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Scaly Lizard's New Horizons Sailor's Nirvana
You Are Encouraged to Explore
This site now has 3 pages:
Quirks of UW:NH Trade World Domination
If you like this page, you may also like the other sites at my Links Page and my Letters Page.
For no real reason, I've divided this tip sheet into three parts:
1: Quirks - oddities discovered around the globe
2: Trade - and the world trades with you
3: World Domination - not as easy as it sounds
But first, here are some things you will need to know if you want to go seriously digging around in the sixteenth century world of New Horizons:
Travel time between East Africa and South East Asia is quicker during the monsoon months, and from Europe to the New World it is best to go during the spring.
Besides the 1 to 10 ships you have with you , you can only have 30 ships including those ones stored in the European capitals AND the ones you have on order at ports around the world. In fact, if you have 30 boats stored in Europe, no port in the world will build a new ship for you. And if you should have 30 boats on order in 30 different port cities, no Capital in Europe will store your boats. The moral to the story is to never forget about a ship, like I did once, and you won't have to go around the world for several months looking for it, like I did.
The best early-game bookkeeper is Al Fasi. You usually can't hire mateys with higher navigation levels than yourself, but Al Fasi is a whimp and he works cheap. But he's not so good, so as soon as you can, you should hire Zaganos Bei. Mr. Z is pricey and skittish, and may threaten to quit a few times, but stay with him. He knows Accounting and Negotiation and he learns quickly. Later in the game, you may encounter Raymond Wilson or Charles Darling or Carmine Lasagna. Hire these guys on sight. I would discourage hiring Jacob Walweik, as he is a slow learner and will not be able to sail a boat worth a damn for thirty years. Remember that you cannot fire a matey, and they never die in combat. Unless they choose to quit, you're stuck with them. Because you can only have thirty mateys on staff at any time, don't hire who you don't need, for as your skills grow, the sailors for hire in Europe grow more skilled as well.
Speedy fleets are always important, and building up your mateys is the way to get the crewmembers zipping along. Luckily, this is as easy as feeding goats. Simply buy the 10 biggest boats you can find, remodel them to the lowest crew capacity and highest cargo space possible, and sail them for as long as possible. Expect scurvy to attack the crew at 50 to 80 days of sailing, depending on your luck and figureheads. Carry lime juice for the scurvy, but be prepared to put in to port when the scurvy bouts come more frequently, because scurvy always kills, even with lime. To gauge your travel time, count the actual days, as the at-sea day counter is usually one day off. Here's the deal with experience points for navigation: regular navigators, the Chief Navigator and the Bookkeeper each get points equal to the square of the days spent continuously at sea. So 1 day nets one point, two days earns 4 points, five days at sea earns 25 points, etc. The experience points earned by you, your captains and your First Mate are double the regular amount.
No matey may gain more than 9800 points for a single voyage, so 70-75 days is the most you should ever push your crew. Although in the early levels it is common for a matey to jump more than one level at a time, after level 17 the threshold for advancement is 9720 points, so it is very rare to jump 2 levels in one trip later in the game. Advancing in Navigation levels will raise your mateys' stats in Leadership, Seamanship, Knowledge and Intuition. A matey's luck, the invisible stat below the Charm, can never be changed. Combat experience points can only be gained by your captains and only when they sail into a fight. Your First Mate gets nuthin' and neither does your Chief Navigator or any of your regular navigators. Advancing in combat levels is the only way to raise a matey's Courage and Swordsmanship stats, but I'm still investigating the system for gaining combat experience. For all I know, it is keyed to the number of cannonballs fired or the casualties inflicted in hand-to-hand combat. When I know, you'll know, so get off my stern.
You are encouraged to email me with questions about anything in new horizons; I've done
just about everything a sailor can do... even die of old age.
Email me at scalylizard.geo@yahoo.com
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