess you’re delivering an extra 200 gunpowder as well.

Whatever, just go ahead and hop on your ship and- OH GOD THE SHIP! Your ship is gonna be in rough shape now, and you can’t repair it here. You’ll get the offer to buy an amulet that helps with repairs, but, honestly? I’ve tested this multiple times and even if you have autonomous repair already, it does absolutely nothing with such a low Repair skill and such a small ship. Just stop at one of the English colonies on your way South to patch up your ship before you arrive at Portobello. Before you do that though, there’s going to be a Spanish Interceptor coming after you. I’d suggest waiting at the Fort until it approaches and just letting the Fort sink it. After that, get your ship repaired along the way and get to Portobello.

Made it to Portobello? Great, hope you patched up your ship and picked up crew. Head to the Warlike to deliver the cannons and get your first payment. He’ll give you another extra job, sneaking into Portobello and finding a lost spy. You can easily sneak in by going through the jungle from Mosquitoes Bay, make sure you enter at night if you don’t have Trustworthy or a Flag. Normally you would go to the Barkeep for intel, but in this case, you want to sit with a drunk instead and get some intel from him. Looks like you need someone to snoop around the shipyard, so look for a beggar around Town during the day and pay him to do it. Meet him outside the shipyard at 11 PM, then report back to the Warlike.

You’ll get one last job, destroy the Puebla before it can resupply their target. It will be coming from Covenas Cove near Cartagena, so wait to the east of Portobello for a purple ship, and engage it. It’s a total pushover. You’ll want to board, as it has many valuables in the cabin. The Matchlock Musket is the main prize here, use that yourself if you’re a Sharpshooter or already have the Musketeer perk, otherwise equip it on Tichingitu. Once the ship is scuttled, you’ll be returning to Guadeloupe for your payment. I’d recommend stopping at Willemstad along the way to sell off that cargo from Rat Problem, or to do Noise in the Cemetery if you haven’t already. Talk to the Shopkeeper at Basse-Terre to be directed to the Lighthouse Keeper, where you’ll get your final payment. Lots of doubloons out of this overall! That closes out this chapter, you should most likely be Rank 4 by now, if not, freeplay for a little bit. This is a great time to make a manual save, as it’s the last stop before we move on to…

Paralogue 1 - The Final Lesson

Isn’t paralogue a fun concept for a word? It’s not a prologue or an epilogue, but it’s not really part of the main story either. Since this was originally a DLC in TEHO and is much more significant than just a regular sidequest, I think it’s a fitting term to use. It’s not actually a real word in this sense, I just shamelessly stole this from Fire Emblem Awakening, which as far as I know coined the term. One more thing, once you reach Rank 8 there will be an unrelated side quest available, usually at one of the colonies North of Martinique. A fully-garbed Indian Chief will approach you to help him, make sure you don’t dismiss him. I’ll cover this quest during a break in the middle, but keep in mind that you only have a month or so to complete it so get it done if you come by it.

Anyway, now that you are Rank 4, you’ll notice markers at each of the five French islands in the Caribbean. These will each feature a quest, and if you successfully complete all of them, a sixth quest will become available in St. Pierre. You can really do these in any order, but I’m going to go over my suggested route. Some of these can be surprisingly difficult, so make sure you prepare accordingly. Also, you can take a big hit to Reputation with either England or Holland depending on your choice in one of these missions, so make sure you do some work to raise your Reputation a little bit and avoid a bounty.

Price of Discretion (Part 1)

Quest: Price of Discretion (Part 1)
What to Expect: A simple ferry job.
Reward: 2 chests of doubloons.
Storm’s Advice: Make sure you get this first part of this done right away as there’s a very strict time limit, the second part can be done while doing other things.

Land in Guadeloupe and you’ll be approached by Bertrand Pinette, who will offer you two chests of doubloons if you transport him and two of his friends to Panama. Pick the passengers up at 10 PM at Capster Beach, then sail for Portobello. Don’t delay on this part as you only get 10 days. Once you drop him off at Mosquitoes Bay, he’ll pay you and be on his way. What an easy quest, guess there’s no lesson here!

Just kidding, once you return to Guadeloupe, you’ll be approached by another man telling you to visit the Banker. Turns out you’re an accomplice to treason and desertion, and more importantly, loan fraud. Now you have to track down Pinette, but you have a lot more time for this quest and another quest will take you to the same place, so I would suggest moving on to Prison Break and Grandee Albalate first. I’ll continue this after, but make sure you don’t delay too much.

Prison Break

Quest: Prison Break
What to Expect: Nothing! Or surviving against a bunch of angry English marines. Or some stealth, fighting off some angry Dutch with the English marines, and at least a Lugger.
Reward: 10,000 pesos. Or 10,000 pesos and a 6-month Trade License and an English bounty. Or 30,000 pesos, a decent random weapon, an arquebus, and a Dutch bounty.
Storm’s Advice: This quest can be kinda hard, or really easy if you just take the easy money and walk away. Helping the Dutch feels like a huge waste to me, so if you don’t want the easy money just help the English instead. If you can, do some Governor and Harbor Master jobs for the Dutch beforehand, so you don’t end up with a bounty.

Land in Capsterville and you will be approached by the Royal Marines Leftenant of St. John’s, Antigua. He’ll ask you to transport him and his men to Grand Case Beach, on St. Martin. Do this immediately, if you delay you will end up with a bunch of marines trying to seize control of your ship. Once you drop off Caspar and his men, they’ll ask you to wait around a few days. Make sure you choose to stay, or you fail the quest. Get back on your ship and hop over to the Port, then head to the Tavern and pay the Barkeep for some information. He’ll inform you of the broad details of the Dutch net you’ve just fallen into, and you’ll get a room until morning. Head outside and you’ll be stopped by a guard, who points you to the Governor. After speaking to him, accept his proposal and report to the Prison Commandant. You’ll then need to head to the cave on the island to find Caspar and his men, and get all the details of what’s going on. This is where the quest splits into three choices.

Your first choice, and the one I recommend, is to simply report the whereabouts of the English marines to the Commandant, and stay out of it. Come back the next day to get paid 10,000 pesos, and then be on your merry way. A very simple operation, the lesson being that sometimes it’s not a bad idea to keep your nose out of other peoples’ affairs, and not risk pissing off the major powers.

Your second choice, and the worst one in my opinion, is to report the whereabouts of the English marines to the Commandant, and offer to help take them down. For this, you’ll need to lead the Dutch strike force to the cave and essentially serve as a distraction until the Dutch can spring into action. I’d recommend bringing some armor for this, as you’ll likely get filled with holes as soon as the fight starts. Iron Will also helps protect you from instant death. Once the fight breaks out, quickly run to where the rope is hanging from the ceiling and hold your ground in a chokepoint there until the Dutch finally arrive. Then you can just simply hang back and let the Dutch deal with it, but you’ll probably need to help them a bit more. Report to the Governor the next day to receive 10,000 pesos and a 6-month Trade License. Wow, that’s a huge value! Except… it will be annulled if you ever fire on a trade ship, which you’ll do elsewhere in the questline. Unless you are for some reason doing this quest last, this is a worthless reward that will be annulled long before it expires, and is otherwise the same amount of pesos as you get for not getting involved in the fight. Also, you probably have a bounty from the English now, at least you gained some Reputation with the Dutch? The lesson here is that the Dutch are stingy.

Your third choice, which gives the best reward, is to carry out Caspar’s plan. Grab 24 doubloons and visit the monk at the Church at 8 AM. You may notice that the Rest feature is disabled during this, so any time you need to pass a little time just hop on your ship and accelerate time. The monk has a plan to drug the garrison, and asks you to return tomorrow. Once you do, everything will be in place and you just need to report back to Caspar, who tells you to leave your ship at Grand Case Beach and meet his men at the gate at 11, Rest will be available again at this point. If you don’t have Trustworthy, you’ll need to carefully sneak through the Town and avoid guards to reach the Prison, which is right next to the dock. The marines will come back out a few moments later with their prize, and you just need to sneak back out. Make a break for Grand Case Beach, where a Dutch patrol caught on to your plan. Fight your way through; just focus on surviving and winning, try to keep Caspar alive if you can, but it’s okay if he dies. Board your ship and you’ll have to deal with a Dutch ship before you can exit to the Global Map, it seems to vary based on Rank and difficulty. After you sink it, quickly make your exit as a Corvette will be chasing you and you probably don’t want to fight that with the Adeline. Head for Antigua, and receive your reward from the Governor the following day: 30,000 pesos, a nice but otherwise unremarkable random weapon, and an arquebus. You’ll get a Reputation boost with the English, and likely a bounty from the Dutch. The lesson here is that sometimes you should just finish a plan once you’ve started it, as it can often be less profitable to change sides.

Grandee Albalate

Quest: Grandee Albalate
What to Expect: A 2v2, a 1v3 on some stairs, potentially a Spanish interceptor, and a 2v5 (or 5v5 if you bring Vanguards).
Reward: 200 Coffee, a Small Sword, 3 amulets, and a good spyglass. Or 40,000 pesos.
Storm’s Advice: If this one looks hard, it honestly really isn’t. The 1v3 could cause you trouble if you don’t chokepoint effectively, but the Don is a seriously good fighter and will easily handle the 2v2 for you, and frankly most of the time the Don and my Vanguards killed the group of 5 before I could even do anything. This is in my opinion the best quest of the set, mainly for that good spyglass.

Land in Port-au-Prince and… wait, no one approaches you? Weird, I guess there’s not actually a quest here, let’s just head for some drinks at the tavern and- Oh! Okay, here we go. Barmaid runs up to you and asks for help; head into the back room and fly into action. Once you’ve dealt with the thugs, Don Domingo Ortiz Albalate will introduce himself. He knew you would lend him a hand there, caballero! He asks you to meet him at his home in Santo Domingo, so head through the jungle to find the gate. You don’t really need to sneak for this part, the house you need to visit is immediately to your right when you enter, so if the guards attack you, just sheathe your weapon and run inside. Once you do, you’ll be asked to leave, but you were invited! Insist on staying. Uh oh, it seems Ugo needs to work on his hospitality. Try to dodge the first shot and wait for his goons to run downstairs, then loop around and run upstairs to get a nice chokepoint. Take them out one at a time, then go check the dead body and the note at the desk. Oh dear, poor Ugo… The Don will return him once you head downstairs, and bring you to the tavern, where he fills you in on his dilemma. He’ll give you a 20-day trade license and ask you to take him to Portobello. How convenient, you needed to go there anyway!

You may be attacked by a Spanish interceptor along the way, but otherwise just hastily make your way to Portobello before Uncle Luiz returns from Cartagena. Head for the plantation straight ahead from the gate, and go investigate the big house with the Don. You’re looking for an almanac, which should be to the left of the fireplace. After handing it to the Don, it’s time to confront Luiz, so head outside. Luiz will bribe you for 40,000 pesos, which is not too shabby, but you should stick with the Don on this one. Fight off Luiz and his men, they can sometimes have nice loot on their corpses, and the Don will ask you to return tomorrow. In the meantime, you could work a bit on Price of Discretion, or just Rest a day. Once 24 hours have passed, return to the big house and the Don will reward your friendship to the tune of a Small Sword, a few amulets, a good spyglass, and 200 Coffee! The Small Sword is a solid rapier for the start of the game, but you’ll find better at Weapon Vendors by Rank 10 anyway. Good spyglass is great, get that equipped, and sell that Coffee in Willemstad for a solid 40,000 pesos depending on Trading Skill and perks. But don’t forget to do Price of Discretion while you’re here! The lesson here is that, uh, the Spanish have a lot of money, I guess.

Price of Discretion (Part 2)

Quest: Price of Discretion (Part 2)
What to Expect: Some stealth, a War Schooner, and an ambush of some kind.
Reward: A chest of doubloons and a Fisherman amulet. Or 150 doubloons.
Storm’s Advice: You have to let the Sario leave Port before you attack it, a lot of people miss that detail for some reason. Capturing Pinette can be annoying, so I would just suggest you take his deal.

Remember, you need to have returned to Guadeloupe and met with the Banker to trigger this second part!

Once you’ve arrived at Portobello, you need to head for Panama. Head out the gate and take all lefts until you reach another gate, that’s Panama. There’s also a Manga Rosa a few more screens away from here, I’m pointing this out because there is literally no reason to ever come to Panama so you should just grab it now. Just go left, straight, and then right to reach San Miguel Bay where the Manga Rosa is. Anyway, head to the Panama tavern and ask the Barkeep about Pinette. Turns out he’s never heard of him, but he does know that Carlos lives in… Portobello. Great, so you really trekked out here for nothing. Why does this Town exist?

Head back to Portobello and pay the Barkeep there for some information, he’ll tell you about Carlos and Jean, now Juan, and tell you about the Sario sitting in Port. You need to capture the captain alive, so exit to the Global Map and wait for the Sario to sail away as a purple ship, then attack it once it’s far enough from the Fort. Juan will surrender after you beat him, interrogate him in the Hold and he’ll offer to tell you where Pinette is if you free him. Drop him off at Mosquitoes Bay and he’ll point you to Barbados. If for some reason you’re running low on time to complete the quest at this point, you have about two months from returning to Guadeloupe, make sure to do some Main Hopping to get to Barbados faster, but don’t forget to stop in Willemstad to sell the Don’s trademark Coffee!

The gate to the plantation is on the right side of Bridgetown, the left gate just leads to the jungle. Pinette will be hiding out in the left room of the long house, speak with him and you’ll learn of two options to complete this quest. The reward is almost the same, and the much less tedious option is taking his deal.

Your first choice is to stick with your mission and bring Pinette in. Unfortunately, Pinette is snug as a bug in a rug here at his plantation, so feign defeat and walk away to come up with a plan. Head back to your ship and hop over to the Lighthouse, where Charles will get the brilliant plan of jumping Pinette on a trip to Town and bringing him to your ship at the Lighthouse. There’s a very specific spot you’ll need to stand for the ambush to work.

In this screenshot Charles is facing the path to the Lighthouse for reference. Once you reach this spot, Charles will announce that it’s perfect for the ambush, so don’t move once you get that! Wait until 9 PM, then keep passing 24 hours until Pinette and his bodyguards appear. Ignore Pinette, just kill his goons and he will surrender. Head back to your ship and get out of there, the Fort and any ships will be hostile. Deliver Pinette to the Banker at Basse-Terre for your reward, a chest of doubloons and the Fisherman amulet. The lesson here is to think outside the box on delicate missions.

Your second choice, and the far simpler one, is to cooperate with Pinette and learn of an opportunity where you can both win. He’ll write you a note that you can use to blackmail the Banker at Basse-Terre, so return there and inform him of the dirt you’ve got. Pinette also tells you about a stash of doubloons he left in a cave there, which you are free to take. The Guadeloupe cave is a bit of a maze, but one of the chests will have five Purses, two Heavy purses, and a Tightly stuffed purse. Crack them all open for 150 doubloons, roughly the same as what you get from the other route, just no amulet. Once you exit the cave, you’ll be jumped by some assassins, deal with them and then return to the Banker to scare him a little more, and you’ll be done. The lesson here is to always be aware of alternative solutions to your problems.

A Short Break & Chief of the Red-skins

With those three fairly straightforward and immediate quests done, I’d suggest taking a break here and making sure you’re sufficiently prepared before going to St. Pierre or Tortuga. The remaining quests have quite difficult fights, so I would suggest checking what I recommend for each of them and making sure you’re ready to take them on. If you’re already Rank 8, now would actually be a great time to pick up the Chief of the Red-skins quest and do that, and if you’re not, maybe freeplay until you can. After that quest there’s nothing else you’ll need the Adeline for until the Regatta, which won’t come up until Rank 20. You can see about finding yourself a bigger ship, perhaps a War Schooner or a Brigantine, which will come in handy for the rest of the Final Lesson. Just remember that I would suggest mooring the Adeline at a Harbor Master so you can get it back for the Regatta. Also, if you’ve got Vile Little God, you may want to look into getting that started, as the first two major tasks and first minor task can be completed pretty much immediately, and the rewards are quite nice. I cover that further down.

Quest: Chief of the Red-skins
What to Expect: A half-crew War Schooner, and a mass battle against a group of Spaniards.
Reward: Up to 200,000 pesos worth of pearls, potentially a “Catcher” ward.
Storm’s Advice: This is one of the main things I told you to hold on to the Adeline for! Its 60 crew shouldn’t have much trouble against the War Schooner, but try to board it quickly to prevent any Indian boats from sinking. Your reward is based on how many boats survive.

Once you hit Rank 8, a quest marker will appear on a random island; in my experience it’s been one of the Ports North of Martinique. When you enter the Port, an Indian in full dress will approach you to ask you for help saving his people from some Spanish pearl-diving operation. You only have a month, so you should really get this done right away. You have to bring a Lugger or Sloop for this, the Adeline should be perfect for it so you’ve still got that, right? Once you’re ready, head Southeast for Carupano Cove, where as soon as you enter, you’ll be in combat with the War Schooner. Make sure you enter the local map pretty close to the beach, as you want to board the enemy ship before it has the chance to sink any Indian boats. Those boats are pretty stupid as well and may end up sinking themselves anyway. Try not to lose too much crew against the War Schooner, as you’ll be leading a landing party to the beach for a fight against more Spaniards. After you deal with them, loot the bodies as there’s some decent stuff on the captain and potentially more at random. The Indians will approach you and reward you pearls for each boat you rescued, and a special ward that lets you last longer underwater if you saved all of them. That ward will be helpful later, but you’ll have another chance for one if you miss it. I’d recommend saving at least 100 of both large and small pearls in your cabin chest, then selling the rest to a Banker for a cool 200,000 pesos depending on Trading skill and perks. Pretty short and sweet quest overall.

All right, with that diversion settled, let’s get back to the second half of the Final Lesson. Feel free to moor the Adeline somewhere and pick up a bigger ship at this point.

Resin Dogs

Quest: Resin Dogs
What to Expect: A convoy consisting of two Barques and an escort (probably a Lugger but it varies), a bunch of smugglers, an optional fight against a bunch of mercenaries.
Reward: 75 Resin, upwards of 800 Sugar if you can carry it, optionally some additional Strategic Goods.
Storm’s Advice: Make sure you bring enough crew and some spare officers to the convoy fight, the Barques have not only the resin you’ll need but also a LOT of valuable Sugar. A Brigantine would be great for this if you get one. You can get a better reward if you complete a very difficult fight at the end of this quest, but honestly, I would just recommend walking away from it unless sufficiently prepared. If you want to do the extra fight, make sure you and your boarders have some decent armor, and bring a musket if you can.

Land in St. Pierre and you’ll be approached by a dock-worker, who points you to the Shipyard. The Shipwright will inform you of a Resin convoy coming from Trinidad, and offers a hefty sum per barrel, accept! You’ll be looking for a purple ship sailing Northwest, so sail down between Martinique and Barbados and you should spot it. The escort tends to vary, but it will be two Barques full of Resin and Sugar. Make sure you secure the Resin, should be about 100 of it, and get the Sugar too if you can; I couldn’t fit it all this time but still pulled 800. Once you’ve secured the cargo, head over to Willemstad to park that Hot Sugar in your warehouse, and leave about half of the Resin here too. You only need to bring 50 Resin to the Shipwright, so store the rest. Return to St. Pierre and hand over the Resin, time to get paid!

Well, that could have gone worse. At least the Shipwright took the fall for you, oh, who’s that approaching you? Why, it’s your old friend, Gregoire! Or the guy you only met briefly if you skipped his tour! Greg takes you for a drink and lets you vent a little, and informs you of his own suspicions. Rest for a few days until the Shipyard re-opens, then pay the Shipwright another visit. Hm, looks like he got off relatively easy, but lost the Resin and spent all his money on bail anyway, so it looks like you won’t be getting paid. The lesson here is that the Law always wins.

Okay, okay, I’m just kidding. Once you head back outside, Gregoire will approach you again and inform you of a Tartane that departed for Guadeloupe with your Resin. Chase after it, make sure you sail all the way around to the North side of Guadeloupe, and enter the Local Map a short distance away from Morne-a-l’Eau Cove. Your journal should update, mentioning that the ship is unloading at the beach, so go to your cabin and wait a few days until it finishes. What took them so long? Once your journal updates again, manually sail towards the beach, after two hours you’ll be able to moor. Bring some armor and good weapons for this. There will be a group of smugglers up the hill, you’ll have some crew to help you. Kill them all, trying to keep your crew as alive as possible. After a few moments, that Resin Dog and his men will land at the beach pretty heavily armed.

This next part is optional, so if you’re struggling with it or just really aren’t prepared, just take his offer and walk away with the Resin he gives you. If you want to fight him though, I hope you’re able to survive getting shot, because that’s what’s about to happen. Assuming you survive the opening volley, try to take out the Musketeers before they can fire again, having your own musket really helps with this. There’s not a whole lot else to the strategy here, it’s just a hard fight, don’t feel bad about giving up and taking the deal; I genuinely think this fight is harder than the Final Lesson now. If you beat him, you’ll get not only Resin, but also some Shipsilk, Ropes, and Ironwood! As you depart, the Topaz will attack you, so sink or board it. Even Charles calls it suicide. The lesson here is that people will try to screw you, so keep your eyes peeled and pay attention for opportunities to come out on top.

Just Like Home

Quest: Just Like Home
What to Expect: A very difficult fight against a very crazy man, and a good time with the Governor’s wife. 😉
Reward: 10,000 pesos, a Manga Rosa, some amulets, 100 diamonds, and optional extra goodies.
Storm’s Advice: It’s possible that the wife will rob you after you sleep with her. If she does, just reload and pass all your pesos to a Vanguard. Beyond that, the main challenge of this quest is the fight against Clod, he can be very difficult if you aren’t prepared. Bring some armor for this, and a musket if you can.

Land in Tortuga and a woman will approach you, inviting you to a dinner party the Governor’s wife is throwing. This seems to be right up Charles’ alley, so head over at 6 PM, she’ll be in the room on the left. Have a chat with her, select the top option to show your level-headed commitment and she’ll start feeling a little weak in the knees. She wants you to get a key to rob her husband, Francois Levasseur, who isn’t important and you can just forget about. There are a few outcomes to this quest, but I’m just going to cover the best outcome, as it’s frankly the correct outcome.

Pick up 50 doubloons and head to the Tavern, where a man named Silvestre McCoy will be having a drink. Have a chat with him, he warns you that the lady is playing you, just buy the key off him. Sleep until morning and then return to the Governor’s Mansion, head right this time and go upstairs to chat with the wife. She asks to hand over the key, but you want to see this through yourself, what a lionheart! Get some armor, and a musket if you can, because this is a hard fight coming up.

Head downstairs and there are two chests, the one on the right can’t be opened so just forget about it, it will never be important. The one on the left has the loot you’re after, but I would save before opening it and then immediately close it and move near the door and get ready. As soon as a man enters the room, draw your weapon and get ready to dodge left or right as soon as he reaches for his gun. Fight him, he’ll surrender when he gets low enough. If you’re high enough level, and you should be at this point, he’ll join you. You’ll otherwise have to fight him again and kill him. Pick up the loot in the chest now, if for some reason you have not yet picked up a Manga Rosa, this will be your first. The 200 diamonds are the main thing here, but obviously grab everything. Return to the wife to hand over half of the diamonds and get your real reward. Oh yeah. Sometimes she robs you, sometimes she doesn’t. Remember the tip Silvestre gave you, exit the room then re-enter and loot the chest by the door, it will have more goodies in it. The lesson here is to keep a cool head and not let hot ladies take advantage of you. Congratulations, you’ve completed all the prerequisites for the Final Lesson! Get Clod set up with some armor, a good weapon, and plenty of potions, he’ll be needing it soon.

The Final Lesson

Quest: The Final Lesson
What to Expect: Two rounds of a mass fight against a group of weak Indians, a mass fight against some much stronger Indians, then an optional final lesson.
Reward: Varies depending on difficulty, crew size, and efficiency in battle: Generally, around 300,000 pesos at best, but could be more or less. You’ll either get a quarter of the reward or the full reward and a bunch of Strategic Goods.
Storm’s Advice: If you bring a War Schooner or Brigantine with full crew, you should be able to pull a pretty sizable haul of Strategic Goods; I managed to get like 60 of everything on my latest run. The titular Final Lesson is significantly easier in CL than it used to be in TEHO, I would even say it’s easier now than the optional fight in Resin Dogs. It’s still pretty hard though, so if you can’t pull it off you should probably just move on and try it again on another playthrough. If you plan on fighting it, you’ll still want to come prepared, as while the backup in the fight are all pushovers now, the big bad himself can easily kill you in one hit. Bring armor and lots of potions, and a musket too if you can. Make sure you load out Clod with armor and potions as well, as he will join the fight as long as you didn’t skip the tutorial.

After completing the previous five quests, land in St. Pierre and Gregoire will be waiting for you. He’ll tell you of a valuable prize all the way at the Southeastern-most part of the map, make sure you depart for this immediately because time is short. Once you arrive in the region, you’ll notice some Dutch and English ships fighting, hope that doesn’t become a problem. Hop over to Boca de la Serpienta Coast, and land to immediately be thrust into a mass battle against a bunch of Indians. They’re pretty weak, but there’s two rounds. Make sure you don’t lose any men here. Once you proceed to the next screen, you’ll meet your old friend Prosper! Or some random guy, if you skipped the tutorial. Everyone has a nice reunion chat and then gets into position, as the real fight is about to begin. Don’t worry about Gregoire and Prosper, they can handle themselves, focus on the big Indian leader and the Musketeers. This fight can be very difficult and you want to make sure your crew survives as it impacts your reward. Loot the leader for some nice amulets, then proceed to the next screen to gather the goods. You’ll be brought back to the beach, where the fight between Nations has landed on the shore, so get rid of them. Try to focus on killing both sides at the same time, so they keep fighting each other instead of you. Once you’re clear, hop back on your ship and avoid the remaining ships as you get out of there, and head back to St. Pierre.

Once you return, Gregoire and Prosper will have a quick chat with you, and you’ll need to head to Lamentin Bay at midnight, alone. Unassign your Vanguards, but make sure Clod is loaded out and get some good gear yourself. Wait until midnight and hop over to Lamentin to go through with the deal. Save here. The reward you get here depends on how many Strategic Goods you recovered, which seems to vary wildly, so I hope you managed to pull at least 50 of each. After the deal, uh oh! Gregoire has betrayed you! If only you had a series of quests before this to teach you valuable lessons that would have allowed you to see this coming, or otherwise were following a walkthrough! Oh wait…

All right, so, here’s the deal. Take a quarter of the reward and walk away, or get one Final Lesson from your teacher. This fight’s much easier now, so if you’re prepared and got through Resin Dogs without issue, it shouldn’t be much of a challenge, here’s the strategy:

Immediately turn and shoot the Indian with the grenade launcher, he’s got so little health that a single shot should kill him, especially if you’re using a musket. Then get about knee-deep in the water and make Greg and his goons follow you. They move very slowly while wading through the water, but you can use your little dodge move to quickly maneuver around and keep your distance. Avoid them while you reload, and shoot down the bodyguards, just watch out for Greg’s pistol. As long as you completed the tutorial, Prosper survived the previous stuff, and Clod has been recruited, you’ll soon get some backup. Prosper will run over near the boat, so try to position yourself so you and Clod can fight Greg within line of sight. Greg will kill Clod very fast even with armor and potions, so try your best to keep his attention on you if you want to keep Clod. The most ideal outcome is that you’ve got a musket and manage to line up timing such that Clod and Prosper shoot at the same time, and you shoot with them. If that can happen, you can likely kill Greg instantly. If not, you’ll have to get through the obscene amount of elixirs he seems to have. Once you finally kill him, you’ll get some pretty nice loot off him, mainly all the money, the Naval Klewang and the double-barrel pistol, not unique but somewhat rare and powerful weapons. Doing all this lets you walk away with all the Strategic Goods as well, which you can either immediately sell to double your profits, or take to a warehouse to stash until needed.

Congratulations on completing the Final Lesson! It’s certainly a lot easier now than it was in TEHO, but I still generally find the rewards underwhelming, especially the officer that is unique but not permanent or immortal. Most of the time, honestly, I just skip these and freeplay before Dutch Gambit. Speaking of, now that you’re done with this you should probably be around Rank 12 and start getting ready for the next chapter! You’ve still got plenty of time to freeplay should you want to, there’s no Rank limit anymore but I would still recommend starting the Dutch Gambit by Rank 15 at absolute latest, otherwise the rewards will feel underwhelming. There are some Honor and Skill requirements depending on which route you want to take in the Dutch Gambit, so check that section now. This is a great time for a manual save.

DLC - Vile Little God

This isn’t exactly a questline per se, but I’m giving it its own section anyway. This is DLC content, so if you don't own Vile Little God, you can't access this. This seems to become available by at least Rank 5, at the very least that’s the earliest I’ve found it so far, and it was right after I completed Caribbean in a Nutshell. This section is a work in progress, as I still need to complete all the tasks myself.

To start, you’ll find a well-dressed Indian walking around a Brothel among the girls. I couldn’t find any particular consistency to where he shows up, it seems to be entirely random whether or not a Brothel you enter will have him in it, but I couldn’t savescum to get him to show up either. Every time I reloaded, he seemed to be in a different Brothel. If anyone can figure out what actually spawns him, let me know. Until then, just keep checking Brothels. I've been told that as of 1.2, Agueybana always shows up in the Panama Brothel, I guess there's finally a reason to go there. Once you find him, he’ll play cards with you, but don’t talk to him just yet. First, go to the Madame’s room, and in the chest in the corner is a “Joker” Talisman, you’ll need to open the chest when the Madame isn’t looking and quickly grab it. If you want, you can equip it now and you’ll pretty much always win at gambling while it lasts. I don’t really think it’s that worth using here, as you won’t really win that much money anyway, and it would be better saved for gambling with Governors later, but To Each His Own. Go back and talk to the Indian now to play cards. You can just win one game and quit, or clean him out; he’s got about 20,000 pesos on him. He’ll then challenge you to dice in a private room. By the way, there’s an Adder stone on the floor near the stairs. Rent the room from the Madame, but pick up the two more Adder stones in here before you head up. One is immediately to your left when you enter, and the other is on the main table. Then, head up to the private room, there’s one more Adder stone next to the bench. Talk to Agueybana to play dice. Again, you can just win one roll and quit, or clean him out; he’s got about 30,000 pesos on him this time. After the game, inquire more about his situation, and he’ll eventually give you 99 Adder stones and a tip to look for an Indian Temple. You’ll need 113 stones to get in, so if you picked up the ones in the Brothel and already collected some as you’ve been playing up to this point, you should probably have enough. There’s another 6 outside the Temple as well, if you’re a little short.

Quest: Vile Little God
What to Expect: A very long process and spending a lot of doubloons (as little as 5000, as much as 30,000), along with sacrificing a unique ship and some unique officers.
Major Task Rewards, in order: 1. Taino Figurine. 2. Machete Conquistador, Hand mortar with 10 grenades, and double-bullet recipe. 3. Increase to the strength of your ship, with decrease to the strength of any of enemy ships, along with faster travel on the Global Map. 4. Access to full re-spec of P.I.R.A.T.E.S. stats. 5. Five additional P.I.R.A.T.E.S. points of your choosing.
Minor Task Rewards, in order: 1. +10 Health and Energy.
Storm’s Advice: You can get this done as quickly or as slowly as you want, but with all the rewards it gives you and particularly the PIRATES rewards, you’ll get more out of it the earlier you do it. Seems the absolute earliest you could finish the Major Tasks is after Dutch Gambit, if you sacrifice that unique ship, and the Minor Tasks is after the Regatta, as you need a Milano Cuirass. Alternatively, you can get a Milano on Justice Island. Just read the tasks further down and prepare what you need.

So, uh, you saw that too, right? Some kind of zombie Indian walking out of the room you woke up in? What the heck was that? Well, anyway, the Temple you’re looking for is over at Amatique Cove, to the right at the second fork. Make sure to bring those 113 stones. There’s also one stone at the top of the stairs, and 5 more along the beach. Go inside, take a look around- AH! KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT! Oh, okay, it’s friendly, I guess. Have a chat with Aruba, he seems to have a lot of spoilers. He’s got some tasks for you, both big and small. The big ones mainly involve huge transactions of doubloons or unique things you’ve earned in the story, while the small ones are errands to run and things to collect. The quest will keep you updated on which major task you’re on, while the document will inform you of the four small tasks, though it’s quite vague; I get the feeling Aruba doesn’t really take this whole God thing very seriously. As far as I know, you can complete the minor tasks in any order, but the major tasks must be done in order. Keep in mind that you can only enter the Temple once per day, but you can turn in multiple tasks in one visit. Always be grateful for the rewards Aruba gives you. Or don’t. Call him out, see what happens. 😉

Aruba's Major Tasks

Your first task is to bring Aruba 2000 doubloons. If you started this at Rank 5, you probably don’t have nearly enough yet, so come back once you do. Buy out Bankers, do some treasure hunting, return stolen ships, it’s pretty easy to make doubloons. You don’t need to carry them with you, thankfully, just leave them in your cabin. Your reward is a useless lump of clay, you really ought to complain about it. Actually, it’s a new ward that improves your carry weight by a lot, can’t wait to use this at Justice Island!

Your second task is to bring Aruba 15 Manga Rosas. Check the Manga Rosa section for where to find them, there’s around 50 in the whole game so you’ll still have plenty for Caleuche and any potions you want to brew. You get multiple rewards from this: Machete Conquistador, a great looking Medium Weapon that also gives +5 to Medium Weapons. Hand mortar, a grenade launcher that you otherwise won’t get until much later in the game, though it’s a bit tricky to use effectively, and 10 grenades to go with it; you’ll need to buy the grenade recipe from a Weapons Vendor to craft more. And lastly a special recipe to make a double bullet charge of either lead balls or grapeshot, pretty cool but unfortunately requires the “Powder Tester” amulet or your gun will explode.

Your third task is to bring Aruba a ship. But not just any ship, THE ship. He wants a unique ship you can only earn from a story mission; seems this can really be any of them. Earliest you could get this done is by handing over the Meifeng, Mirage, or Valkyrie. Unfortunately, I don’t really think there’s a necessarily good choice for this, all unique ships are very nice, but your Dutch Gambit ship is certainly the smallest ship you can hand over. You could consider waiting until the Griffondor, as I certainly never use that ship, but that’s significantly later in the game. Aruba will have some unique dialogue depending on which ship you bring him, and then will give you a blessing in return. As far as Aruba says, your ships will be stronger while enemy ships will be weaker, and time will pass slower at sea. I’m not sure what the exact effect of this is, but it seems like a pretty solid trade for a ship that will gather dust later anyway.

Your fourth task is to bring Aruba blood, and another 3000 doubloons. Preferably someone else’s blood, but you can offer your own as well. If you pay with your own blood, your Vitality will immediately drop to the lowest possible value, but you’re not in any danger and it can be quickly recovered with the Tears of Ixchel Aruba give you, along with a visit to a priest and a few days of rest and sex. However, and most critically, even after recovering you will notice that your Health and Energy have both been permanently reduced by about half, so I would strongly advise against offering your own blood. You can offer any unique officer you have at this point, but I would recommend Clod Duran if you still have him, as he is otherwise a regular officer. There are other options for relatively unimportant unique officers later in the game, but the sooner you do this sacrifice, the sooner you can reap the reward. You also may want to sacrifice more officers later in the next task anyway. You can now speak to Aruba to re-spec your PIRATES stats however you please! You can reduce one as low as 3 or as high as 10, though keep in mind there are two parts of the story where you will gain P, R, and E points, which will be wasted if a stat is already at 10. Any changes to Endurance apply retroactive changes to your max Health gained from Ranks, but not to whatever your starting Health was. I would suggest maxing out Talent, but feel free to do whatever you want. Make sure you don’t leave any unspent points, or they will be lost! Note that all Archetypes have the same number of points to work with, it simply comes down to preference and playstyle.

Your fifth and final task to bring Aruba MORE BLOOD! Or more gold, 5000 doubloons to be exact, the choice is yours. He will ask for five sacrifices or offerings total, granting you a stat point of your choosing for each one, very nice after already getting to re-spec! You can only do one sacrifice or offering per day, but you can just wait 24 hours outside and go back in. These are also unique officers you’ll be sacrificing, so if you wish to keep them you can just pay in doubloons instead, there’s even an achievement if you only pay in doubloons. There are a few officers later in the story I don’t much care for, like Hugo Avendell and Raymond Backer, that I think are prime candidates for sacrifice, but otherwise you should probably avoid throwing away all your permanent and immortal officers. This is the final task and after getting the re-spec, the bonus stat points you get from this are far less urgent, so feel free to put this one off until you have less important officers or otherwise more gold to offer instead.

Aruba's Minor Tasks

I haven’t done all of these yet so I’m mostly guessing at the requirements right now, they seem pretty straightforward though.

Your first task is to retrieve Aruba’s Castilian wife. His wife is the third one you ask, so just keep checking the side rooms of Spanish Governor’s Mansions and talking to the wives until you get who you need, then take her to Aruba. The first two you ask will call the guards, and you’ll have to flee the Town, so moor your ship away from the Fort to escape safely. Wives can be found at: Havana, Santiago, Santo Domingo, San Juan, Caracas, Cumana, and San Jose. The quickest route from where you start is up to Cuba then over to Hispaniola, but you could visit any of them when convenient. It’s not mentioned, but your reward is +10 Health and +10 Energy.

Your second task is to “rescue” 30 captains at sea, and bring them to Aruba. I’m assuming this can be captive captains of any kind; you just need to bring 30.

Your third task is to bring Aruba some Italian apparel. I’m assuming this means the Milano Cuirass, which you won’t be able to get until probably the Regatta at the earliest.

Your fourth and final task is to bring Aruba more Adder stones. I’m assuming 113.

Chapter 3 - The Dutch Gambit

Once you are at least Rank 12 and 3 months have passed from the start of the game, a quest marker will appear at St. Pierre indicating you to return to Michel for further guidance. Upon speaking to him, he will inform you of a power struggle going on between two major powers: the Holland West Indies Company and a very important English Privateer, along with a third power seemingly involved in the background. He gives you a lead for all three, allowing you to choose which route you want to take, so let’s briefly go over what your options are and what the rewards are.

For Holland:

This route is straightforward and has no requirements; simply report to the HWIC building on Willemstad and you will be able to begin. This is the route I feel most players ended up doing in TEHO simply due to the Rank 15 limit the other routes had back then, but regardless I find this route quite rewarding. You’ll get a very nice sum of cash throughout, along with a half-million windfall near the end, and the other rewards are quite nice as well. It can kind of drag on, though, as it keeps asking you to return in a week or two rather than immediately proceed with the next task. There is a very difficult fight in this questline where you are required to use a Harpoon, so if you can train your Light Weapons skill it would help. The unique officer for this route is Longway, while the unique ship is the Meifeng.


Both are very solid. Longway will most likely be the best Navigator you can find at this point in the game, though you will eventually replace him in that role yourself later on. He also makes for a very competent Vanguard, easily filling out the third slot if you’re not keeping Clod, or just want to replace Folke. The Meifeng meanwhile is a smaller version of the Xebec, very solid for a Class 4 ship and one of the fastest and most maneuverable vessels in the game. While it won’t have the durability to keep up with many Class 3 ships, it can still stay relevant for a long time if you have the need for speed.

For England:

Some would call this the “good” route, as you’re generally working in opposition to the more morally dubious characters and Fleetwood’s actions could certainly be described as honorable, if you squint a little. For this route you simply need a positive Honor, at least Honest Captain should do, and at least 30 Navigation, which you should easily have at this point. The rewards for this route are generally less impressive than the other routes, the cash rewards are still nice but you miss out on the half-million windfall the other two routes will get, and there’s no Naval Carbine which is a very nice gun. At the very least, it’s brief, I’ve had no trouble quickly completing this questline in my testing for CL. The unique officer for this route is Charlie Knippel, while the unique ship is the Mirage.


Charlie Knippel is a very talented Cannoneer, you likely won’t find someone else that can reach his skill until much later in the game. However, that’s all he’s good for, as he is an absolutely abysmal Vanguard, and I personally find it wasteful to not use immortal officers as Vanguards. The Mirage, at least, is the highlight of this route (ignore the missing cannons, I forgot to take a screenshot earlier); in my opinion the best unique ship of the chapter. It lacks in maneuverability but has very impressive speed and firepower for Class 4, it will stay relevant for quite a while and outperform any non-unique Class 3 ships with ease.

For Nobody:

I certainly consider this the “evil” route, though many others feel this route is perhaps the most just. You’ll see to the downfall of all other parties, but I find Charles’ actions quite exaggerated and reprehensible. For this route you need negative Honor, at least Rascal should do, and at least 35 in any single Weapons Skill, which may require a little training. The rewards for this route are similar to the Dutch route, with the half-million windfall as well, though it earns more money overall. This route has a bit of a strange progression compared to the other routes, which both had very similar story beats, but otherwise doesn’t waste your time much like the Dutch Route does, except for the first part. The unique officer for this route is Hercule Tonzag, while the unique ship is the Valkyrie.


Hercule Tonzag is easily the highlight of this route, being an immensely impressive Vanguard that I find is only slightly outperformed by one later recruit. He can also serve as a Boatswain, should you need him to, but Vanguard is clearly his specialty. The Valkyrie, unfortunately, I find to be the least impressive unique ship in the chapter. It serves as a bit of a middle ground between the Meifeng and the Mirage, excelling in no particular area. Without as impressive speed and maneuverability as the Meifeng or as impressive firepower as the Mirage, it will struggle to stay relevant for quite as long. I will have no qualms sacrificing this ship to Aruba.

Now that you know what to expect, you are free to begin whichever route you see fit. Head for Curacao if you wish to help the Dutch, head for Antigua if you wish to help the English, and head for Barbados if you wish to oppose both. For whichever path you choose, skip ahead to that section and I’ll start on arrival. The main thing I’ll say about the Dutch Gambit is that it has a fairly interesting story, and you can’t really understand the full picture from just playing a single route. The only particular suggestion I have is that in the current version, 1.1, Hercule Tonzag has a unique quest later on in the story, while Longway and Charlie Knippel do not.

The Dutch Route (Part 1 & 2)

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Holland, Part 1)
What to Expect: An ambush of likely Brigantines but could vary.
Reward: 5000 pesos and a good impression on your boss.
Storm’s Advice: Make sure you’ve put away the Adeline and upgraded to a Class 4 ship at this point, I’m particularly fond of Brigantines myself. This mission is simple, just don’t delay.

Once you arrive in Willemstad, head for the large yellow building near the Vendors, this is the HWIC and will be your new workplace for the time being. Tell the guard that you’re looking for work and he will direct you upstairs to speak with Rodenburg. Mynheer Gerritz in the left corner is also a special Vendor that can sell maps and navigation components. I would recommend checking up with him from time to time, remember that you get a speed bonus on the Global Map if you complete your atlas! Also, you’ll need two Ordinary Maps for later in the story, so hold onto them. Rodenburg has a simple escort job for you, so hop over to the Harbor Master to pick up your charge. It shouldn’t be a very exciting trip, but expect to get ambushed on your way to Saint Martin. Once you’ve finished the escort, Ridderbrock will pay you a whopping 5000 pesos and you can head back to Rodenburg.

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Holland, Part 2)
What to Expect: Probably the most unfair fight in the whole game.
Reward: 25,000 pesos.
Storm’s Advice: Oh my GOD this part sucks. There’s genuinely no real advice I can give you for the first fight here, you’re gonna be stuck in a fight naked, with a Harpoon, and two health potions. He’s at least not that strong, but the next room has an even harder fight. There is at least a trick to get help with it, but it’s not perfect.

Now for a more delicate operation, Rodenburg wants you to serve as a messenger to a representative of an important Bank on Cuba. Curious. He gives you a Trade License so you can easily get into Santiago as long as you have the right Flag, so head on over there and be quick about it, you only have two weeks. It’s a total milk run. Make sure you have some armor and a good weapon on you along with potions. Once you arrive, deliver the message and the five chests of doubloons to the Banker and he’ll ask you to return the next day, so head outside and- huh? I dropped something?

Ow, my head… Guess this isn’t such a milk run after all. All right, all your stuff is gone and you need a plan to get out of here, so look around for something to use as a weapon. A Harpoon! Great! Maybe we can convince him to go fishing with us instead of fighting! Get that equipped. Oh dear, he doesn’t seem too happy with the suggestion. So, yeah, have fun with this fight. Hope you’ve got the timing for feints down, you’re barely gonna be doing any damage regardless. If you’ve got Critical Hit at this point it can help, but beyond that, you’re on your own. Don’t forget about slowing down time if you’re really struggling.

You got him? Great work! Don’t get comfortable though, because you’re not done yet. You can loot a Cutlass off the corpse if you find it preferable to a Harpoon. Head to the next room to fight the real boss, and watch out for his heavy attacks. If you were wondering: No, you can’t save during this part, so if you die you have to do the whole thing over. The only advice I have for this part is that you can actually sheathe your weapon and loot the chest near the fireplace, which has all your belongings. Unfortunately, there’s no “take all” option and it has all your maps too, so you have to scroll past those to get your health potions and ammo. Dodge the enemy and run for the chest, be quick, grab what you need and get it equipped. You should have an easier time; just hope he doesn’t shoot you while you’re looting.

With that ordeal over, grab the rest of your stuff and head back to the Banker for his answer and then you can return to Rodenburg. Feel free to tell him whatever, it doesn’t seem to matter what you say. Berate your officers for letting you get abducted in broad daylight, what the heck were they doing? I’ve half a mind to take them to Aruba after that. Anyway, Rodenburg gives you 25,000 pesos for your trouble, and tells you to come back in a week, so do that.

The Dutch Route (Part 3)

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Holland, Part 3)
What to Expect: A duel against a legend, a ghost ship, and a very angry Englishman on his Patrol Brig.
Reward: 200,000 pesos, 1000 doubloons, The Meifeng, a Talisman “Joker” and its recipe, a Good Spyglass, and a Boussole.
Storm’s Advice: You’ll be losing your ship during this quest, so if you really want to keep it for whatever reason, make sure you moor it elsewhere and bring a burner ship before speaking to Rodenburg. Later on, you’ll be fighting the Valkyrie, which will explode after boarding, so make sure your ship doesn’t take too much damage and you pull the gunpowder off the Valkyrie to limit the explosion. Bring some planks for Combat Repair if you need to.
Return to Rodenburg a week later and he’ll tell you a little story. Sounds like you’re getting wrapped up in some personal affairs, hm. Anyway, you’re going to take control of the Meifeng and its captain, Longway, in order to hunt a ghost ship. You don’t get to keep these quite yet, this is just a taste. First, go moor your ship at the Harbor Master, and then return, but say your goodbyes to that ship. The Meifeng is now on loan to you, so head outside to meet Longway. He’s supposed to approach you immediately, but I’ve had trouble with his spawn and had to re-enter the building and exit again for him to just spawn standing by the vendors. Once you find him, make sure to select the correct dialogue option to be polite and cordial, you'll be notified if he likes it or not, otherwise you won’t be able to recruit him later. Longway will tell you where to find the ghost ship, it’s random every time, so make sure you pay attention and go to the right place. Feel free to use Longway for the time being, just note that he will be leaving shortly. Before you depart, buy some Rum at the Store, that bastard Rodenburg doesn’t believe in providing for his men. Head to the Town Longway told you, and go to the Tavern there to ask the Barkeep about Van Berg.

Van Berg will be waiting upstairs, so head on up and kill the rat. He’s strong, but it’s a straightforward fight, kill him and loot him. He’s got some nice stuff, especially the Joker and the recipe for it, but his ship log is the thing you especially need. Maybe you can start piecing together the story from that, but otherwise it tells you where the Mirage is waiting, so head there next. You can sail right up next to the Mirage, it won’t attack until you do, so manually aim to fire on it and get ready to board. After the fight, make sure you capture the ship and keep both the Meifeng and the Mirage. Go ahead and take control of the Mirage and move the crew over, then head back to Rodenburg to receive 50,000 pesos and your next task. You’ll be saying goodbye to Longway and the Meifeng now.

You need to lure out Fleetwood, so head to Antigua, moor at one of the beaches, head into St. John’s on foot, and speak to John Murdock at his Drugstore. It’s right across from the Harbor Master with a sign that says “Apothecary” so it’s hard to miss. John directs you to talk to Charlie Knippel, a suspiciously familiar-looking old man who lives in a shack to the left of the dock, chainshot to my nuts! Spin a tale for Mr. Gibbs and head back to your ship, you’ll be ready to spring a trap for Fleetwood at Dominica. Once you enter the Local Map for Dominica, the Valkyrie will arrive soon after; you won’t be getting any backup for this, so it’s all up to you. Fleetwood is fairly strong, and there’s two rounds for his fight. Keep your Hull up and try to keep some distance when you board, and loot Fleetwood once you kill him. He’s got some nice stuff, mainly the Good Spyglass if you didn’t get it from Grandee Albalate, but make sure you get his ship log. It’s got some more juicy lore in it so check Documents after. Take all the gunpowder off the ship, then watch the fireworks. Return to Rodenburg for payment, 150,000 pesos and the Meifeng! Shame about your old ship, though. Go to sleep for the night and see the Governor at 8 AM for additional rewards: 1000 doubloons, a Boussole, and a huge boost to Honor and Dutch Reputation. Dang, maybe the Dutch aren’t so stingy after all! Come back to see Rodenburg again in a week, and don’t forget to buy Rum again for your new ship.

The Dutch Route (Part 4)

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Holland, Part 4)
What to Expect: The easiest payday in your life.
Reward: 550,000 pesos (or 50,000 pesos and Talisman “Myrmidon” if you hate money), 100 gold nuggets, 3 Manga Rosas, some amulets.
Storm’s Advice: Look at me, look me in the eyes and listen to me. SELL THE SKULL. There is no reason not to, don’t come at me with that “wahhh but I’m a good person” crap, it’s half a million pesos.

Return to Rodenburg a week later and he’ll tell you another story, and it starts to become clear what that last mission was really about, eh? Time to play matchmaker, but ignore the directions Lucas gives you as it’s for the old map of Willemstad. Abigail’s house is actually immediately to the right as you exit the HWIC, the white building up the stairs. Solomon doesn’t have anything to say yet, so head upstairs to speak with Abigail. Well, well, well! Looks like we’re doing a little treasure hunting! Speak with Solomon, but he unfortunately has nothing helpful for you, it’s a good thing Charles had the foresight to keep the coordinates he found in the two ship logs to himself, as it’s exactly the information you need. There is one piece of information Solomon mentions among his inane rambling that is interesting though, his grandfather’s skull. Head outside and you may just learn a little bit more about it. You should be stopped by a finely-dressed man named Joachim Merriman, and if you aren’t, try going in and out of the building again and looking for him; I don’t know why but he’s a bit buggy too. He’ll invite you to his house for a chat about that skull Solomon mentioned, so follow him and remember where his house is because it will be important later. If there’s a woman inside who says that Merriman doesn’t live there, you’ve found the right place, so head upstairs. Merriman has got a proposition for you: find the skull of Solomon’s grandfather, and he’ll give you half a million pesos for it. Cha-Ching. You have all the information you need now, but there’s a specific thing you need to do to use that information. Go into your cabin and craft a Working Chronometer, you should have picked up the components for it from Van Berg and Fleetwood, but if for some reason you don’t have them then you can savescum at the HWIC and Weapon Vendors. Equip that along with your new Boussole and you can locate the island using Thinking Out Loud. The Boussole is permanent, but the Working Chronometer only lasts 30 days, so now that you’ve pinpointed the location, you just need to head there. You used to have to actually locate the island using coordinates, but now there’s a rather amusing question mark in the Global Map that gives it away, just East of Curacao. Enter the Local Map and hop over to Buccaneers Bay and moor.

There are three Manga Rosas on this island, and while you can return, there’s no real reason to, so just grab them now. The first is behind the rocks immediately to your right. On the next screen, the second one is next to a short palm tree, past the turn. The third one is at the Entrance to the Cave, to the right between two coconut trees. Once you’ve got all three, head into the cave to get your treasure. The 200,000 pesos are for Solomon, the skull you’ll be selling to Merriman (you will be, right?), and the 100 gold nuggets are yours to keep, for some reason nobody asks for them. Head back to Willemstad and take the skull straight to Merriman, I’m not joking, don’t hand that thing over to Solomon, you may as well just throw half a million pesos overboard. You’ll take a huge hit to Honor but you just gained a bunch anyway. After that, hand Solomon his money, get an amulet, and then speak with Abigail, she’ll be happy to marry Rodenburg so go give him the news. He’ll be annoyed that you didn’t find any skull 😉 but otherwise won’t press you on the matter, and pays you 50,000 pesos and an amulet. Michel is gonna be so proud when he hears about all the money you’re making. If for some reason you did hand the skull over to Solomon, then congratulations, you just paid 500,000 pesos for a talisman you’ll likely never use anyway. Feel free to sell those gold nuggets, worth about 20,000 pesos, but otherwise don’t go running off on some other quest as you’ll be stopped by a Dutch officer requesting your presence in about 10 days. It’s possible to break this trigger and soft-lock the questline if you take too long, so save now and stick around.

The Dutch Route (Finale)

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Holland, Finale)
What to Expect: The consequences of your actions, and a 2v2 against a pharmacist and a cyclops.
Reward: A new home, a private doctor, Mixture recipe, Alchemist’s Chest, the truth, and a Naval Carbine.
Storm’s Advice: Suit up before you enter the dungeon, as that’s where the fight will be, and your Vanguards won’t be coming. The Dungeon is an absolute maze so expect to wander around aimlessly for a while. The battlefield is easy to get chokepoints, so try to fight them one at a time and keep your new friend alive, and watch out for their pistols.

After 10 days, you’ll be stopped by a Dutch officer in Willemstad and told to visit Rodenburg, turns out somebody wants you dead… There’s clearly a lot more going on here, but you haven’t pieced it all together yet, guess you better head to Antigua to kill that assassin, before uh, he kills you? What? Once you arrive at St. John’s, you’ll have to go down the hatch behind the Drugstore to enter a Dungeon underneath the shop, navigate through until you find an opening in the wall, where your assassin is waiting for you. Seems he thinks you’re the assassin in this case, but he’s just trying to trick you, to arms! Oh, uh, who’s that behind him? This might be a bit harder than I thought. But wait, what’s that? BANZAI!

That fight was pretty tough for me, especially keeping Longway alive, so I hope you had an easier time with it. Why the heck was John so strong? He’s got some nice stuff on him, but make sure you pick up the keys in particular. The cyclops won’t have anything on him, but man didn’t he seem kinda familiar? Or maybe he didn’t. Assuming Longway survived, he will now join you as a permanent, immortal officer. You may notice he lost some Health and a few Ranks, but gained a few perks. Weird. Head upstairs and loot the archive from the chest by the fireplace, and try not to think about that godawful Harpoon fight from earlier. Head further upstairs and the two rooms will now be open to you, the one on the left has the recipe for the “Spinebiter” Talisman in the nightstand by the bed, which helps prevent mutinies, and the one on the right has a man named Gino Gvineili. Have a chat with him, and he’ll teach you about Alchemy and Latin, if you speak to him again. The notification will say that you received the Antidote recipe, but it’s actually Mixture now. With the Alchemist’s Chest, you can now do all sorts of alchemy crafting, so long as you acquire the Alchemy perk. There’s one last thing to do here, though it’s optional, as you may have noticed Charles comment that the archive you found is encrypted. The cipher is back in the dungeon, in one of the containers of rocks and rubble, feel free to search around down there if you want some extra lore and a few more pieces of the puzzle. The truth hurts.

Head back to Rodenburg for your final reward, a Naval Carbine. You can choose not to hand over the archive, but you don’t get anything. Congratulations! That’s the end of the Dutch Gambit, but there’s two more special things you’ve unlocked for completing this route. First, return to the HWIC after a few days and you’ll meet the new Vice-Director, who will hook you up with a deal for Shipsilk. It’s not great, but it’s something. Second, a new item is now available from Mynheer Gerritz, a special 4-shot rifle that can also be turned into a pistol. This thing is exceedingly rare, I’ve only gotten reports from other people finding it and haven’t found it myself yet, might be based on Rank, but apparently it can also be acquired later on in the story depending on another multi-route questline.

Hope you enjoyed the Dutch Gambit, though I’m sure there are still some questions left unanswered, you’ll just have to do the other routes on another playthrough to find out! I’ll be back at the end of the chapter for a few final words on this questline and what will be coming next.

The English Route (Part 1, 2, & 3)

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (England, Part 1)
What to Expect: A half-crew Dutch East Indiaman and its escort (varies, at least Luggers).
Reward: The respect of Mr. Gibbs, and an Arquebus.
Storm’s Advice: Make sure you’ve put away the Adeline and upgraded to a Class 4 ship at this point, I’m particularly fond of Brigantines myself. This is significantly easier than it used to be in TEHO, as the escort is weaker and the Dutch East Indiaman only has half of its crew. It was kinda insane that the game dropped an overloaded Class 2 ship on you this early back in TEHO. If you’re having trouble with it anyway, try to force it into the Fort of Antigua before engaging. You will lose your current ship after this to be replaced with a quest ship, so moor it elsewhere and pick up a burner ship before returning to Knippel if you want to keep it.

Once you arrive in St. John’s, go left from the dock to find Charlie Knippel’s shack. Have a chat with him, try to remember who he reminds you of while he tells you about the trade ship he wants you to capture. An East Indiaman? Chainshot to my ass! You gotta be kidding me! Thankfully it’s not actually that hard due to crew reductions, but make sure you still bring at least a Brigantine for this. You’ll be looking for a purple ship on the Global Map, sometimes it does what it’s supposed to, sometimes you have to hunt it down, so make sure you save before leaving Antigua. As long as it doesn’t run into any major obstacles, it should depart from Coast Van Hato, sail around the Western side of Martinique, then the Eastern side of Guadeloupe, then sail between Saint Christopher and Antigua to reach Philipsburg. If it hasn’t passed Guadeloupe within a week, something has gone wrong. Once you spot it, engage or attempt to force it into Antigua to get help from the Fort there. Sink the escorts and capture the East Indiaman, it’s got some nice loot in the cabin including an Arquebus. You can take everything else, heck, even the cannons, just don’t touch the silver as you will fail if even a single bar is out of place. Also, if you want to keep your current ship, make sure to moor it somewhere else and pick up a burner ship before you go back to Antigua. Return it to Knippel to hand it over, and he’ll tell you to come back tomorrow. Return tomorrow, and it turns out someone tried to assassinate your prospective employer! Attacked by a cyclops, oh dear. He survived at least, so follow Knippel to his house to meet him.

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (England, Part 2)
What to Expect: The Flying Dutchman!
Reward: 200,000 pesos, the Mirage, Talisman “Joker” and recipe, and a Boussole.
Storm’s Advice: The Mirage is no joke, nor is its captain, but you can actually beat it really easily by just hanging out at Barbados and letting it come to you; the lunatic is so committed to sinking the Valkyrie that he’ll suicide rush you under the Fort.

Once you’ve chatted with Fleetwood upstairs, pick up your payment from that last mission and the mooring fee in the drawer next to him, and head over to the Harbor Master to drop off your ship. Return to Fleetwood and he’ll give you command of his Valkyrie, tasking you with baiting out the Mirage and capturing it. Knippel will tag along; he’s only temporary for now but feel free to use him as Cannoneer as he’s quite skilled. Pick up some Rum before you go, Fleetwood’s blind ass missed that part of the shopping list, and then head for Barbados. In Bridgetown, you will need to speak to: The Shopkeeper, the Shipwright, the Barkeep (one eye? Odd…), the Governor, the Banker, the Brothel Madame, and the Harbor Master. Once you’ve chatted with each of them, your Journal will update telling you you’re clear to go, so hop back on your ship and head to sea; you’ll be attacked by your target shortly. Van Berg is a tough fight, and has two rounds, so don’t underestimate him. Loot him for his ship log and other stuff, that Joker is a pretty nice talisman, and don’t forget to read the new lore you got in Documents. Capture the ship, making sure to keep both, and take control of the Mirage as you’ll be handing the Valkyrie back to Fleetwood when you return. Fleetwood will pay you another 100,000 pesos and give you a Boussole, then tell you a story. Also, Knippel has left your service for now, so don’t forget to assign another Cannoneer. Shame about your old ship, but you get to keep the Mirage! Too bad Fleetwood cleaned it up for you, I liked the ghost ship look.

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (England, Part 3)
What to Expect: An ancient zombie curse!
Reward: 3 Manga Rosas, and a… skull?
Storm’s Advice: Equip the Chieftain’s Talon dagger before you go into the cave, its specialty is heavy attacks and feints, you can thank me later.
So, Fleetwood got himself a girlfriend, eh? Head over to Willemstad to pick her up, she lives in the white house left of the HWIC HQ, which is the large yellow building. Chat with the old guy, turns out Abigail is at the Church, chat with her and it turns out you will need to find this island everyone’s talking about after all. Luckily, you already have the coordinates, so head to your cabin, craft a Working Chronometer from the components you should have looted in the last two parts or buy them in Willemstad, and use Thinking Out Loud to pinpoint the island’s location. Once you’ve got it, head out, it’s just East of Curacao, you can track the coordinates or just go to the giant ? in the water. Land at Buccaneers Bay, there’s three Manga Rosas you’ll want to pick up here: The first one is next to the rocks to your left. On the next screen, the second one is next to a short palm tree past the turn. The third one is at the Entrance to the Cave, to the right between two coconut trees. Switch to your dagger, then head inside; the chest is on your left, you can handle it from here. 😉

So that was pretty crazy, huh? Bet you thought I was joking about the zombie thing. Why the hell did it have a double-barrel pistol? Well anyway, go get the treasure from the chest now and uh… Oh dear. Not the skull we were expecting. Well, better report back to your boss, so get back to Antigua.

The English Route (Finale)

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (England, Finale)
What to Expect: The consequences of your actions, a pretty rough 1v2, and the Meifeng.
Reward: A new home, a private doctor, Alchemist’s Chest, Mixture recipe, 400,000 pesos, Charlie Knippel, the truth, Tears of Ixchel, and a bunch of other nice loot off Rodenburg.
Storm’s Advice: The battle in the dungeon is rough, so suit up and just focus on chokepoints so you only have to fight them one at a time. Make sure you keep some distance when boarding the Meifeng and take all its gunpowder, as that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Rodenburg has nothing left to lose.

Tell Fleetwood what just happened. To be fair, I don’t believe it either, and I was there. Go investigate Bridgetown, see if that head really is the same as the Barkeep you spoke to. Looks like there is a new barkeep, and he’s got a note for you from Gaston, or rather, Hercule Tonzag, so give it a read in your Documents. Such a sad ending for him, he really didn’t seem like such a bad guy after all, compared to the other two parties at least. Looks like there’s someone for you to meet back in St. Johns, but head to Curacao first to meet Knippel at Blanca Lagoon.

He hands you a letter when you arrive, so give it a read in your Documents. Well, it seems like Fleetwood has flown the coop and dumped this whole mess in your lap, great… At least you got the money and Knippel is willing to work for you full time now, so welcome aboard, Mr. Gibbs! What was that stuff about the Chavinavi and the God of Death, though? Creepy…

Once you get back on your ship, a Dutch Patrol will be after you in the Curacao waters. I wouldn’t recommend fighting it, so take flight and make your way back to St. John’s after, it’s time to meet this chemist. You’re looking for a hatch behind the Drugstore, which is just across from the Harbor Master.

Make sure you equip yourself before you head down, John isn’t known for his hospitality. Navigate your way through the dungeon until you find the opening in the wall, go ahead and save here because you’re about to get into a rough 1v2 against John and that Chinese you’ve heard about. John doesn’t buy your story, and attacks. Watch out for their guns, focus on chokepoints, and good luck.

How was it? John’s pretty ridiculously strong, I don’t really know what that’s about. Make sure you loot him, he’s got the archive and two letters on him, so check your Documents. You’ve almost got the full picture, but you need to decipher the archive, so exit back out of the dungeon and re-enter, then the cipher will have spawned in one of the containers of rocks or rubble. Read the document once you find it. Looks like we know what happened with that island now, eesh, Hercule really got it rough. And who is this Joachim Merriman? Well, you need to find Rodenburg now, but you’ll need to piece together where he is by reading the documents you’ve gotten up until now.

So, you figured out he’s at Esmerelda Bay on Cayman Island? Great work. 😉 Head over there now and be ready for a fight, the Meifeng won’t go down easily and it’ll blow its hold after you board, so bring some planks if you want to use Combat Repair before boarding. Rodenburg is a tough bastard, with two rounds, so be prepared. He’s got some nice stuff on him, the same Naval Klewang you may have already gotten off Gregoire, a dueling pistol, and a good spyglass, so don’t forget to loot him. Loot his cabin too, there’s a bunch of good stuff here, especially the Tears of Ixchel. Remember to take the gunpowder out of his hold, because it’s about to blow! Head to the beach and dock, there’s a bit more loot in the cave on the island: another 200,000 pesos and the keys to the Drugstore, but uh, what were they doing here?

Congratulations! You’re technically done with the questline here, but don’t forget to head back to Antigua and check out your new house, you’ll just need to go through the dungeon one more time. Upstairs are two rooms, one has the recipe for the Spinebiter talisman in the nightstand by the bed, and the other has Gino Gvineili. Chat with him to learn about Alchemy and Latin, if you speak to him again. He also gives you the recipe for Mixture, though the notification says Antidote. With the Alchemist’s Chest, you can now do all sorts of alchemy crafting, so long as you acquire the Alchemy perk. I guess the only question left is, where the heck is the half a million pesos John got from Merriman?!

Hope you enjoyed the Dutch Gambit, though I’m sure there are still some questions left unanswered, you’ll just have to do the other routes on another playthrough to find out! I’ll be back at the end of the chapter for a few final words on this questline and what will be coming next.

The Secret Route (Part 1, 2, & 3)

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Secret Organization, Part 1)
What to Expect: A huge waste of time most likely.
Reward: 30,000 pesos, a dirty conscience.
Storm’s Advice: Make sure you’ve put away the Adeline and upgraded to a Class 4 ship at this point, I’m particularly fond of Brigantines myself. If you need to reduce your Honor, throw surrendered crews overboard or buy extra ships to ram and sink. No trick to this mission, you’re just gonna have to ask the Barkeep at every Spanish Port until you find the guy you’re looking for. Be quick, you only have two months.

Once you arrive in Bridgetown, head to the tavern. Always the best place to go for intel, but funnily enough the Barkeep is literally the guy you’re looking for. He gives you a straightforward assassination mission, but no further details, so time to go on a wild goose chase. Head to a Spanish Port, ask the Barkeep, move on if your target isn’t there. I’d suggest starting in San Jose just south of here, and going along the Spanish Main from there. I got really lucky one time, he was in the third place I checked, and really unlucky another time, being in the last possible Spanish Port. It’s completely random, far as I can tell determined when you start the quest, so you can’t really savescum it efficiently. So… Have fun. Once you finally find the guy, he’ll either be somewhere in Town or on a boat near Port: If in Town, just jump him and hope no guards get involved, kill and loot him, and get out. If he’s on a boat nearby, you’ll have to attack and board it, and hope he’s far enough from the Fort. Kill and loot him, then flee the Fort. Make sure you grabbed everything on him, you have to hand it all over to Gaston. Return to him and get your pay: 30,000 pesos.

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Secret Organization, Part 2)
What to Expect: A suicide mission.
Reward: A Schooner.
Storm’s Advice: You’re going to lose your ship on this job, and unlike the other routes you don’t get a quest ship to borrow, so make sure you keep it. A simple trick to this is to buy a Lugger to use as your flagship, the Lugger will be lost but the ship you want to keep in the second slot of your squadron will be fine. There will be a fight on the stairs, remember your chokepoints!

Another job right away, sneak into Richard Fleetwood’s house on Antigua. Get there fast, you have to do this on the tenth day after receiving the quest, at 1 AM. Pick up a burner ship now because you’re going to lose your ship. On 1 AM of the tenth day, head into the house left of the Governor’s Mansion. Upstairs, there will be a guard by the window, don’t talk to him; just pull out your weapon and shoot him, then loot him for the key to the next room. Pick up the ship log from the drawer under the window, and get ready for a fight because you’re gonna get jumped on your way out by a bunch of Red Coats with double-barrel pistols, so have fun with that. After you win, the fighting will spill out onto the streets, but it looks like someone is coming to your rescue! Ack, vision… fading…

Looks like this kind fellow John Murdock has tended to your wounds, and informed you of your ship being impounded. Or maybe not, apparently you can keep your ship based on some hidden check, but plan on losing your ship here. He wants you to meet your savior at night, so grab the Spinebiter Talisman recipe in the nightstand beside your bed, then head downstairs and into the back door to go down into the Dungeon after dark. Make your way through the maze and then up the ladder, oh, it’s Gaston! Or rather, Hercule Tonzag. Looks like Hercule has even more work for you, and you owe him one after that rescue. He also says he’s giving you his Lugger, but he actually gives you a Schooner; not a bad ship by any means, but I’m glad I kept my Brigantine with that little trick. Hey, wait a minute! We didn’t get paid!

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Secret Organization, Part 3)
What to Expect: A Brigantine captained by Mr. Gibbs, a dive into degeneracy, a mass battle against Fleetwood and his men, and the Valkyrie.
Reward: 200,000 pesos, Ometochli Tincture, The Valkyrie.
Storm’s Advice: Hope you saved your good ship in that last mission, because you’ll have to fight a Brigantine now and then the Valkyrie in a bit, and that ship is no joke. You get to keep it, at the very least.

After your chat with Hercule, swing around to the front of the Drugstore to talk to John. John needs to look for a lead for you, so come back again in a week. John doesn’t have much for you, aside from Fleetwood’s sweetheart living on Curacao and Charlie Knippel being sent to pick her up. Gee, John, that’s kinda exactly the kind of weakness we were looking to exploit. Charles has a plan, so go intercept Knippel’s ship before it reaches Curacao. It won’t actually be on the Global Map; you’ll simply catch it once you enter the Local Map of Curacao. Knippel’s ship won’t put up much of a fight, so just take him down and take him prisoner, then head into your Hold to chat with him. Wow, did you really need to kill him? Okay… Well, continue on to Willemstad to go meet this sweetheart of Fleetwood’s, her house is the white one to the left of the HWIC Headquarters, which is the large yellow building. Talk to the old man, and have a… delightful chat with him. Charles, come on man… Abigail will finally walk in, so head upstairs to talk with her.

After the talk, wait 24 hours and go pick her up, time to take her to Antigua. Go speak with John to fill him on your plan, and a bit more antisemitism to boot. Now go to your cabin to chat with Abigail, and bring her to John. Once Abigail is upstairs, it’s time to go into the dirty details of the plan. This whole ordeal is really why I don’t like this route, and find it far more evil than other people tend to describe it as; the stuff Charles has been saying lately is awful and this plan is just… vile. Maybe Charles is just bluffing? With the dialogue he’s been saying so far and how he just put Knippel down like a dog, it doesn’t really seem like it to me. I generally play the game with high Honor, so it’s particularly out of character for me, but you won’t even see Charles get this bad in a later questline where he gets caught up in a whirlwind of affairs with a lot of really bad people. For crying out loud, even John balks at the stuff Charles says and does in this route, and he’s supposed to be with the shadowy organization! Anyway, let’s move on.

Head to the Tavern in the evening to find Jack Harrison, a beggar, and pay him to deliver the horrible letter. Follow him on the delivery, to make sure he doesn’t mess anything up, he’ll be in there for about 15 minutes, then speak to him again when he gets back to the Tavern. Have a quick chat with John and then head out; Turks is Northwest, at the top of the map. Land at Southern Bay, then walk to Northern Bay. Your Journal will update that the ambush is ready, so wait a few days until Fleetwood arrives. Fleetwood came prepared, but luckily so did you. Won’t be an easy fight, try to deal with the Redcoats first so everyone can just gang up on Fleetwood. Fleetwood won’t have anything important on him, just regular captain stuff, but now it’s time for your real prize: The Valkyrie! Get back to your ship and sail around until you find it, it should start on the other side of the island, then take it as your own! There’s 200,000 pesos along with some other nice things in the cabin, which Fleetwood was going to give to Abigail, so don’t forget to loot the chest. That Ometochli Tincture is great for battles against groups of enemies, like the one you were just in. Congrats on the new ship, a fine prize. Head back to Antigua to report to John on your success.

The Secret Route (Part 4 & Finale)

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Secret Organization, Part 4)
What to Expect: A Brigantine, and the Meifeng with Longway.
Reward: A Brigandine, Hercule Tonzag, 250,000 pesos, and a Boussole.
Storm’s Advice: The Meifeng is a wily ship, try to shred its sails so you can get close, you don’t need to worry about preserving it beyond just simply capturing it. Don’t bring more than two ships to Saint Christopher or you will fail the quest.

John wants you to comfort Abigail, so go chat with her, then head back into the Dungeon to speak with your partners. Hercule will give you a Brigandine, a very nice light armor that serves as a great alternative to the Trench Cuirass. Now John wants you to deal with Rodenburg, it seems you’re just solving all their problems… Hercule is going to join you from now on, make him your full-time Vanguard, he’s fantastic. Time to lay an ambush for a courier ship coming from Philipsburg, so set up near Saint Christopher and wait for the purple sails. Once you’ve captured the ship and your message has been sent, sail down to Willemstad to see the result, make sure you make any repairs and pick up more crew on the way, you’re about to get into another fight. Seems the Meifeng is sitting in Port, so why don’t you head to the tavern and see if any patrons know more about it, a few drinks should loosen a Drunk’s tongue. Interesting, there’s a lot going on on the Dutch side of things, you should intercept the Meifeng before it finishes its journey so you can question this Longway yourself.

The purple ship will be departing from Coast Van Hato, just sail north for a bit before exiting to the Global Map so that you can easily spot it. You’ll need to capture the ship, so make sure you don’t sink it! You won’t be keeping it after, so just take control and leave an officer in charge of the Valkyrie, you need to be commanding the Meifeng for this next part. Have a chat with Longway in your Hold, it was nice of him to actually surrender instead of forcing you into a second round, and he’ll agree to spill the beans if you take him to Cape Inaccessible. Also, holy hell Charles, bring it down a notch please. After you drop off Longway and get his intel, it’s time to head for Saint Christopher. To be honest, I’m surprised Charles actually let Longway walk away alive, considering everything else he’s done on this route. Oh right, you’re also being hunted by the Ghost Ship, so uh, don’t forget about that…

Approach Stuyvesant’s Galleon in the Meifeng, and send a boat to have a chat with him. Seems he believes you, for the most part, so let’s deliver him to Willemstad to see about stopping this coup. Once you arrive on Willemstad, you can swap back over to your Valkyrie, as you’ll sadly be giving up the Meifeng. Stuyvesant will meet you on the street, and you’ll be heading to the Governor’s Mansion to confront Rodenburg. After that fun little cutscene you’re brought to the Prison, where you can gloat to Rodenburg a little, then head outside to meet the final player in this little game: Joachim Merriman. Seems he’s got a proposition for you, so follow him to his house. Remember this location, as you’ll need to revisit it later in the game; you’ll know you’re in the right place if there’s a woman downstairs who says Merriman doesn’t live there. Head upstairs to chat with the doctor, and he’ll tell you about the Jewish treasure and a jade skull, which he’s willing to pay half a million pesos for, oh my! We’ll worry about that in a bit though, first you need to visit the Governor tomorrow to get your reward. Head there after 9 AM, to be awarded a whopping 250,000 pesos and a Boussole, nice! Time to head back to Antigua.

Quest: The Dutch Gambit (Secret Organization, Finale)
What to Expect: The consequences of your actions, two ambushes, and the Ghost Ship with Jacob Van Berg.
Reward: 600,000 pesos, 100 gold nuggets, 3 Manga Rosas, Talisman “Joker” and recipe, a new home, a private doctor, Alchemist’s Chest, Mixture recipe, and a Naval Carbine. Also, an additional 200,000 pesos, if you’re a true bastard.
Storm’s Advice: Be ready to fight after you pick up the treasure, you’ll be ambushed twice after picking up the treasure in the cave and they aren’t pushovers, then it’s finally time to face the Flying Dutchman herself. Van Berg will have two rounds and will blow the ship up after, so be careful when you board. Also, man, just give Abigail her money, do one good thing in this godforsaken route.

Chat with John once you get back to St. John’s, seems that whole Van Berg thing is going to be a real problem. John’s locking the place down, so go pick up Abigail from the Church and take her home; you really ruined this girl’s life, huh? Bring her back to her dad, and it looks like it’s time to track down that island everyone’s been talking about. Conveniently, some guy just knows exactly where it is, so head to the Harbor Master to ask about this lead. Turns out he’s hanging out near Trinidad, so head over to Scarborough Cove to find his ship in the Local Map. Make sure you patch up your ship and fill up your crew before heading out, and just be prepared for the final fight. After you’ve spoken to the captain, you now know the exact coordinates you need, so craft yourself a Working Chronometer from the components you should have looted earlier, or buy them at Willemstad. Once you have both navigation instruments equipped, use Thinking Out Loud in your cabin to find the island, then head over there. The ? gives it away, East of Curacao.

Land at Buccaneers Bay, there’s 3 Manga Rosas you’ll want to pick up while you’re here. The first is next to the rocks immediately to your left. On the next screen, the second is next to a small palm tree past the turn. The third one is at the Entrance to the Cave, to the right between two coconut trees. After you’ve got them, head into the cave to pick up the treasure: 200,000 pesos, 100 gold nuggets, and that half-a-million-peso skull. Cha-Ching. Uh oh, pirates! At least you have a free chokepoint, but get ready because there’s gonna be more on the way back to your ship, at least your Vanguards will help. Watch out for the muskets! Done? Now get on your ship, it’s finally time to face Van Berg! Keep your distance when you board, and make sure your Hull is high enough, because it’s gonna blow after. Van Berg is tough, and has two rounds, so make sure you’re stocked up on healing. He will have a really nice axe, a dueling pistol, and a Joker with the recipe on him. Also, a good spyglass, nice if you didn’t get it from Grandee Albalate. Make sure you take all the gunpowder and then watch the fireworks!

Time to head back to Willemstad to deliver the skull to Merriman for that huge reward. Now go visit Abigail to save her from poverty in this horrible story of hers. Or don’t, and keep it all to yourself, you monster. Why don’t you just go put her out of her misery then? All you need to do now is return to John, he locked up his shop so you’ll have to go through the dungeon. John gives you yet another 100,000 pesos and a Naval Carbine, along with the keys to his house. He’s leaving, so it’s yours now. Head upstairs, in the second room is Gino Gvineili, who gives you an Alchemist’s Chest and the Mixture recipe, though the notification says Antidote. Don’t forget to pick up the Alchemy perk to start crafting potions! Speak to him again to ask about learning some Latin. Congratulations on finishing the questline!

Hope you enjoyed the Dutch Gambit, though I’m sure there are still some questions left unanswered, you’ll just have to do the other routes on another playthrough to find out! Now on to the end of the chapter for a few final words on this questline and what will be coming next.

End of the Dutch Gambit

Well, that was quite an interesting adventure, huh? If you want to know all the answers, you’ll just have to play all three routes. Though, in my opinion, there’s still some unanswered questions in the Secret Organization route regardless, considering you never really learn anything about who Hercule was working for. Apparently, that will be answered in his special quest later in the game, at least. You’re probably feeling pretty rich right now, especially if you just got off the Secret Organization route, making a cool 1.25 million pesos total. Time to go free your brother, right? Well, not quite. I’d actually suggest putting that million you should easily have by now, if not more, into a Bank to start collecting interest, as there’s quite a lot of other things you’ll be doing before paying off Michel’s debt. By the way, this is a great time for a manual save.

There are a few side quests available now that the Dutch Gambit is complete, which I’ll go over in the intermission, and two more paralogues to start after that. You have to wait six months to start the next paralogue, the Caleuche, so in the meantime take a break and do some freeplay and get the available side quests done, maybe even work on Slave Trader a bit. The one after that, Flying the Jolly Roger, can technically be started immediately once you report back to Michel, but I would personally suggest putting that off and doing Caleuche first. If you’ve got Vile Little God, consider sacrificing your new unique ship to Aruba for the reward, as you won’t get any other ships able to be sacrificed until Flying the Jolly Roger at the earliest.

Just a quick reminder: I hope you’ve been doing Stolen Ship missions or otherwise working on your Reputation, as once you get to Flying the Jolly Roger, you’ll be taking significant hits to your Spanish and Dutch Reputation. I’m already up to Excellent or Admiration with all Nations at this point, so if you’re not even up to Excellent yet then make sure to start picking up more Stolen Ship missions!

End of the Walkthrough for now, thanks for reading!

[StormRangerX]

Far as I know that's just a bug.

[Le Darko]

Is there any other quest on San Jose after Price of Consumption? I did that one, then also returned a week later for the Spaniard to give me the strategic goods offer. He did say something about the Mines or such but I didn't get a new quest or anything yet I still have a quest marker on San Jose and I cannot find anything.

[StormRangerX]

Yes.

[canofbeenz]

stupid question probably- but are the DLC from TEHO included in the base game?

[StormRangerX]

No idea

[Le Darko]

And another issue. I raided and plundered San Jose, but after talking to the Governor and looting everything, I can leave his mansion and not re-enter it, but I also cannot leave the town at all.

What am I missing? I genuinely cannot interact with anything and I am effectively locked in the city

[Le Darko]

Yes, what I meant was that I'd like to replace the tavern officer with Longway, but Longway cannot be used as a companion. So now I need to train Longway to be as good as Folke and use Folke as a companion :p

[StormRangerX]

Oh, well you said Longway. Anyway if you assign a disloyal officer as a companion he will still leave and take the ship with him so don't do that.

[Le Darko]

Ohhh you didn't understand.

I meant that I hired a tavern officer. And they do not tend to stick around mainly if you aren't exactly, uh, "honest" :p.

[StormRangerX]

I don't believe he can, but I'm also pretty sure that dialogue has to do with his new quest, you shouldn't be ignoring it.