8 ship challenge

[HiggsBosun]

The rules are simple. Play on Swashbuckler starting in 1680. Capture 8 of the 9 largest ship types simultaneously, that is, a Mail runner, Royal sloop, Ship of the line, Brig of war, Ocean barque, Flag galleon, West indiaman, and Treasure galleon, all at once. I left off the East indiaman as the most likely one not to be missed. For an added challenge, upgrade all 8 fully. Anyone keen to join?

A minor variation is to get all three frigate sizes simultaneously, upgrade them fully, and try to fill them ALL with crew. With hammocks this requires 1125 crew, which sounds insane. Probably beyond my meagre skills anyway, so I shall drop my difficulty to Rogue or even Adventurer to try that. Well at least I can try it with the same pirate as the previous challenge.

 

[HiggsBosun]

I appear to be playing by myself

OK progress. I targetted the Dutch, but obviously hit them too hard and trashed their economy. I abandoned the attempt when their bounty on me hit 32k. Note to self, don't attack every single governor and immigrant ship you see, rather target trade ships.

I then retried targetting the British. I started in the Dutch port in the far South, but immediately headed to the North East corner, picking up the Royal sloop belonging to the named pirate on the way. I then camped by St Martin with a the royal sloop and a sloop of war, wacked every british ship I saw with the war sloop, and the pirate hunter which followed with the royal sloop. The pirate hunters were initially war sloops, which quickly escalated to Brigs. At a bounty of 11k, I think I caught a lucky SotL new warship, escorted by a brig of war. I took the SotL with my royal, but damaged the war brig too much so had to scuttle it so I had crew left to fight the inevitable pirate hunter.

SotL and Royal sloop in hand, I decided to leave the British to cool off, and fortuitously a Spanish mail runner sailed under my nose, so I chased it. It was transporting a governor to San Juan, so I let it go in the hope that pirates would attack and slow it down a bit, but none did, so I engaged it right outside San Juan, and managed to catch it against the shore.

My three favourite ships in hand, I went in search of the rest. The East indiaman and treasure galleon came quickly, but by this time my crew was getting grumpy, so I grabbed some buried treasure and hunted more named pirates. Finally I saw another brig of war, which I collected, but the ocean barque and flag galleon remained elusive. The attempt ended ignobly with my crew mutineering and leaving with my SotL

A better method would perhaps be to collect the SotL, then get to the point where you know where marquis Montalban is (flag galleon), plus some of the named pirates (brig of war, royal sloop) before collecting the rest. Note that you don't necessarily have to rescue your sister to find Monty, if you get to the point where beautiful daughters will dance with you, they may tell you where he is too. Or they may not.

 

[Yui108]

honestly man this isn't that hard. There are people who have gotten 9 fulll Ships of the Line!

 

[HiggsBosun]

Bahahaha

OK I should have specified without using a hex editor

Seriously, the ship cap maxes at 8, so your 9 SotL lacks credibility, but assuming this was a simple typo, you also claim to have filled them with crew. Now even without hammocks we are talking about a crew of 2400, or 3600 with hammocks. To keep that lot happy would require a gold balance of around 4 million, and I am curious how you amassed this sum. My guess is 00 09 3D. Which is fine, whatever floats your boat, but this specific challenge was intended as a vanilla challenge.

Before you start flaming, I hasten to add that I really am not particularly good at this game, so if you are legitimately able to capture 8 (or 9) SotL's within the confines of the patched unmodded game, then I am seriously in awe of your superior skill.

In any case, if you want a hexed challenge, here it is:

Swashbuckler, edited with 4 million cash, has to get 10/10 in villains avenged before 1682.