Message in a Bottle Third Edition
PAGES
- Front Page - Message from the Editor
Page 2 - Portside Perusal: Global Event Gossip
Page 3 - Meliva vs Clockwork
Page 4 - Navigational Aids
Page 5 - Meet The Crew & Ship Stealing
Page 6 - Historical Lookback
Page 7 - Special Feature: Tall Tales of William One Eye
Meet the Crew - MyCrows USA Nation and Guild:
MyCrows wrote: (A couple of years here) now and I still feel as if I'm a rookie.
My brother was already playing PG asked me to try it. He was in ATC (and going quite well)
I joined USA because the choice just seemed natural, because I'm US.
Literally the only interesting thing that happened to me back in those early days was getting all my SoTLs stripped from me!
I didn't really do much nor did I yet understand the risk of being new and having SoTLs.
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing let alone any idea how to protect them. I don't remember a lot about it but I do remember that It happened when I was away from the game for a few days. I wouldn't advise a new player to buy up big on SoTLs until they can defend them. There are other priorites like getting stronger and getting a good basic start first, you know, building warehouses, resources and trade fleets,bars etc..
The day I lost my SotLs, I logged in, and noticed my named fleets that I recognized which contained my SoTLs were just.... gone lol.
I can't remember who all was involved really, and I don't know if anyone tried to prevent it or not.
I haven't built fleets like that again or run them since...until recently. I have been enjoying getting a little back from the PBs for a change .lol.
Because I haven't done a lot of piracy or raiding, I've made it my point to advance purely through economic growth.
I feel like I've definitely had more success via this route, but what exactly is worth taking note of? I didn't think my growth was anything impressive but more I am growing steadily,
My involvement in the market has changed in scope over the past few months so there are things I'm doing now that I wouldn't have paid much attention to before so that has held my interest a bit longer.
I've actually been on the verge of liquidating my account for some time because
I just kind of felt that the game had plateaued out for me, and I didn't really know where to take my involvement beyond building fleets and setting them off to sea, which was getting pretty mundane.
I suppose I've stayed because I see purpose to be involved in the game, and the people who play.
I enjoy the occasional conversation with other players, and if I had to mention anyone in particular who helped mentor me, it would have to be JB Duke.
I also received some counsel from Jose Gasparilla, Edward Teach, and Pro, regarding plantations and such, all of which were extremely helpful.
I have some specific calculations I use to trade, but they are between me and my brother for now, sorry.
If I had lived in the Golden Age of Piracy I would have settled well in on the mainland!
Ship Stealing by Guest Contributor Zephore the Sloop-Master:
Zephore the Sloop-Master wrote:Ship plundering?
I’ve been tasked by MIAB to write an article about the fine art of plundering ships, bit ironic since I’m the sloop master.
Nonetheless, there’s a few things to take account for; How many fleets? Potential danger, how much gold, and the sink chance – Do you light him up, and hope for others to drain his gold, and take a strike at the fleets yourself, or do you light him up and drain the gold yourself?
Many things can go wrong during a raid; A random generosity, time spirals or the player himself logs on – bit on the shitter if he time spirals, add gold or throws some chains of justice on you. Those, can easily ruin your raid, therefore it’s a good strategy to strike them, when they aren’t online.
However, sometimes, the sheer danger level + sink chance can be used, with a disfavor, so you sink the whole fleet, and then fish it up – requires a bit of gold to relevel, and puts your own danger quite high, but if you’re active or your sink chance extremely low, this isn’t an issue.
If the target fleet is too strong for you, you’d use fire ships or call of the kraken to damage their ships.
I advise fire ships, since they cost less damage – however doesn’t strike a specific ship.
Regarding voodoo, always a dumb idea to load a target too much. The proper use of vengeance of the witch doctor can be quite harmful, but it’s also turn draining, so the use of those, it’s a good idea to team up with someone.
In other words, somewhat teaming up with someone else, or play your dice that others be draining the targets gold is the easier go to – less turn intensive, but of course, you could ask or buy turns of other players too. However a properly efficient player to attack while you throw vengeance is a quick way and inexpensive way.
Raids can get quite expensive with the use of leviathans and ambushes, but in certain situations they’re essential – when their gold is drained, and the fleet still isn’t taken, all you need to do is to actually steal the boats; if you can’t use vengeance, ambushes are the goto. And with the use of ambush, you want to throw leviathans at the tail, so you can steal the ships you want to – with vengeance, you can choose to use leviathans, either to preserve turns, or if their sink chance doesn’t allow for them to lose levels and sink quick enough.
Summary;
Amount of gold, your turns, their danger, amount of fleets, and voodoo thrown on you always matter when planning a raid.
Keep an eye on your own danger, unless you don’t care about that.
If possible, try to team up, though raids can be done alone.
Try to figure out if they’re active or not – stealing from an active player is a lot harder than one who’s sleeping.
Don’t get cocky, no one likes a braggart.
