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The "Purely Pratical" Challenge
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Tom Pullings
Gunner
Posts: 534



11279 Gold -

PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:10 am    Post subject: First try as Plunderin Paul Reply with quote

Well, it can certainly be improved upon, but I finished my first run at 33, playing as Plundering Paul.

http://www.divshare.com/download/2012609-aae

http://www.divshare.com/download/2012628-9c0

http://www.divshare.com/download/2012618-11a

http://www.divshare.com/download/2012626-156

http://www.divshare.com/download/2012631-ed1

Got sloppy a couple times and imprisoned once, but was relatively lucky with map pieces and got Monty with two pieces - the first was no help at all - and was able to get two cities from the remaining relatives. The last lost city was very lucky, as the one map piece I has was little help. Also gained some ground by getting the relatives with few pieces in most cases.

I am convinced that getting the cities is critical. It is a kind of triple whammy: you get the points, and the gold, and avoiding the need to get the additional wealth points is a magnified benefit because, according to Sashanan, the last wealth points require more gold than the first.

I am not sure that it is possible to get more than two cities. See Loki's earlier post about not being able to "find" Monty's fortress with one piece even knowing where is was based on the first map piece. I have run into a similar issue in some previous (not pure pirate challenge) games, and though I have, at times, found Monty with one piece - I think - I now believe these may have been games in which I had first or simultaneously found a lost city. In the challenge you cannot get a lost city map piece unless you have retired Monty. Has anyone one else had games in which they are sure they have gotten Monty with one piece without any lost cities or lost city pieces?

One other interesting event: In my challege with Paul, the old saw about being able to walk through land marks unless you are in the right spot did not seem to hold up. My last single lost city piece was a tough one but I decided to go back to the Bay of Honduras. The first coastal land mark I tried put me ashore east of the bay on the north coast above Grand Grenada. The land marks on the land blocked me, but I could not find the city. Eventually, I tried another spot north of the bay. Again, I could not walk through the landmarks, but this time I did find a lost city. Any similar experiences out there?
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loki59
Rigger
Posts: 1082


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bermuda_Shorts wrote:
EDIT: I played a bit more... outside of Santiago I had an embarassing loss (was beaten by the fatso captain of a Spanish royal galleon and lost my sloop, but captured the galleon with a merchantman), but I wasn't about to give up so soon Wink
Unfortunately, I got captured and put in prison. Time to restart?
No need to restart, getting tossed into the brig isn't the same as willingly entering the town. The only way to visit the tavern afterwards would be to sneak, which you can do anyway. So as long as you didn't sneak to the Governors mansion you're still good.
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Bermuda_Shorts
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

woot!

I mustn't have looked at the rules too closely, as I understood it entering a town in any way other than sneaking and even then just to visit the tavern was against the rules... well now I can proceed, it WAS involuntary after all Wink
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prideassassin
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm gonna have to give this a try.... Here's to hopin' it pans out well. ARRRR!
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Bermuda_Shorts
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Luck at last Cool

Off of Trinidad I spotted Blackbeard and defeated him easily. Now at the best of times, no matter what ship I am sailing in, I just CAN'T abandon a frigate, and at that moment I was sailing in a damaged sloop with only a few upgrades, so I kept Blackbeard's ship. The very moment after I defeated Blackbeard, I spotted Jean Lafitte battling it out with an English smuggler. I immediately attacked Jean Lafitte and defeated him (didn't bother to keep his brigantine).

This wasn't the end of my winning streak. In Blackbeard's undercrewed frigate (all that long, drawn-out swordfighting with opponents who have 3x my crew had taken their toll on my men) I spotted everyone's very good old friend... the Marquis de la Montalban. 50 men in a damaged, 3/4-upgraded frig vs 250 men on a fully-upgraded flag galleon? No problem. Since I didn't have chainshot and I didn't want to chance getting broadsided by that hulking flag galleon, I went straight for the boarding.

To make a long story, my men were decimated BUT I BEAT MONTY. No items at all, and with a 5th of his crew, I managed to beat him even with his lightning-quick strikes and quick recovery. Even with my foot stuck in a bucket Wink

After I had won over Monty's Surgeon ( Smile ) and decided to keep his flag galleon to haul the plunder, I set sail. In the open ocean, I saw a Dutch "new warship" heading in the general direction of Curacao, coming from the general St. Martin / St. Eustatius area. It was frigate model, so I decided to take a look at it and see if it was a large frigate because that would be a nice grab. Well, it did one better. A good old Ship o' the Line. I was flabbergasted. Quickly I attacked it, boarded without a shot fired, and overpowered the captain.

After that, I just couldn't take it, I was sure I would do something stupid and lose my doubloons, sotl, and men, so I saved SMP and watched Seinfeld. After watching a few episodes back to back, I was sufficiently lobotomized to type this Sailor
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sk8erkillinu
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I will give this a try. Started last night. Within 5 seconds of starting i spotted a French treasure ship carrying 2000 gold doubloons. Captured that and then saw a Sloop of war captured that. Then it was a total winning streak. Been playing about 1 and a half game years and already have beaten all the named pirates except for two. (can't remember who they are at moment) Rescued my lost sister and have 15 fame. Also captured a large Frigate, Royal Sloop, and Treasure gallon. I have 27,000 and something gold. Doing pretty good so far. Smile
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Captain Riddle
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 12:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Bermuda_Shorts
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

grr... critical hard drive failure = loss of all my files. I'd have to start over from scratch. And it was such a promising beginning, too Sad
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Tom Pullings
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 8:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well I am probably out of time to make another attempt, so after a few more tries, here is me final entry in the challenge as Plunderin Paul.

http://www.divshare.com/download/2713745-2a6

http://www.divshare.com/download/2713749-1cd

http://www.divshare.com/download/2713751-460

http://www.divshare.com/download/2713752-ec0

For awhile I was shooting for age 26, but fell into January and missed it, and then had to re-enter port when my first set of screenshots came up without complete images. Then I noticed that I was a capture away from another fame point, so I went back to the save game and sailed another month to take a galleon and find out what I would look like as a surgeon. I like that saw!

http://www.divshare.com/download/2718525-130

http://www.divshare.com/download/2718527-9eb

http://www.divshare.com/download/2718528-f27

http://www.divshare.com/download/2718529-ca9

I thought this was a great challenge, but as it turned out, it taught me more about orienteering that plunderin ships. I think that the mix of added points and $50,000 in treasure per city makes trying to find all three possible lost cities (and getting Monty's fortress on a single clue) the key to the lowest possible score. If one can do this even taking more time than one would like, it will be worth a LOT of ships captured. I think with more luck and skill than I possessed, it might be possible to finish at 24 or so.

I found that on Rogue I could pretty much live by the sword as long as I did not let the crew get too small, so I developed a strategy of taking two or three pinnaces as early as possible, and sank or sold anything slower. If too far from port, I sank rather than eating more time to get a capture to port for sale. I tried to conserve movement as much as possible, did not forego named pirate captures when they were convenient, and tried to keep after the buried treasure - to some extent you can influence the placement of the treasure by choosing not to talk wiith the mysterious stranger when you are in an inconvenient locale.

While the named pirate locations were generally preordained by the save game, the rest of the quests involved in the challenge are open to chance. Usually I had to go after Raymundo more than once for a map piece, and the orienteering strategy requires making do with a single piece for Monty's fortress and each of the three possible lost cities. On some of these, I got lucky, but some involved a lot of sailing up the likely coasts, stopping at landmark rocks, and poking around. I used a few rules of thumb to narrow the time spent on goose chases:

First, I used the hint described by Roland, Rupert and others and stopped searching if I could walk through a land-based landmark. This seems to work to eliminate a location, but the area covered by landmarks that I couldn't walk through was sometimes pretty big. I suspect that it refelcts some kind of "activated grid" spawned by the game, but it may cover areas that one would associate with several different shoreline landmark rocks. In one case I think I found "activated sectors on both the Mexican and east Yuccatan coasts. I also tried to avoid having more than one quest "open" at a time (e.g., pirate treasure and a lost city).

After a while, I also tended to "skip" areas that did not show a fair number of landmarks visible after I left the boat at a given shoreline landmark.

Whenever I could do it without straying from a logical search path, I tended to favor areas that the game had used as a location for a previous quest (e.g., look for a lost city in the same vicininty as the last one, or of Monty's hideout). Not always, but often, the game seems to re-use the same "activated grid". I might post a thread for questions/information sharing on this topic under orienteering. It is one of those things about the game that is interesting, but seems hard to completely figure out.

It also pays to remember the game's favorites, such as the Bay of Honduras and north of Vera Cruz.

Otherwise, it comes down to luck: in time spent searching before you succeed, and in the deal of map pieces - clues and locations can make a big difference. And the amount of time you are willing or able to spend.

All in all a great challenge. Thanks, Loki. I hope there are more entries before it ends. Very Happy
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Tom Pullings
Gunner
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 8:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just had another idea. Any interest in a new challenge around the Top 10 Pirates screen? Maybe the first to reach first in all categories - this would put a premium on getting Morgan and the other leaders quickly, and on total ships captured, but would involve a few other skills as well. Could be either total points on a specified length or age, or a race to get to first in all categories.
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Roland
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tom - I can't see any of your images when I click on the links.
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Tom Pullings
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

DANG! Neither can I. Have to repost, I guess.
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Tom Pullings
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Tom Pullings
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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loki59
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 5:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice job Tom. Its late now so I'll post my final in the AM. Just a few thoughts here. It's definitely worth the time spent looking for the lost cities. I spent the last 6-8 months searching for the second city with a lousy map piece. Figuring it would be in the same general area as the first city but only having a map piece with one geyser and no coast showing was tough. Theres a lot of area to cover north of Vera Cruz Wink and one lost city can be worth a year of ship battles. I left all the named Pirates till the end as well which gave me over 100,000 gold. I tried this challenge a couple of other times and finished both of those at age 33, what slowed me down was my inability to pass up that SotL. In my last try I stuck with the first Royal Sloop Pirate hunter that the Spanish sent after me, and relied on my sword fighting rather than the cannons.
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