Build a cigar factory, rum distillery, bakery, brewery and smuggler's cove.
Bronze:
Complete within 9 years.
Silver:
Complete within 6 years, 3.5 months.
Gold:
Complete within 4 years, 11 months (Dec. 1, 1685).
Notes: This episode introduces the smuggler's cove for the first time. A smuggler's cove is the reverse of the black market, where you can
sell your excess goods for profit. A smuggler's cove can sell rum, beer, cigars, pastries as well as cutlasses, muskets and cannons. If you're going to
build a smuggler's cove, you may as well make a profit on it, so make sure you build this once you have at least one of the industries up and running. Like a shipyard, it must be built on a road,
but close to the water. A good location for this episode is near the sea ration factory. You will need to kidnap a skilled trader to unlock the building before it can be built. It is found in the Infrastructure section of buildings.
This episode also has a little surprise at the beginning. Make sure you have the tutorial messages on and you will get a notice within the first few days that
France is providing you a grant of $5000 if you choose to accept it. Who wouldn't?! You start with France as your patron, so you already have harmonious
relations in order to pass this edict. Make sure you first set your pirate cave to Stash Maximum and then go
to the edicts menu and the International Diplomacy tab. Click on the treasure chest for the Emergency Funding edict and issue for an easy 5k gold!
Start off with a timber camp by the sawmill and a construction tent or two. Build a road beside the stockade and place two more corn farms. Build a
black market as soon as you can. You will also need $960 for your first load of cutlasses for your galleon. My first cruise was in September 1681 using this
strategy. France will be sending you captives but they are never enough, so do some raiding with your brigantine. Also kidnap a skilled farmer early on so
you can take advantage of the industries you are required to build. Now build a second sawmill and timber camp near the palace and then a tobacco farm
and sugarcane farm where they are most fertile. The best spot I found for sugarcane was right next to the sea ration factory, which is handy for your
entertainment buildings and smuggler's cove. Kidnap a tobacconist and distiller when you can to unlock these industries, then build them close to your
farms. Usually one specialty farm can supply one factory, at least until you get two specialty workers in the factory. Now is a good time to kidnap a skilled
trader and build a smuggler's cove if you have not done so already. And DO NOT FORGET to open it to a great power once it is completed. To do this, click
on the smuggler's cove building and then click on the nation you want to trade with. You will receive a confirmation notice telling you that that nation
will now know the location of your secret island, so it's a good idea to choose a great power you are friendly with or which is already your patron.
As always, if you are going for both a gold and a maximum hoard, you will have to work hard. You have two choices at your disposal: either build all
required buildings as soon as possible and wait for your hoard to reach $5000, or build all but one and hold off building it until just before the gold
deadline. I built all the buildings before realizing this and won in Feb. 1684, almost two years before the deadline for gold of Dec. 1, 1685. I recommend
choosing to wait and build your bakery or one of the other factories last just before that date. Congratulations!
Tips: Sea Rations: You will need lots of sea rations to keep your galleon supplied, so make sure you get a skilled cook or two
working there. Also, don't waste a lot of rations raiding with the galleon, save them for cruising when you're ready.
Weapons Industry: This may be one episode where it is worthwhile to build up your weapons industry so you can sell the excess at the
smuggler's cove.
Anarchy and Order: One challenge you face with this episode is the long distance between docks with the sea ration factory radiating order in between. You will likely
need to build two separate entertainment districts around each dock, with the larger buildings towards the middle so they are accessible to both docks. Or you could
build another dock and demolish one of the starting docks. I did not have a big problem with captives escaping or pirates disliking the order, but you can
counteract these with some fear and defense structures nearby. Remember that pirates are fearless and captives could care less about defense, so these are
the best choices around your entertainment districts where anarchy and order clash with each other.
Achieve a personal hoard of 10,000 gold and a treasury of 20,000 gold. Use any available means except to plunder French ships.
Bronze:
Complete within 14 years (end Dec. 1699).
Silver:
Complete within 12 years (end Dec. 1697).
Gold:
Complete within 10 years (end Dec. 1695).
Notes: As befits the pirate island of Tortuga, your island starts well-equipped for pirates, with 2 smuggler's dives, 2 wench houses, an animal pit and gambling den. There is also an iron mine next to a gallows! You will need lots of lumber in this episode to build and replace ships for cruising, so your first priority is to get the lumber industry rolling. Build a construction tent to the right of the sawmill and a timber camp to the left. Extend the road from the dock up the hill and build a second sawmill next to the iron mine and a timber camp across the road. Now unpause the game.
As in episode 9, you will also get a message offering 5000 gold from the French in initial funding. Use it! First make sure you set your pirate cave to stash maximum and then enact the Emergency Funding edict. Alternatively, if your treasury is small, you may want to keep the pirate cave on minimum to add more to the treasury at the start. Now use your ship to raid for captives and kidnap a shipwright as soon as possible. Raid some more and kidnap a skilled cook for your sea ration factory. Make sure you set the sea ration hiring priority to medium or high so the cook will go there as soon as she lands. When your lumber starts coming in, build two more corn farms up the road from the existing farms. Now wait for your lumber to build up to 30 and build a shipyard to the left of the sawmill by the beach.
Now build a black market, a blast furnace and a brewery. It is a good idea for this longer scenario to build up your iron industry as a backup to the black market for weapons and also to allow you to sell weapons at a smuggler's cove for more cash. When the shipyard is complete, build a snow for raiding, kidnapping and exploring. A snow is great for this because it's small crew are able to board faster and go out more often. Recruit a captain for your snow when it is ready. When the black market is completed, make sure you have two workers there to keep prices down and then equip your brigantine with cutlasses. Set your ship's plunder shares to Selfish, do a Quicksave and send her out for a cruise. My first cruise on my second time through the campaign was on May 11, 1687.
Next build a dock for a third ship, a blacksmithy and a graveyard. Kidnap a skilled farmer. Build a fourth dock, a second iron mine and a second chuck tent. Build a road past the palace and build a tobacco farm or two in the dark green areas for tobacco. Extend the road past your second sawmill and build a banana and papaya farm. You can also build a sugarcane farm or two on the southeast side of the island. Make sure you kidnap a tobacconist and distiller and build a cigar factory, distillery and bakery to use all these commodities
By this time, your ship will likely have sunk several times and you've done a few reloads to recover your game. What's happening?!? A lone ship on the waters is a dangerous proposition in any territory and this one seems to have more troubles than most. It's time to learn how to combine your forces and send ships out together for more protection. See the tips section below for how to do this.
Once you get some successful cruises under your belt, remember to move your cruise locations around so they do not get too dangerous. Also, use your snow to do some exploring at least once or twice in a new region to get the knowledge of an area up. This increases the chance that a cruise will make a discovery. You may want to build some gunnery or swordsmanship or other pirate schools to increase their skills in any low areas.
Since this is a longer episode than most up to now, you will have to concentrate on some mid-game tactics to ensure survival. Keep an eye on pirate happiness and allow for a longer shore leave as this drops. Make sure you have enough entertainment buildings for them all and keep them staffed. Watch your lumber production and if timber camps are getting too far from the trees, fire the workers (but don't destroy the camps until their stock is depleted to zero) and build new camps near the forest areas. It may even be necessary to build new sawmills nearer to the timber camps if your lumber production slows to a crawl. Make sure you have enough chuck tents to keep your captives from starving as their numbers increase. Keep building fear and order structures on the outskirts or high traffic areas to keep them from escaping.
As you near the end, watch your pirate cave hoard compared to the treasury. Once you are over the 10,000 gold needed for the hoard, you may need to set stashing to a lower setting to stash less and build up the treasury instead. But do not do this too soon, as you have a full ten years to achieve gold. If it is too early and your treasury is getting close to 20,000, start spending more gold on pirate education, raising skeletons and passing pirate happiness edicts. If your treasury needs a boost near the end, make sure you ransom off all your wealthy captives. My gold on this campaign came in May 1694 with a hoard of 19,512 and a total score of 33,985.
Tips: Using fleets of ships:Sending ships out together is a great way to increase the success of cruises and prevent having your ships sunk right away. You can start with the snow and brigantine together if you want, but a better match is to combine a fast schooner to pursue the enemy ships with a brigantine to add firepower. Or if you can afford it, build a frigate to bring on the big guns and combine it with the brigantine for moderate speed. But first you have to know how to send them out together. There is no automatic function for this (yet), but it is not that hard to do. Watch your ships to see when the captain is fairly satisfied or has returned to the ship. Sound the boarding call on the ship with the most pirates first, especially if most are ashore. Then when a few are on board (as indicated by their coloured clothing), sound the boarding call for the smaller ship. If the ships are the same size, you can judge by how many are on board each for when to call the pirates up for duty. When the first ship leaves the dock, check the other one and if most pirates are there, click the green arrow to send it out immediately. If just a few stragglers are almost there, you can afford to wait a few days, but not too long. If the captain is still ashore, you are out of luck, which is why it is important to wait until the captains are on board or well-satisfied. The sight of 2 or 3 ships sailing off side by side brings joy to the heart of any bloodthirsty pirate.
