«

Yeah, cartography is nice. You can definitely make more money than you invest into learning the skill if you plan on traveling all over the world. You don't have to report back to him often. Just drop by and say hello when you are in the neighbourhood, get a few ingots just for sailing around. Not a great source of income, but, hey, if you are sailing places anyway, why not take some extra cash for it?

Another thing is that reporting your map explorations to Merchator increases your adventure fame, which is a very nice way to get that extra fame boost for Joao's or Pietro's adventures. I usually make learning cartography and getting a contract one of the first priorities right after getting better ships. If you start early, you'll make quite a bit of fame and money by the time you've finished mapping the world.

[Indonesia]

istanbul-athens route are great IMO, just buy and sell carpet/art, using the bargaining skill, here's a useful tip, if you want to make the price become expensive but you don't have that much money then just buy 5 or 10 per transaction and see the price goes up ^^,
back to the istanbul anthens route, when you've got enough money just buy a used xebec and remodel it to minimum crew (30 or 25 i think) and no gun, then after you make more money change it to that big ship which i forgot the name, venetian galeas i think, then upgrade it to minimum crew and no guns, then just enjoy your easy earned money, and the best part is no storm LOL, when you're RICH then you can start the gold route

[another_guest]

Originally posted by Indonesia@Mar 3 2006, 12:01 PM
if you want to make the price become expensive but you don't have that much money then just buy 5 or 10 per transaction and see the price goes up ^^,

Exactly, that's the way to unbalance price levels in markets (for example to max them out before you sell your gold, or to minimize them before buying your silver)

It's not always 5-10 units, it depends on the cost of each of these units, play around with it to find the opimum.

you could find this game at http://www.coolrom.com/ , I am not with them but that is where i found the SNES Rom for it. I like it alot better then the PC version, although both are uber if your trying to kill your time on the plane.

What's the best strategy for Jo?o? shall I start trading with another ports or just explore. And any tips on how can I find this secret of Atlantis?

[another_guest]

Originally posted by Guest@Apr 6 2006, 12:29 PM
What's the best strategy for Jo?o? shall I start trading with another ports or just explore. And any tips on how can I find this secret of Atlantis?

Personally I prefer trading at the very start so that I can buy myself a decent fleet. Exploring costs a hell of a lot of money (crew, food, repairing ships + you won't have much room for cargo on long trips --> little or no income).

But I suggest you google for a walkthrough, I've once found an excellent one, great to check if you have the feeling you're stuck somewhere.
And yes, you'll have to go on discoveries in order to boost your reputation as an adventurer, but like I said you might want to have quite some cash on hand before you try to sail to the Americas or Asia.

One last warning: always take a decent amount of gold with you on far trips, as there may be no banks around where you can withdraw money.

[laiocfar]

Personally I prefer trading at the very start so that I can buy myself a decent fleet. Exploring costs a hell of a lot of money (crew, food, repairing ships + you won't have much room for cargo on long trips --> little or no income).

But I suggest you google for a walkthrough, I've once found an excellent one, great to check if you have the feeling you're stuck somewhere.
And yes, you'll have to go on discoveries in order to boost your reputation as an adventurer, but like I said you might want to have quite some cash on hand before you try to sail to the Americas or Asia.

One last warning: always take a decent amount of gold with you on far trips, as there may be no banks around where you can withdraw money.

You was born merchant.
In facts, u dont need money, a fleet, crew, load capacity, etc to start exploring. Just remodel your ship too very few crew, fill the ship with food and water, and go out to adventure. The risk is that you will die easly that in a privateer or merchant career.

About discoveries
U should known that in the files are 98 discoveries but only 49 picked randomly exist in each world. U create a new world in each new game. You should divide them by trips. First trip should be to the Nile cuz its cheaper. U should earn enought money to lear the cartography skill. Then u should make the north trip, unbelivement most valuable discoveries are in the North pole, the risk of this trip are the lack of ports, there are a minimiun numbers of supply ports. But if arent following the coast line of the big continets(no islands), you can miss one and if you miss, you die. Anyway the discoveries are north of the ports so you should stop in each supply port, take a look to near islands(maybe more than one time), come back and move to the other one. Other trips of discoveries are "African rivers", "Red Sea and India", "Huang river (China)", "Indonesia", "America", "Australia" and the "The cross of Pacific". Wach out for storms in west Africa when moving between south and north Afica; in East India; in Filipines; in Korea; near Bahamas. Wach out of lack of wind in South America in the Argentinian Sea, in Alaska and in South America in front of Chile.

[another_guest]

A good indication is the number of days you can do with a full load of food & water + of course the speed your ship reaches under optimal and worst conditions. I'd always try for a range of 40 days or more, and take a relatively light ship to reach a decent speed. Still it needs to be tough so it survives long trips.
Like Laiocfar said, have a minimum crew + say 10% extra: sometimes random events take out part of your crew, and you don't want to be stuck at a speed of 2-6 knots because you lost 5 crew members...

Final note: stock balm, preferably 10-15 of your 20 items. Have a cat around, and optionally also lime juice.

[Shrek]

Yes, the biggest problem about long trips is the "scurvy", so it is not advisable to travel for more than 50 days in a row - make it 40 if you want to make sure you crew men don't get it...

Even lime juice is very ineffective against it, as a few days after you use it, the scurvy will return... so there are only two solutions: (1) take a lot of lime juice; (2) make smaller trips :bleh:

[another_guest]

Yes, 40-45 days is usually the maximum. But you need about such a range if you want to sail to Asia using the Northern route (past Scandinavia and Russia).
South America can be tricky too if you reach the area in the Atlantic with weeds but no winds. I think a good route was from Gibraltar straight south-west. Of course it still depends on your ship's type.