Uncharted Waters 2

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• Sailors
• Ships
• Sailing
• Trading
• Fighting
• Royal Quests
• Character Walkthroughs
• Miscellaneous

SAILORS

Sailors for hire are either found at the Pub or the Lodge. Note that you can only have a maximum of 30 sailors with you (including those that join you at the start of the game but excluding yourself). Bear in mind that a mate can never die and cannot be sacked by you. The only way of getting rid of a mate is if he wants to leave you.

Hence it is essential to know the statistics of a sailor before you hire him. I have compiled a list of sailors in Excel Worksheet format that are available for hire and their statistics. Note that the location of the sailor may change monthly. If you can find him at the port, try the neighbouring ports.

List of Sailors Available for Hire

Hiring Sailors and Experience Levels

To hire a sailor at the pub, you must treat him until he says that 'he has a knack for .....' before you can hire him. Note that your navigation or battle levels must not be too far below him or he will refuse you. Hiring a high level mate is not necessarily better since more experience is required to increase in level. As a sailor's statistics increase with each level gained, you might find that hiring a low level sailor would be much better in the long run.

Loyalty

Having loyal mates is essential if you do not want them to disappear during battle. Loyalty is affected by the sailor's wages and your relationship with the country that he is loyal to. Hence if your country with Spain is -100, you would need a very high pay to keep those who are loyal to Spain happy. Note that there is also a friendship value with Piracy that is not displayed in the game.

SHIPS

Here is a list of all the ships available in the game. Note that certain ships are not available until the Industry of a port reaches a certain level. The maximum speed obtainable is 20 knots. Note that with some of the smaller ships, their top speed is much less than this value.

List of Ships

Some of the better suited ships for various purposes are listed here:

ADVENTURE:

• Sloop: With the minimum crew of 5 and maximum food/water, you can travel for almost 245 days.
• Kansen/Atakabune: Very high Tacking and Power attributes makes this ship very manuverable. Furthermore, both of these ships has oars. However only available in Japan and thus may not be available to characters until much later.

PIRACY:

• Venetian Galeass: The best ship available normally. Fairly managable with oars.
• Full-rigged ship: The ultimate battleship with max 500 crew and 150 guns. However, it is quite difficult to manage and it has no oars. Furthermore, you have to invest in Antwerp until the Industry reaches 1000 before it is available.

TRADE:

• Xebec : This is usually the first ship that I buy. Decent load capacity and statistics.
• Venetian Galeass: This ship can also be remodeled to be a trading vessel with minimum crew and no guns.
• Tekkousen: Best trading ship in the game as it has a very large capacity. It is very easy to manage and has oars too. However, this ship is only available in Japan when Industry reaches 1000.

SAILING

Experience

The most important statistic for sailing is Seamanship. This determines how fast your ship can go. Experience for sailing is gained by taking the square of the number of days travelled. Thus it would be more beneficial to go on one long trip rather than many short trips. All captains, the First Mate, Bookeeper and Chief Navigator gets double experience.

Number of Days at Sea

To estimate the maximum number of days that a ship can travel, you can use this formula:

(Cargo Capacity) / (Crew) x 5

Of course this is assuming that you stock equal amounts of food and water. Note that scurvy becomes a problem after about 50 days of sailing.

Heath and Rations

Crew health is also important when it comes to performance. Set rations at 100% and make sure there is food/water in the ship's cargo hold for health to rise. Once health reaches 100%, you can set rations to 90% to save money. Note that your First Mate still gives estimates based on 100% rations so you can usually travel about 10% longer at 90% rations.

Random Events

There are various random events in this game, all bad:

• Storms: Occurs near Argin to San Jorge, Calicut to Ceylon, Nagasaki to Sakai, Havana to Santo Domingo and at Suva (Fiji). Very dangerous as your whole fleet might sink in seconds. Use a Balm (available at Barcelona, Beirut, Bordeaux, Goa, Santo Domingo, Zeiton) to stop or prevent the storm.
• Disappearing Ships: Bermuda Triangle and east coast of Phillipines. You lose your ships, nothing can be done about this.
• No wind: Middle of the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean near Naalehu (Hawai). Try to get your whole fleet to have ships with oars and you won't have this problem.
• Flaming Bird: The Nile and when sailing towards Timbaktu. Your last ship gets damage; just repair itwith lumber.
• Sirens: Near Belgrade, lose some of your crew.
• Tentacles: Also lose crew members.
• Tornado: East coast of India, you lose all your goods but not essentials like food, water, lumber and shot.
• Ghost Ship: Off the coast of Norway, drains your luck.
• Flourescent Light: South Africa. Not very sure what this does.
• Manta Ray: Near San Jorge. Think this is harmless.
• Scurvy: Happens on long journeys (more than 50 days). Some of your crew will die. Use Lime Juice (Algiers, Athens, Panama, Syracuse, Valencia, Zeiton) for a temporary cure but the best solution is still to call at a port.
• Rats: After about 30 days of travel. Eats up your food. Use Rat Poison (Alexandria, Antwerp, Argin, Calicut, Naples, Santo Domingo) or a Cat (Mecca, Nagasaki, Sakai, Zeiton)

Having a high Luck and good Figureheads reduce the chances of these events occuring. Luck is a hidden character data and can be increased by praying or donating money at churchus.

Pirates

Most pirates leave you alone unless you are foolish enough to gossip with them but there are 2 of them that will hound you for the whole game. They are Idin Leis and Khayr ad-Din. They usually sail with Venetian Galeass so keep a sharp lookout for fleets that have oars that seems to be following you. There are 3 ways of dealing with pirates:

1. Defeat them in battle: Only possible when you have build your fleet up. Note that they will get a brand new fleet quickly and hunt you down again and again........sigh
2. Avoid them: Have a fast fleet and outmanuever them in open seas. The pirates are not very smart and will follow your path exactly instead of trying to outflank you. So as long as both of you don't end up together in the same square it should be ok. However if you are trapped in a river, try to slip by them at night as they can't attack you then. They will eventually give up and change targets. Resting in the Lodge for several days will NOT help as all computer ships 'freeze' whenever you enter a port.
3. Surrender: This is usually the option early in the game. They will take all your cargo but not your essentials and all your gold you are carrying exept for 5,000 gold pieces. If you deposit all your gold in the bank and are not carrying any goods, you have nothing to lose. In fact, if you have less than 1,000 gold on you, the pirates will give you gold instead.

Another way to avoid pirate attack can be considered a cheat. If you name yourself Black Beard, no pirates would attack you. The trade-off is that your luck would be very low for the whole game.

TRADING

Goods Sold

There are usually two categories of goods sold at each port. The first would be the speciality goods that is more or less unique to that port and the second would be the general goods sold at that region. There are 13 different regions in the game and you can tell which region you are in by looking at the top right hand corner ( For example, Lisbon is in Iberia and Istanbul is in the Ottoman Empire).

The 13regions are Iberia, Northern Europe, Mediterranean, Ottoman Empire, North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central America, South America, Middle East, India, Southeast Asia and the Far East. Different regions stock different goods and also have different buying and selling prices. Each region has 9 preset goods for sale that will become available as the Economy of the port increases. Thus the need to invest in the port for more goods to be available.

I have compiled the speciality of every port in the game and their prices. I have also compiled a list of the selling and buying prices of every goods in each region.

List of Specialties

List of Goods' Prices

Bargaining

Always refuse the price that a merchant first quotes as you can always buy at a lower price. If you have the Negotiation skill or a Bookeeper, the bargaining will be done automatically. If not you have to do it by trial and error.

The amount of discount you can get is based on your rank and whether the port is allied with your country. The base discount is 5%. For each rank you obtain, you get an additional 5% discount for a grand total of 50% when you become a Duke. (see Royal Quests)

The best bookeeper in the game would be Zaganos Bei from Cairo. A good substitue before you get him is Antoine Fitch from London. As his seamanship is pretty decent too, you can still make him a Captain after hiring Zaganos Bei.

Note that you can also bargain when selling things at the Item shops, just keep refusing to accept his price until he offers a higher one. This may require several attemphs though.

Tax-Free Permits

Getting a tax-free permit is pretty important as it saves you a lot of money in the long-run. The tax-rate is set at 20% which works out to be a 16.67% discount off the post-tax prices. You can obtain tax-free permits from 2 sources, the ruler of the country or from the Black Market. Note that tax permits expire every April and October so please take note of the time when you buy one.

The cost of a tax-free permit from a ruler starts at $60,000 for a Page and decreases by $10,000 for each rank obtained. Thus, if you are an Earl and above, the permit is free! (see Royal Quests)

Purchasing from the Black Market (between 2am to 3am at item shops) costs a flat fee of $10,000 and are only available at certain ports:

• Portugal: Salonika
• Spain: Azov
• Turkey: Tripoli
• England: Danzig
• Italy: Syracuse
• Holland: Antwerp

Trade Routes

The starting of the game is pretty tough because you have so little money. One way to get rich fast is to buy glass beads from Amsterdam or any of the Mediterreanean ports. At 3 gold pieces per item, you can easily afford it. Then sail to the port of Madiera in West Africa. This port is located about 1 to 2 days journey SW of Lisbon and you can sell your glass beads for 50 gold pieces! Furthermore, you can buy sugar here to sell in any European port. Due to the close proximity of this port to Europe and the lack of bad weather, you might consider investing here to be able to buy goods like cacao, amber and gold which all fetch a high price in Europe.

There are many trade routes in the game but the best would be where the 2 goods are in the same category and the ports are very near (1 to 2 days travel). A few of them are listed below:

• Lisbon (Olive Oil) to Madiera (Sugar): For those with little capital since these 2 goods are pretty cheap.
• Copenhagen (Glassware) to Hambug (Dye)
• Venice (Glassware) to Ragusa (Dye): Some investment in Ragusa required first
• Istanbul (Carpet) to Athens (Art): Beirut (Carpet) would be better since you can make it an allied port but it requires some investment first.

If you have to sail to a certain region, it would be advisable to bring some goods along to trade:

• Europe (Glass Beads) to Africa (Gold): You can get a much better price difference in East Africa
• Europe (Grain, Arms) to New World (Gold, Sugar, Dye)
• Europe(Velvet or Glassware) to Far East (Silk Cloth, Coral, Porcelain)
• Africa (Gold) to Middle East (Cheese), India (Grain) or Far East (Grain)
• Middle East (Perfume) to India (Tea) or Far East (Tea)
• India (Pepper) to Far East (Porcelain)

Investment

You need a minimum friendship of 75% before the port is considered an ally. A guide to how much to invest before friendship reaches 100% is given below:

Economy or Industry x 100 gold pieces

Take Timbaktu as an example, its Economy is about 450 which requires 45,000 gold but its Industry is only 50 which requires just 5000 gold. Since the fame in trade you obtained is given by the sum of the port's economy and industry, investing in Timbaktu's shipyard will be much cheaper but yield the same benefits.

Note that you can only invest a maximum of 50,000 gold at the market or the shipyard. As a rough guide, 50,000 gold would mean a 166 increase in the Economy/Industry of the port.

FIGHTING

During battle, if either side's flagship (Ship 0) is defeated the battle is over. There are 3 ways of achieving this:

1. Sink the ship by firing cannons until its durability reaches 0.
2. Reduce the ship's crew to 0.
3. Defeating the enemy commander in a duel.

You cannot attack someone at night. Also the battle will end if sunset occurs but this is extremely rare.

If the captains of your ships are not loyal to you, they will escape before the battle, taking their ships with them. You can check their loyalty to you at the Fortune Tellar.

Cannons

The cannons available in the game from cheapest to most expensive are:

• Saker (Long Range)
• Demiculverin (Long Range)
• Culverin (Long Range)
• Canon Pedro (Short Range)
• Demicannon (Short Range)
• Cannon (Short Range)

Note that you need to buy shots from the harbour to fire your cannons.

Cannons are only really effective if you have the Gunnery which you can learn from Dr Wolf in Hambug. Note that only the main character can learn this and not the hired sailors.

Dueling

To propose a duel, you must have more crew on your flagship than the enemy. Dueling depends heavily on your weapons and armor. Remember that you have to equip them before they can be used in battle. Also remember that a duel will automatically end after 10 rounds. Here is a list of all the duel equipment available:

List of Duel Equipment

The best set of duel equipment would be the Crusader Sword (Timbaktu, $380k) and Crusader Armor (Naples, $600k). They are not cheap but they can make you invincible in duels. The trick is to never Thrust during attack and always Parry on defense. In this way, your opponent can NEVER injure you.

Thus the best strategy in the game is to remodel your flagship with maximum crew and try to quickly engage the enemy commodore in a duel. Try to get him downwind of you during battle so that you can quickly get to the enemy flagship. In this way you can quickly defeat him and capture his ships with minimum damage to your fleet. I have managed to defeat the enemy fleet without losing a single crew. You might want to save just before battle in case things do not turn out well.

Letter of Marque

These are available from rulers of your country when your fame in Piracy reaches a certain level. Note that your fame in piracy must be greather than that in Adventure or Trade. A letter of Marque will increase your friendship to your home country whenever you attach a fleet. It will also lessen the impact of the drop in friendship towards you by the victim's country.

ROYAL QUESTS

Increasing in Rank is not really required to finish the game but it can come in handy. As you rise up in rank, you can ask for increasing amounts of gold from your ruler and even can a tax-permit for free. The table below illustrates the advantage of higher rank. Note that a permit will cost 40k more if you are asking from another country that you are not loyal with.

Title

Fame Required

Discount (%)

Tax-Free Cost

None

-

5

70k

Page

500

10

60k

Squire

2000

15

50k

Knight

4500

20

40k

Baronet

8000

25

30k

Baron

12500

30

20k

Viscount

18000

35

10k

Earl

24500

40

Free

Marquis

32000

45

Free

Duke

40000

50

Free

ADVENTURE:

• Report discoveries: This really sucks because you lose out on fame and gold when you report to your ruler instead of a collector.
• Find treasure: Usually have to ask at 2 guilds before buying a map from a sailor for 1000 gold. Ruler will reward you will 10 gold ingots and title on completion of the quest. Location of treasures are always at village locations which are not activated in the present game.

PIRACY:

• Destroy a specific country's merchant fleet or warship: Just cruise around that country's capital and you will eventually find a target.
• Hunt down pirates: Just wait for Idin Leis or Khar ad-Din to attack you or hover near Tunis and Algiers.

TRADE:

• Invest in certain number of ports: This can be tricky as the game checks for the difference in allied ports and not the number of ports you invest in. Thus if your country loses an allied port before you complete your quest it counts against you. Conversly, you can also wait for other merchents from your country to do the investing for you.
• Bring back certain goods: On different days, the ruler will ask for different products so you can pick what you want to buy. Note that the different products are usually in the same category of goods. A point to note would be that the market at your capital port will be closed for the duration of your mission.

OTHERS:

• Deliver letters to rulers: This is usually the easiest, just go to the palace of the country required and deliver the letter. However if your friendship towards that country is very bad, you WILL get arrested at the palace and 4/5 of your gold confiscated. One way to avoid this is to meet your own ruler on a different day and he may ask you to deliver the letter to a different country.

CHARACTER WALKTHROUGHS

Character events are keyed to the fame you obtain in your main category (unlike Royal Quests)

• Adventure: Joao Franco, Pietro Conti, Ernst von Bohr
• Piracy: Catalina Eranzto, Otto Barnes
• Trade: Ali Vezas

Character Walkthroughs

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Some other information on where to learn skills and report discoveries.