==============================================================================
SEADOGS INFORMATION & STRATEGY GUIDE (PC)
By Greg "Hosehead the Bloody" Highnote
Version 1.0 (February 22, 2013)
email: ghighnote@highnotez.com
==============================================================================
This guide is intended to be helpful for players of all levels: those who have
never played SeaDogs before, general players looking to improve their game,
and old vets returning to the game and wondering what's been going on with it
over the last several years since its release.
With so many SeaDogs resources going offline, I've tried to pool together all
the remaining links and important information so that no more of it is lost.
I've also included my own hints and strategies for successful gameplay culled
from over ten years of playing and modding the game, and added information on
the mods that are still available.
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CONTENTS
1.00 WHAT IS SEADOGS?
1.01 What SeaDogs Is.
1.02 What SeaDogs Is Not.
1.03 The Reviews of SeaDogs.
1.04 Should I Buy It?
2.00 GETTING THE GAME.
2.01 System Requirements.
2.02 Where to Find It.
3.00 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING THE GAME.
3.01 Install the Original CD.
3.02 Patch with the "Official" 1.06 Patch.
3.03 Installing the SeaDogs Add-On Installer.
3.04 Configuring and Tweaking Settings.
3.04.01 The Configure Program.
3.04.02 System Tweaks.
3.04.03 Configuring the Keyboard.
4.00 GAMEPLAY AND GENERAL STRATEGIES.
4.01 Starting Strategies.
4.01.01 Difficulty Levels.
4.01.02 Assigning Skill Points.
4.01.03 Officers.
4.01.04 Choosing a Campaign.
4.01.05 What to Do: Trade and Questing.
4.01.06 Choose Your Battles Carefully.
4.01.07 Early Game Ships.
4.02 Midgame Transitions.
4.02.01 What to Do: Capturing Ships.
4.02.02 Sea Combat.
4.02.03 Boarding/Fencing.
4.02.04 Midgame Ships.
4.03 Final Strategies for the Endgame.
4.03.01 What to Do: Defeating Quest Forts.
4.03.02 The Black Coat / Black Flag.
4.03.03 Endgame Ships.
4.04 Future Campaigns.
4.04.01 Avoiding the Game End.
4.04.02 Restoring vs. Starting Over.
4.04.03 Side and Repeatable Quests.
5.00 KNOWN GAME BUGS AND HOW TO HANDLE THEM.
5.01 Autosave = Autodestruct!
5.02 "ENT" (Event Not Triggered) Bugs.
5.03 Traffic Jams.
5.04 Miscellaneous Minor Bugs.
5.04.01 The 3000 Bug.
5.04.02 The Ship Switching Bug.
6.00 WALKTHROUGHS, HINTS, AND CHEATS.
6.01 Walkthroughs.
6.01.01 Sailor Al's Walkthrough.
6.01.02 Walsh's GameFAQs Walkthrough.
6.01.03 Scrogdog's Walkthrough.
6.01.04. Mary Read's Walkthrough.
6.01.05. Graybeard's Walkthrough.
6.02 Hints & Tips
6.02.01 Clokendagger's Fort Tactics.
6.02.02 Finishing the Pirate Campaign.
6.02.03 Lucky Jack's Trade Spreadsheet.
6.02.04 Hayreddin Barbarossa's SD Charts.
6.02.05 Lord MacAlpin's Mod Hints.
6.03 Cheats.
7.00 SEADOGS MODS.
7.01 History of SD Mods.
7.02 Modding Tools.
7.02.01 Essential Modding Tools.
7.02.02 Modding Manuals.
7.02.03 Helpful Modding Tools.
7.03 The SeaDogs Add-On Installer.
7.04 The Future of SeaDogs Modding.
8.00 WEBSITES.
8.01 "Official" Sites.
8.02 The Brotherhoods and Multiplayer Pirate Games.
8.03 SD Modding and Info Sites.
8.04 Other Pirate Sites.
APPENDIX:
A-1 Scrogdog's Walkthrough.
A-2 Legal Info.
==============================================================================
1.00 WHAT IS SEADOGS?
1.01 What SeaDogs Is.
1.02 What SeaDogs Is Not.
1.03 The Reviews of SeaDogs.
1.04 Should I Buy It?
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1.01 What SeaDogs Is.
In gaming terms, SeaDogs is a 3D/action/adventure/RPG game. By combining so
many attributes, SeaDogs gives a taste of all these things, but nothing is
treated in great depth.
It was released in late 2000.
Before SeaDogs, its developer, Akella, had created a historical naval sailing
sim, Age of Sail. SeaDogs takes the historical naval sim aspect from Age of
Sail and tries to add more adventure and RPG elements to it.
The player assumes the role of Captain Nicolas Sharp, starting the game with a
small ship and limited gold. The overall goal is to forge a successful career
as a captain, privateer or pirate.
The basic gameplay involves sailing pirate-era ships in 3-D battles at sea
against enemy ships and forts. Ships can be sunk (by ship-to-ship shelling) or
captured (by swordfights between "representatives" of each ship). These 3-D
battles are the main focus of the game, with beautiful ships and forts and
wonderful battles to enjoy (though the AI is not very sharp). You sail
between encounter areas on a 2-D sea map of a fictional area of the Caribbean
called "The Archipelago." Random sea battle encounters are also generated
while traveling on the 2-D sea map.
The islands in the Archipelago have relatively small 3-D towns where you are
allowed to dock, repair & resupply your ship, and interact with NPCs. You
can't dock or run around on the parts of the island outside of town. The NPCs
offer various quests of fed-ex, escort and seek & destroy varieties. Most
quests are organized in four linear campaigns, one for each of the "countries"
in the game (English, French, Spanish, Pirate), wherein the goal is to take
over the Archipelago for that country.
Over the course of play, the player earns experience points which allow the
player to advance in levels. Each level earns a character skill points that
may be allocated to improve a short list of skills. Higher ranks also allow
the player to sail larger classes of ships. The player also earns (or loses)
reputation points which affect crew morale and interaction with some NPCs.
Ships may be bought at shipyards if the player has earned enough gold, or they
may be acquired by capturing them at sea. Officer NPC's can be hired which
improve the player's skill levels. These include first mates, who can be used
to sail captured ships and form a squadron under the player's command.
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1.02 What SeaDogs Is Not.
SeaDogs is not Pirates!. It does not have the same open-ended feel. All
SeaDogs quests in the original game are linear and non-repeatable, and the
only randomly generated events are encounters at sea. Pirates! makes the
player feel he is navigating through a living gameworld with numerous events,
and the excitement of discovery runs high. SeaDogs makes the player feel he
is navigating a structured, predictable gameworld, although there is an
element of discovery in your first campaign.
SeaDogs' closest similarity to Pirates! is in the area of ship boarding
combat, which is also done through a swordfighting interface. The player
duels against a "representative" NPC character of the opposing forces using
keyboard commands. The player and NPC's comparative "strengths" are
determined by the size of their crews.
SeaDogs is not Cutthroats. SeaDogs' fictional setting does not have a tie to
"real-world" locations and hence, not the same gritty realistic atmosphere of
Cutthroats. SeaDogs does not have the broad-based interaction with governors
and vast quest "pool" of Cutthroats. The unmodded SeaDogs has no land-based
combat, except for sword-fights during fort attacks. Simply put, SeaDogs does
not have the attention to detail of Cutthroats.
SeaDogs is not Daggerfall. While the interaction in the towns has the look
and feel of Daggerfall and Redguard, the character skills are much more
limited, there are much fewer quests, all of which are linear.
SeaDogs is not Pirates of the Caribbean or Age of Pirates. PotC was
originally intended to be the sequel to SeaDogs. AoP follows as a sequel of
sorts of PotC, while both are substantially the same. So while PotC and AoP
have some of the flavor of SeaDogs, like any sequels, they have much deeper
and richer gameplay, more immersion, and many nice additions over the
original.
However, particularly with the SeaDogs mods, the stories within the quests are
very fleshed out and entertaining. With the new versions of Pirates and AoP,
the story lines are quite thin. Sea Dogs seemed to have more storytelling
atmosphere than the newer crop of Pirate games.
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1.03 The Reviews of SeaDogs.
SeaDogs got pretty favorable reviews after its release. It filled a hole in
an empty genre at the time, making it something different and exciting.
However, it's bugginess out of the box, steep learning curve, and the
countless comparisons with Pirates! kept it from rising too high in the ranks.
There's only a few places out there that still have reviews posted for
SeaDogs.
Firing Squad gave it a nice, thorough review with plenty of screenshots, and
came up with a 75%:
Firing Squad Review:
http://www.firingsquad.com/games/seadogsreview/default.asp
GameSpot had a short review, that came in at 7.9:
Game Spot Review: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/seadogs/review.html
Metacritic compiles several online reviews (with links), and takes an average,
in this case coming up with an 71 (out of 100) average for the game.
Metacritic Review Compilation: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sea-dogs
Gamerankings is another compilation of other online reviews that came up with
a higher, 80.5 out of 100, average for the game.
Gamerankings Review Compilation: http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/913861-sea-
dogs/index.html
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1.04 Should I Buy It?
If you are easily upset by the shortcomings of a game, you should NOT buy
SeaDogs. It has many shortcomings: its lack of depth and options, limited AI,
and some bugs that are still not resolved even with the patches. You will get
the feeling that the game wasn't completely finished and tested before it was
released. Perhaps the most frustrating shortcoming of the game is its steep
learning curve. There is no tutorial, and you start the game out with very
little direction or assistance. Unlike most games which start out easy and
get more difficult, SeaDogs starts out hard, and gets easier as you go along.
However, if you can overlook such shortcomings when there are many other great
things to balance the scale, you should buy the game. Despite the game
appearing unfinished, there is nevertheless the feel of a lot of love and
effort that went into its creation. It's graphics are high-resolution, which
despite the low polygon count still look beautiful with newer video cards. It
has an incredible soundtrack by the Moscow Symphony that is second to none and
contributes greatly to its atmosphere (It is interesting to note that Akella
released a mod that converted the old SD music to replace the generic music
files of PotC, and then returned with Moscow Symphony music for AoP). The 3-D
battles are very tense (keep drinks away from the keyboard) -- this aspect of
the game is superior to all the other "classic" pirate games: Pirates!,
Cutthroats, Port Royale -- the ship combat of these games pales in comparison
to that of SeaDogs (PotC & AOP continue with this fine quality). The quests
are also sufficiently entertaining to keep you interested in searching for the
next link. Additionally, the flipside of its high level of difficulty is that
it holds up well over the long run -- you won't master it in an evening. You
may eventually learn how to sink a Man of War with a Sloop, but it won't be
easy!
Another factor that speaks greatly in favor of buying the game are the mods.
The mods enrich the game and double the amount of gameplay available. Also
the mods whittle away at some of the game's shortcomings, making it easier to
play in the beginning, more realistic, less linear, and more entertaining.
If you're deciding whether to get SeaDogs or one of its sequels, Pirates of
the Caribbean or Age of Pirates, get PotC and/or AoP first, and play those
out. Then when you hunger to return to the Archipelago, get SeaDogs.
If you're deciding whether to get Cutthroats or Port Royale before SeaDogs, if
you want detail, get CT or PR, if you want action and (still) good graphics,
get SD. A good bet would be to get all three if you've got the money!
==============================================================================
2.00 GETTING THE GAME.
2.01 System Requirements.
2.02 Where to Find It.
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2.01 System Requirements.
Minimum (per Akella, but seems awfully low):
Pentium MMX 266Mhz
32MB RAM
8MB PCI Video
SoundBlaster Compatible Sound
900MB Free HD Space
Recommended:
PII 350Mhz
64MB RAM
16MB AGP Video
DirectX Compatible Sound
900MB Free HD Space
SD actually runs better with less "bells & whistles" on your system. A "bare-
bones" PII system will run the game great. However, there is support for the
higher-resolutions of the nicer video cards, so you will benefit from a high-
end system.
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2.02 Where to Find It.
SeaDogs is hard to find, especially if you want a new, unopened copy! It has
not been re-released, and there's no gold version. So you have to be crafty
to track it down.
There's three places to look for SD (in order of cost):
1. Used and/or Bargain Bins.
Obvious, but risky, as there was a bad crop of original game CD's that would
not install, and they tend to wind up here.
2. Ebay and It's Progeny.
Your best chance of finding SeaDogs is Ebay. There's always a copy on
auction. Unfortunately, they are going for about $40. If you're familiar
with "sniping" on Ebay, you can probably get one for much less. This has the
added benefit that you can correspond with the seller to confirm the game
installs and runs.
If Ebay is too pricy, consider the Game Trading Zone. Several copies of
SeaDogs are always there, but you've got to wheel & deal with their owners on
a more personal level than Ebay to get one. If you find the right seller
there, you could just trade one of your old games for it!
3. Online Stores.
There are stores and internet sites that specialize in robbing you of your
hard-earned gold in exchange for hard-to-find games. SeaDogs shows up in
these places, but often at embarrassingly high prices. Many of these are in
the UK, but I've ordered games from overseas before and not had any problems.
==============================================================================
3.00 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING THE GAME.
3.01 Install the Original CD.
3.02 Patch with the "Official" 1.06 Patch.
3.03 Installing the SeaDogs Add-On Installer.
3.04 Configuring and Tweaking Settings.
3.04.01 The Configure Program.
3.04.02 System Tweaks.
3.04.03 Configuring the Keyboard.
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3.01 Install the Original CD.
Most game CDs are Ver 1.0. Some European versions appear to be Ver 1.06.
You can check the version of your game by looking at the bottom left-hand
corner of the "Main Menu" window. If it's Ver 1.0, don't try to run the game
until you've patched it up to Ver 1.06.
If you get a DAT error (usually at 21% or 29%) when installing the game, be
warned: there's a batch of bad CD's. Reduce the supplemental cache size for
your CD ROM, enable DMA error checking, and anything else you can do to SLOW
DOWN your CD. Or try a different, slower drive. Sometimes this will help the
error. If not, you're toast, and you'll have to return the CD.
Note: For the best chance of a good installation, patch immediately with the
1.06 patch before you run the game the first time.
While you're waiting for the game to install, you can read the manual.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.02 Patch with the "Official" 1.06 Patch.
Ver 1.0 was very buggy. The game has been made playable with the "official"
patches released by Akella/Bethesda. The last official patch was Ver 1.06,
which includes all the previous patches.
Note: not all "Official Ver 1.06" patches are the same. There are three
different versions of this patch floating around on the Internet, all which
will report a successful patch of the game, but only one of the three installs
the patch properly.
The most reliable patch was one posted at Orzel's site, sosenkas.com. It's no
longer there, but has been archived here: Ver 1.06 "Official" Patch.
Note: For the most reliable installation, do the following:
1. Install off the CD. DON'T START THE GAME YET!
2. Patch with the 1.06 patch. DON'T START THE GAME YET!
3. Reboot your computer.
4. Start the game using the autoplay on the CD (insert the CD to start
instead of clicking the icon on the desktop).
The Ver 1.06 Official Patch is also "built-into" Version 1.12 of the Add-On
Installer Program (discussed in the next section). It will check your game
and prompt you if you need to install the patch before it will allow you to
add mods to the game.
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3.03 Installing the SeaDogs Add-On Installer.
If you've never played SeaDogs before, you may think that you don't want to
mod your game. You should reconsider. Without the mods, the beginning of the
game is extremely difficult, and you'll feel like you're thrown to the wolves
without an idea of what to do. Many of the mods for SeaDogs are designed for
new players to help make the game infinitely more playable and enjoyable.
Most of them are not cheats. For example, the mods add dozens of new missions
for starting captains, so you don't have to spend your first week making
repetitive "coffee trading runs" to earn enough gold to do anything. The mods
have you out capturing ships, dueling rogues, and solving fun puzzle quests
right out of the gate!
Another reason to consider installing some of the mods before your first game
is that you have to start a new game for most of the mods to take effect.
None of the mods interfere with the original game, so there's no drawback to
having them installed. So why not add the extra 60-80 hours of campaigns,
quests and new features to the game now so you don't have to start all over to
enjoy them? Almost all of the SeaDogs mods are complied into one installation
program, the "SeaDogs Add-On Installer Program." This program is a user-
friendly installation program with a separate installation window for each mod
that tells you exactly what it's about, so you can decide whether or not to
install each mod before committing the changes to your game. At least
download it and check it out before setting off on your career in the
Archipelago.
Here's a link to the download page for the Add-On Installer Program:
SD Add- On Installer Download Page:
http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/sdaddon.htm
If you need instructions for Downloading and Installing the Add-On Installer,
they're located here:
Add-On Installer Download & Installation Instructions:
http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/inst.htm
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3.04 Configuring and Tweaking Settings.
3.04.01 The Configure Program.
3.04.02 System Tweaks.
3.04.03 Configuring the Keyboard.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.04.01 The Configure Program.
The "Official 1.06 Patch" adds a separate configuration program, "config.exe"
into the Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\SeaDogs folder on your hard drive.
There's no icon for it, so you have to dig it out with Windows Explorer.
The Configure Program has two tweaks that are really important.
1. Screen Resolution.
Running the game in a "wrong" resolution (which varies by video card) can
cause the wrong fonts to appear, whiteout of graphics, "scrambling" of
graphics, crashes switching between 3D scenes and the 2D sea map, and choppy
or infinitely repeating sounds (in addition to the obvious speed effects).
Selecting a resolution is not a simple case of starting with the highest and
backing the setting down until the game is playable. It has frequently been
the case that one resolution will be infinitely more playable than the rest.
For example, my "bare bones" PC runs the SeaDogs much better at 800x600 than
it does at 640x480. So try them all.
Note: If you have a Riva TNT2 video card, don't change your game resolution
AFTER starting a campaign, or your previously-saved games may not load --
ever!
2. Sleep Setting.
The sleep setting is the "aspirin fix" for many SeaDogs problems. If there is
anything wrong with the way your game is running, increase the Sleep Setting
to at least 20. This has been reported to fix everything from video glitches,
to sound problems, to game crashes. But like an aspirin, it doesn't always
solve a serious problem.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.04.02 System Tweaks.
Take all the old cliches about updating drivers, using maximum system settings
and acceleration and throw them out the window. SeaDogs runs better with
"basic" settings.
If the game isn't running as well as you would like, try these things:
1. Reduce the hardware acceleration sliders for the video and sound cards.
2. Replace the manufacturer's drivers for your video card with the "generic"
drivers by the chipmaker of your video card (e.g., install 3Dfx, NVidia, or SiS
drivers instead of Diamond, MSI, or Creative drivers).
Note: If your game goes crazy and ship model graphics scramble after a
boarding party, save your game if you can, quit and restart/reload. If you're
running a Windows version < 2000/XP, you better reboot. This also applies if
your game "scrambles" when you swap back into it after swapping out into
Windows. This workaround can also help you to survive similar graphics
glitches if nothing else solves the problem.
3. End all TSR and background programs before starting the game. An obvious
one, but if you're like me you may tend to skip this step. SeaDogs is VERY
sensitive to this one (especially in XP).
4. Enable "autorun" for your CD ROM and start SeaDogs by inserting the
SeaDogs CD instead of starting it from a desktop icon. This solves most font
problems. If it doesn't, you may want to remove or replace the original game
fonts (LogRuss, LogRuss_Italic, SeaWolf--edit the Program Files\Bethesda
Softworks\SeaDogs\RESOURCE\INI\fonts.ini file) especially if they cause "low
detail textures" to activate on their own.
Here's a link to one nice "tweak guide" for SeaDogs that's still around:
3D Spotlight SD Tweak Guide:
http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/seadogs/index.shtml
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3.04.03 Configuring the Keyboard.
This one's a personal choice, but there are a few tweaks to the keyboard
setting that many players use. The fortunate thing is that SeaDogs allows you
to bind TWO key choices to each command, so you can enable these tweaks as a
second choice without losing the default keys.
The primary change is to add the arrows to the commands for sailing the ship
(this is for all us old-farts who are much more familiar with using the arrow
keys than WASD).
The second change is for swordfighting. The main idea is to make it a two-
handed affair, with the attack keys in the right hand and the defense and
special keys in the left hand. Bind the following keys:
Left slash = Keypad Home/7
Right slash = Keypad PgUp/9
Left swing = Keypad 4/Left
Right swing = Keypad 6/Right
Left parry = A
Right parry = D
Feint = S
This configuration lends itself very well to the "Zen Swordfighting Technique"
discussed in the strategy section below.
==============================================================================
4.00 GAMEPLAY AND GENERAL STRATEGIES.
4.01 Starting Strategies.
4.01.01 Difficulty Levels.
4.01.02 Assigning Skill Points.
4.01.03 Officers.
4.01.04 Choosing a Campaign.
4.01.05 What to Do: Trade and Questing.
4.01.06 Choose Your Battles Carefully.
4.01.07 Early Game Ships.
4.02 Midgame Transitions.
4.02.01 What to Do: Capturing Ships.
4.02.02 Sea Combat.
4.02.03 Boarding/Fencing.
4.02.04 Midgame Ships.
4.03 Final Strategies for the Endgame.
4.03.01 What to Do: Defeating Quest Forts.
4.03.02 The Black Coat / Black Flag.
4.03.03 Endgame Ships.
4.04 Future Campaigns.
4.04.01 Avoiding the Game End.
4.04.02 Restoring vs. Starting Over.
4.04.03 Side and Repeatable Quests.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01 Starting Strategies.
4.01.01 Difficulty Levels.
4.01.02 Assigning Skill Points.
4.01.03 Officers.
4.01.04 Choosing a Campaign.
4.01.05 What to Do: Trade and Questing.
4.01.06 Choose Your Battles Carefully.
4.01.07 Early Game Ships.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01.01 Difficulty Levels.
The patched game has two difficulty levels. The Easy difficulty level gives
you five skill points each time you gain a level. The Hard difficulty level
gives you three skill points each time you gain a level. If you're playing SD
for the first time, especially if you're playing without any mods, you should
consider playing on the easy level.
Whether there's any other difference in the difficulty settings has always
been a hot topic for discussion -- the readme file in the Official 1.06 patch
doesn't say, and there's been no other "official word" on it.
Note: Difficulty settings only take effect when you start a new game.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01.02 Assigning Skill Points
You start the game with 3 or 5 skill points, depending on the difficulty
selected, which you should assign to skills right away. You get another 3 or
5 skill points when your experience points reach the next level as shown in
the Crew screen. Note: even though you may have reached "Rank 1", there will
still be additional experience thresholds that once reached will give you
another award of skill points.
Single skill-point increases won't be very visible in gameplay, as they often
just add a 5%-10% increase in the effect of the skill. But that can add up
quickly if you can focus your skill points into specific areas instead of
spreading them out across the board.
The maximum points you can allocate to a given skill is 9. However, your
skill level can exceed nine if you hire Officers., which can increase your
skill.
Assigning skill points is a matter of personal preference, but for new
players, here's a few guidelines:
Critical Skills:
Boarding
Gunlaying
Sailing
Important Skills:
Reloading
Coordination
Helpful Skills:
Defense
Repair
Grappling*
Commerce
Critical Skills:
What makes these skills critical is that you need to be working on them from
the beginning of the game in order to get them high enough to be beneficial to
you at the mid game, where they are essential. So, you may not be engaging
many ships in battle early on in the game, but if you don't start on these
now, your transition to the midgame will take much longer.
Boarding.
Boarding skill affects the amount of damage you will inflict on your enemy in
a swordfight, and how long you can last before resting between swings
(fatigue).
Boarding is considered by many to be the most important skill, warranting all
your early skill points. However, you can balance it with the other
critical skills, since it won't actually come into play until around the
middle portion of the game.
Note that some mods allow swordfighting with characters on the street and at
earlier points in the game than the original unmodded game (Onshore Action
Patch, Ellaybe, Port Royale), so if you have these mods installed, you should
put even more points towards Boarding early on.
Gunlaying.
Gunlaying affects the overall accuracy of your cannons.
You will take a horrendous beating in battle if you don't have a good
gunlaying skill, because your battles will last longer and the enemy will have
an edge over you that will spell your defeat. With a low gunlaying skill, you
will keep sending broadside after broadside at the enemy and they will hardly
do a thing, while the enemies' cannons will be reducing you to splinters.
Even if you intend to capture ships using your boarding skill, gunlaying helps
you soak down your opponent so you can get close enough to board.
Sailing.
Sailing affects your maneuverability in combat, and the quickness with which
you can bring your ship to top speed.
Sailing skill is critical ONLY IF you actually do some sailing around in your
battles. If you just head towards a ship with guns blazing (you laugh but its
hard to resist), then you should put your points into gunlaying and boarding
instead of this skill. However, if you are a chess-player when it comes to
naval battles, this skill will help you get a big positioning advantage in
battles, getting into blind spots and outmaneuvering the enemy. It's also an
important skill for outrunning the enemy. You can double-tap the Enter key to
get out of battles at the beginning of an engagement, but if you decide to
engage the enemy, this option will disappear, forcing you to sail out of range
of the enemy if you want to leave a battle without defeating the enemy.
Important Skills:
Great to have, if you've got the critical skills well on their way.
Reloading.
Reloading affects the speed at which your cannons reload.
Once you have reached a good level of boarding and gunlaying skill, adding
points to reloading will give you a considerable edge in winning battles. It
is extremely satisfying to get that extra "life-or-death" broadside in by
having a high reloading skill, so "reward yourself" with a few points in this
skill during your midgame, and your combat at sea will be much more effective!
Coordination.
Coordination affects the lag-time between the first cannon of a broadside
firing and the last.
That sounds confusing, and it is. But many believe that this translates, in
game terms, to creating a better-grouped salvo that will have a better chance
of more balls hitting the target.
Many people disregard Coordination, but at higher levels (5 or more), you will
see a marked increase in the deadliness of your cannon salvos. Hence its
location near the middle of the pack of skills, and below the "fun" skill of
reloading.
Helpful Skills:
Of course they help, but you don't need them to survive.
Defense.
Defense affects the number of your crew that are killed from enemy cannon
fire.
This skill is the most helpful for battles against larger ships and or forts,
where you want to have a large number of crew remaining after the initial gun
combat to give you an edge in the boarding swordfight encounter. Nice but a
luxury compared to the other skills.
Repair.
Repair skill allows you to repair your hull and sails while at sea, if you
have planks and sailcloth in your hold purchased from stores or plundered in
battle.
The effect of a higher repair skill level is somewhat complicated. First of
all, you must have at least 1 skill point in repair, or nothing can be
repaired, even if you have the material. After that, the higher your skill,
the quicker repairs will be made. Lastly, the higher the skill level, the
more HULL damage can be repaired (Translation: Low skill=minor hull damage
repairable. High skill=serious hull damaged repairable). If you have a low
skill level and a lot of hull damage, all of it won't be repaired. In
comparison, you can repair all sail damage even if you have a low repair
skill.
While handy, since you can repair at a shipyard, it is not an essential skill.
Many a friendly argument has been made as to whether it is better to invest
the skill points into other skills on the theory that they will make you
better in battle, and therefore help you avoid getting damaged and needing to
get repaired.
Grappling.*
Grappling concerns your ability to grapple an enemy ship in the middle of
battle so you can board it.
It is a very frustrating skill. You may have no grappling skill, move up to a
ship and grapple on your first attempt. Conversely, you may have 9 points in
the skill, and still can't grapple even after several attempts. One answer to
this riddle is that the game manual says that grappling skill only increases
the range from which one can grapple, and not the chance of grappling each
time the command is given.
Because of this, grappling is "conditionally" considered an unimportant skill
(hence the bullet *). IF you are sufficiently talented in sailing, you should
be able to get your ship close enough, and at the right speed, to board
without needing to have extra skill points here. However, if you are
continually frustrated with not being able to successfully grapple and board a
ship, then you should consider moving this skill up the ladder of importance
and adding a few skill points to it.
NOTE: This departs from normal convention that considers grappling a
"critical" skill (and many will undoubtedly curse me every time they fail to
grapple on the first attempt).
Commerce.
Commerce affects both the price at which you sell goods in stores, and the
price at which you can purchase them.
Commerce is ONLY important if you do nothing but trade. Then it is an
absolute necessity, as it will make you a ton of gold. But if you plan on
running quests and fighting ships outside of your trade routes, then forget
it.
A Small Bug: Sometimes when you are just starting your game, if you hit
EXACTLY 3000 experience points, you will stop advancing in rank. The only way
around this bug is to make sure you don't hit exactly 3000 experience points.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01.03 Officers.
Officers are NPCs that you can add to your crew that increase your skill
levels. That's all they do, with exception of the First Mate, who is
necessary in order to capture prize ships. They are generally too expensive
to get early on in the game, with exception of the purser, who will cut your
trading time down drastically, and the first mate, who you should get as soon
as you can afford him.
There are only a couple of each type of officer in the game. If you fire one,
he will return to the place where you hired him. There are six types officers
in the original game, listed here in the order of usefulness.
Critical Officer:
First Mate
Primarily increases sailing skill. You must have a first mate in order to
keep a ship after you've boarded it and defeated its crew (otherwise the ship
is scuttled after the battle).
The benefit of a first mate is that he allows you to make your money from
capturing and selling ships, instead of trade runs. So you should work your
way towards getting one of these as soon as you can survive sea battles. The
First Mates are difficult to reach (they're nowhere near Highrock), and
expensive, so it can take awhile to build up enough money to afford them.
Note: If your First Mate is sailing a prize ship, and the ship is lost in
battle, the First Mate is lost forever -- he will not reappear at his starting
location (so be careful taking prize ships into battle!).
One of the more important mods is the Pugwash First Mate Officer patch. This
places a very inexpensive first mate on Highrock that you can hire much
earlier on in your career.
Important Officers:
Gunner
Primarily increases gun skills (gunlaying, reloading, coordination).
Extremely helpful in the midgame to help get a winning edge in sea battles.
Boatswain
Primarily increases sailing and boarding skills. Also helpful in the midgame,
and should pay for himself through the capture of more ships.
Helpful Officers:
Surgeon
Primarily increases defense skill. Helps keep crew alive for ship captures
and fort attacks. It hurts to finally knock out a fort's cannons, and not
have enough men left to defeat the garrison!
Carpenter
Primarily increases repair skill. Nice but not essential.
Master Purser
Primarily increases commerce skill. IF you are doing nothing but trading (no
quests or combat outside of trade routes), then they make you a lot of money.
As soon as you move from trading to capturing ships for your money, fire him.
For more information on pursers, read here:
Purser Analysis: http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/pursers.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01.04 Choosing a Campaign.
SeaDogs has four campaigns:
1. The English Campaign.
This is started by taking a Letter of Marque from Governor Mortons on
Highrock. This is considered the best campaign for new players, as it focuses
on nearby friendly islands and has more easy quests early on.
2. The French Campaign.
This is started by taking a Letter of Marque from Governor De Bijou on
Belflor. This is considered a well- rounded campaign, balancing questing with
combat and a fun story.
3. The Spanish Campaign.
This is started by taking a Letter of Marque from Governor De Mercadal on
Granda Avilia. This is considered a difficult campaign, with more combat, and
the added problem that Spain starts the game hostile to you, so you have to
find an agent (in the original game), or use some of the mods to get into
Spanish ports.
4. The Pirate Campaign.
This is started by speaking with Olaf Ulsson on Shark Island and joining the
Coastal Brotherhood. This is considered the most difficult campaign, mostly
because of Pirate Campaign Bugs that you must carefully avoid to complete the
campaign. However, it is the most enjoyable and rewarding of the campaigns,
because it allows you to complete the main storyline of finding out about
Nicolas' father's ties to the Archipelago.
You are free to switch between campaigns until you become a titled "Black
Coat" officer for a country, at which time you are "committed" to the campaign
for that country. This is the general rule, because when titled, the agents
disappear, and islands start changing nationalities, so specific combinations
may come up where a particular island is closed to you. However, if you use a
Walkthrough, you can chart your way through some of this.
There is also what's considered the "Fifth Campaign," being that of a free
trader, where you don't take a letter of marque, except where necessary to
gain access to hostile islands.
Note: It is not always clear which quests pertain to which campaign, so you
can expect some overlap between the campaigns, particularly with side quests.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01.05 What To Do: Trade and Questing.
The primary goal early in the game is building experience (and thereby skills)
and gold, working to the mid-game transition point where you can start
capturing ships.
If you have already figured out your initial campaign choice, then try to take
a Letter of Marque from that governor as early as possible, because the
governors will then give you some easy fed-ex missions and simple quests early
on that will get you a little experience and a few drabs of gold. Some
storekeepers and local characters will also have delivery and escort quests;
take them early on as well. Otherwise, if you wait too long, these early runs
will be too easy and not very much fun.
Note: None of the quests are time-sensitive. Once you take a quest, it stays
open until you attempt to complete it.
These quests won't give you enough gold to stay alive, so you will need to
supplement your questing income with gold earned from trading. There are two
classic runs: (1) Delivering Coffee to Dead Island, and (2) Delivering Bombs
to El Caimano. If you do nothing but trade (don't do any quests), hire Andrew
Mullen, the purser at the Tendales tavern--you will make money even with his
exorbitant wage. Here's a link with an analysis of pursers:
Purser Analysis: http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/pursers.htm
If you've installed the Ellaybe Campaign mod, you should try to get to Ellaybe
as early as possible. That campaign has many quests, missions, and trade runs
for starting captains that will make the game easier, interesting, and more
enjoyable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01.06 Choose Your Battles Carefully.
You will run into many random encounters on the 2D sea map. Early on, you
should avoid almost all of these. If you get an encounter that doesn't give
you the option to avoid it at the sea map level, do a double-tap of the Enter
key as soon as the battle scene loads, and it will return you to the seamap.
However, some of the encounters (maybe one out of 10) will include a single
Class 6 or 5 ship which will give you a big experience point boost if you can
sink one of them. If you're careful, you will be able to sort out these
encounters without getting stuck against some monster ship that will turn you
into splinters.
On the sea map, if you get a message that you can't immediately dismiss as a
big-ship encounter, choose "Engage" to load the 3D battle. As soon as the
battle is loaded, hit the "Pause" key (note that it is actually the "Pause"
button and not the "P" key listed in the manual). The game will pause, but
you can still scroll around with the mouse and use your spyglass to zoom in on
the enemy ship to see how large it is. If the ship is too big, hit the Pause
key to start the game again, and immediately do a double-tap of the Enter key
to get back to the sea map. If you are unable to do a double-tap, make note
of the wind, turn away from the ship and try to run away, keeping your ship in
one of the enemy's blind spots (the little gap between the enemy's firing arcs
in the minimap "radar").
Otherwise, if the ship looks like something you could handle, press the Pause
key to start the game, and do a quicksave (F3). Then go for it! Realize that
you WILL lose most of these early battles -- that's part of the steep learning
curve. But you will learn some vital things that will help you ramp-up on
your midgame. These include (in the order that you will encounter them):
1. Watching the Wind;
2. Maneuvering Your Ship;
3. Utilizing Firing Arcs and Blind Spots;
4. Timing Broadsides;
5. Damage Effects of Different Ammo;
6. Grappling; and
7. Boarding.
These are discussed below, since at this point your first ship combat will
usually be focused on survival and not on tactics. But when you get good
enough to successfully capture a ship and assign it to a first mate, then
congratulations! You will have moved on to the mid-game.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01.07 Early Game Ships.
It's important to get a ship with a large hold, because you will be using
these ships for trade. Speed and turning, much like sailing skill, are only
important if you take the time to sail your ship in battle instead of rushing
blindly into combat, or just avoid combat altogether.
As you start "testing" a few combat encounters, it will be important to get a
ship with a thick hull -- a thicker hull will let you live a little longer and
learn a little more in your early engagements.
Don't get too hung up on cannons early on. Early Game ships have a handful of
small (12pdr) guns that do little damage, especially when your skills are low.
Try to control the "cannon-envy" urge until you've traded enough to get a
little gold, and run a few quests to build up your experience and get some
skill points. Your upgrade in this part of the game will probably be to a
ship with 16pdrs, and at that point (with some skill points and a larger
ship), cannons will be more important, as you start looking to attack ships.
Notes: (1) Different shipyards have different ships available for purchase
(unless you're using an all-ships patch); (2) Your ship will bring you money
when you sell it, so you don't have to have the entire purchase price of a new
ship "in your pocket" when you decide to buy.
Specific ships are more of a personal choice. My first upgrade is to a Trade
Pink, to get the extra hold space. My second upgrade is either to a Bark or a
Lugger depending on whether my playing style at the time would benefit from
the extra speed of the Bark. The third upgrade is usually when I start
looking at the combat specs of a ship. If combat isn't that important, I get
a Shnyava, otherwise I get a Pinnace, which is a great ship to transition into
the mid-game.
If you've installed the mods, your ideal trade ship is the Pack Rat. This
ship was designed to fill in the gap created by the lack of good, inexpensive
trade ships, and to take some of the sting out of the game's steep learning
curve by giving you enough hull and gun strength for those first few
"learning" battles.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.02 Midgame Transitions.
4.02.01 What to Do: Capturing Ships.
4.02.02 Sea Combat.
4.02.03 Boarding/Fencing.
4.02.04 Midgame Ships.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.02.01 What To Do: Capturing Ships.
Midgame occurs when you (usually) leave trading behind as an income source,
and start making money by capturing and selling ships. This is much more
lucrative and easy -- a single ship can save you from months of coffee runs!
Traditionally, at this point you've got a class 5 ship or better, you've
acquired a first mate, and you've got a few points in your boarding, gunlaying
and sailing skills. Maybe you've survived a battle or two and have finally
limped back to port with your first prize ship. You've sold that ship,
repaired the damage done to your own, and for the first time there's some gold
left over! This is when you've hit the midgame, when you switch from prey to
predator.
This part of the game is where you hone your skills in ship combat, and move
the campaigns up to the point where you're given your first mission to attack
a fort.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.02.02 Sea Combat.
Here's where you start improving on the items listed previously, moving from
survival to tactics. Even though the tactics are broken down, a few themes
will begin to repeat themselves: pausing the game, turning your opponent into
the wind and using blind spots. If you can remember those three things,
you'll always have the jump on your opposition.
1. Watching the Wind.
Usually your ship will get stuck with the headwind when a battle loads, so
it's good to check the wind immediately upon entering a battle. Don't be
afraid to take a long route around an enemy ship to get a favorable wind
position. Get comfortable checking the wind position during battle. Get in
the habit of checking the mini-map (radar in the upper right-hand corner of
the screen) before making a turn, otherwise in the heat of battle, you may
turn into the wind and lose your advantage.
It is also possible to "lure" your opponent to turn into the wind. Most ships
will turn towards you if you take a hostile action towards them (firing on
them, moving into their firing arc, coming in contact with the ship). Use
this to put them "in chains."
2. Maneuvering Your Ship.
Again, there are two ways to commit your initial maneuver: either by sailing
directly at the ship with guns blazing, or by sailing around the enemy and
engaging him slowly from a favorable wind position.
The Direct Method:
There are a few strategy considerations to engaging a ship directly. There
are no bow guns on SD ships. Therefore, if you sail directly at the enemy
ship, it will be unable to hit you. This enables you to perform a classic
series of "S-type" twisting maneuvers in front of the enemy, sailing at it,
turning a broadside to fire, and resuming your course directly at it.
Unless you are much larger than your opponent, you will not sink him before
your ships close on each other. Therefore, you will need to time your break
such that the enemy will only get a shot at your stern while you flee. This
almost always means NOT taking that last turn on the ship for the final S-
maneuver -- instead bear off and get some distance before the enemy's guns
come to bear. Resist the temptation for "just one more shot!"
Once you have fled the enemy after using this direct approach, you are going
to be in a relatively unfavorable position compared to the enemy. If you are
committed to this "direct approach", you can use the "Sail To" tab-key command
to Sail To the enemy again. It will usually reload the scene, with you still
in a disfavored position, but often able to get into range of the ship as
quickly as possible, often for a boarding pass. However, if you use this
strategy, expect some surprises when the scene reloads! Sometimes, the Sail
To maneuver will load the scene with you right in the enemy's broadside -- so
it is always good to Quicksave F3 right before pulling a Sail To maneuver (you
WILL thank yourself later!).
Long-Route Tactics:
Eventually the Direct Method will lose its flavor, once you've gotten a few
battles under your belt and start looking for the excitement of a tactic-
focused battle. These tactics exponentially increase the length of the
battles, but also increase your enjoyment of them.
Pausing the game at the beginning of the battle to access the situation is
critical. Usually, your first maneuvering tactic is to take a long-route
around the enemy, to gain a favorable wind and attack position. Don't forget
to repeat this maneuver periodically in course of the battle as well.
An often-used initial long route tactic is to place your ship so that you fire
your first broadside from a position upwind of the enemy, towards the bow or
stern quarter of the enemy ship. The ship will turn towards you, into the
wind, while you turn AWAY from the ship after firing, gaining the wind and a
huge advantage, and passing the ship either with a bow or stern raking shot.
Here's an example to break down that tactic:
(A) The battle starts, you pause the screen and see that your solo equal
opponent has the wind at its back and is heading straight for you. You are in
a direct headwind pointed straight at him.
(B) You unpause the game and immediately turn 90 degrees from the enemy,
keeping full sails and keeping distance from the ship. If you do this soon
enough, the enemy will not react and will just continue its original course,
and you will be out of range of the enemy's guns and able to turn back on it.
(C) Cut to battle sails and turn towards the ship as it passes by. Deciding
just when to do this depends on how fast your ship is compared to your
opponent:
(C)(i) If your ship is slower than your opponent, you are not going to be
able to turn 180 degrees and pace the ship from behind. Instead, turn
partially (half-way) towards the ship a little early, before it has passed
you, and head towards its stern quarter at an angle, so you get a single shot
off at its stern quarter as it passes by you, while you pass behind it. This
will cause the enemy to react and turn on you, into more of a headwind. At
that point, you can complete your turn, go to full sails, and catch the tail
wind at the same time the enemy is turning into the wind, such that you will
be heading towards the enemy, with the wind (and usually with a couple of good
shot opportunities opening up), and he will be turning into the wind to engage
you. Then pause the game, and plot the course to your next broadside with the
wind at your back.
(C)(ii) However, if your ship is faster than you opponent, you will be able
to make a complete turn back towards the enemy and pace him from behind. You
can turn towards the ship early, as set forth in the above paragraph, and get
one or two shots. Or instead, you can hold off a while on your turn towards
the enemy until it is nearly past you, hoping to slide into a position either
in the stern blind spot (see below), or further back, and slowly close on the
enemy using your favorable speed. The longer you hold off completing your
turn, the less chance there is that the enemy will react to you. Then you go
back to full sails and close. In this later scenario, both you and the enemy
will be traveling with the wind, with you somewhere to the rear of the enemy
and closing on it. Once you have gotten close to the ship, but are still
behind it, you can either turn a broadside to the enemy and fire, or try to
tuck into one of its blind spots to soak it down for boarding. This tactic is
extremely successful when attacking large ships and treasure fleets with a
single, fast ship.
After the Initial Engagement:
No matter how well you plot your strategy, as soon as you make your first
shot, the enemy will usually react, and turn towards you. Instead of making a
quick reaction yourself, pause the game and look at what the enemy will be
forced to do, given its reaction. Usually it will be turning towards you,
into a headwind (if you planned well above).
The purpose of pausing is to compare the three strategies available to you at
that moment:
(1) Trying to avoid the enemy's fire long enough for the broadside that just
fired to reload-- this requires being able to keep yourself in the enemy's
blind spot, dropping out of range of his cannons, or doing a good job of
timing the enemy's shots;
(2) Maneuvering to bring the other, loaded broadside of your ship to bear on
the enemy--which requires you being able to turn AWAY from the enemy quicker
than he can turn AT you, so you need the wind and a faster ship; or
(3) Moving in to board--check the enemy's strengths, and if he's soaked down
enough, F3 and move in to board.
3. Utilizing Firing Arcs and Blind Spots.
Until you have a lot of battles under your belt, and are able to judge the
ranges and angles of the enemy ships, you will be using the mini-map all the
time. You need to get very comfortable zooming in and out and keeping track
of the exact range of everybody's firing arcs. Much of your advantage in a
battle will be on dropping out of an enemy's firing arc (either out of range,
or into a blind spot) before he can return your fire.
The Backspace key cycles through its various display options and the plus and
minus keys on the keypad zoom the view in and out.
Your Firing Arcs:
Think of your red firing arc lines delineating the "optimal" firing arcs for
your ship. There are many factors that will determine if you can actually
fire at a ship within that arc -- speed, angle, pitch of the ship, reload
speed, and size of your remaining crew. There will be many times where you
think you should be able to fire on an enemy in your firing arc but nothing
will happen. Before you curse at that point, just remember the obvious rule
that the closer you are to your opponent, the greater the chance your fire
command will be carried out.
The Enemy's Firing Arcs:
The primary focus of the Enemy's arc is the range and blind spots. Until you
can count out reload times, you should assume that a ship will fire on you if
you stray into its firing arc. So if you take that chance, you should have an
attack plan in mind, or the enemy will win that round.
Another reason for staying out of the enemy's firing arc is that an enemy ship
will frequently ignore you completely if you are out of the range of the guns
-- this fact is the backbone behind the long-route tactics previously
discussed. Once you've watched an entire warfleet sail blindly past your
ship, with you just out of range of their guns, you too will consider the
game's AI to stand for "Absence of Intelligence."
Blind Spots.
Make good use of the blind spots between the broadside guns and the stern
guns. This is where you want to tuck your ship for a close, unanswered
broadside, or for boarding from the rear with a faster ship. When you fire at
the enemy from its blind spot, it will almost always turn towards you to try
to bring its broadside guns on you. The first few times, quicksave and pause
your game after firing a broadside from the enemy's blind spot, so you can
tick off the steps of your next maneuver in your mind--they come fast.
A classic maneuver with a fast ship is to get your ship into an aft blind spot
on one side of your enemy, fire, and cross over to the aft blind spot on the
other side of the enemy's ship: Get yourself running parallel to the enemy, in
one of his rear blind spots. Then as soon as you fire from the first blind
spot, cut your sails so the enemy shoots ahead of you and begins to turn, and
as soon as his stern clears your bowsprit a second later, immediately go to
full sails, swing across the stern of the enemy and into the blindspot on the
other side of his ship! If you've planned correctly, your enemy's turn will
bring him into the wind, and you will have the wind at your back as you fly
around and into the opposite blind spot. Don't be afraid if the enemy fires
its stern cannons at you -- it usually only has two rear cannons -- so don't
let the smoke and noise scare you away from his stern!
4. Timing Broadsides.
Keep track of the enemy's reload times! When the enemy tags you with a
broadside, the normal instinct is to flee -- but wait, you've got a few vital
seconds to attack. Instead of fleeing, pause the game, and after cursing and
taking a breath at getting shot, survey the battle to see if there's an
opening where you can sneak a shot in while the enemy's guns are reloading, or
try to grapple. Many times this will be your best opportunity to grapple!
Keep track of your reload times! Watching the minimap the first few times
will quickly get you a good feel of when your guns will be loaded--those times
should be ticking off in the back of your mind during a battle. If you pause
the game, you can assess your maneuver options based on the remaining reload
time. Once you get a handle on it, you will look at the minimap and see TWO
positions of the ships -- where they are now, and where they will be when your
guns have reloaded.
5. Cannons and Ammo: The Real Numbers.
If you've tried to compare cannon and ammo with the manual, the game, and
perhaps the SeaDogs forum, you will find one thing in common: no two answers
are the same. So this section includes the stats from the actual data files
of the game.
The basics of cannon choices is obvious: the bigger the better. But once you
get beyond that caveat, there's other factors to consider that may make you
reconsider that rule, like range and reload times. Here's a chart of the
relevant cannon statistics from the unmodded game:
Guns reload range damage price
12pdr 40.0 12.5 10 480
16pdr 45.0 14.0 12 640
24pdr 50.0 16.0 16 800
These basic stats are modified by the type of ammo you use. With regard to
ammo, everybody knows the basics as well: Balls for light or long range
damage; Grape for crew, Chain for sails, Bombs for extra damage.
There are also "bleed-over" damage effects from each type of ammo, as well as
range and reload modifiers, so the figures are not so simple. Here's a table
of the amount of damage caused by each type of ammo in the unmodded game, as
well as their range and reload modifiers:
Ammo -----Damage---- Rng Rel
Type Hull Rig Crew Mod Mod
----- ---- --- ---- --- ---
Balls 10 8 1 1.0 1.0
Chain 5 30 3 .75 .8
Grape 3 20 10 .50 .5
Bombs 7 10 6 .90 .9
Since the basic stats are modified so wildly by the ammo you choose, it is
important to get the right combinations of guns and ammo for your given
strategy of play. A trader fleeing pirates would consider one combination,
while a pirate intending to board and capture its prey would consider
another.
A bonus for messing with these stats is that it will give you good feel for
what your enemy can do, when you're spying his stats through your spyglass!
6. Grappling.
Grappling considers the speed, angle and range to the enemy ship, comes up
with a percentage figure, and each time you press the F2 button, it determines
whether you grapple or not.
It is such an imprecise science! You can be right next to the enemy,
parallel, at the same speed, with a high boarding skill, and still can't
grapple no matter how many times you press the F2 button.
Conversely, other times you can be flying past a ship going the other
direction and grapple on the first try. Anybody who's played old pen & paper
roleplay games knows how fickled the dice can be, and it’s the same here.
Given its imprecise nature, here's a few tips to help:
(1) If you can't board from the enemy's blind spot, wait for its shot before
attempting to move in and grapple, or it will get a point-blank broadside on
you before you board (often during the cutscene after you've grappled!).
(2) Don't be afraid to ram the enemy ship. Often, gently hitting the enemy
ship will slow down both ships and turn them closer to each other, increasing
the grappling chance. This is particularly effective if the two ships are
sailing directly towards each other -- brush your bow against the enemy's and
you'll be able to "park" right next to him.
(3) Quicksave (F3) before making a grappling pass on a ship, so you have the
option to reload if you don't grapple (cheating? your call).
(4) Rapidfire the F2 button a few times, and if you can't grapple, break away
or do a quick reload (F7).
(5) Sneak your own broadside in if you can (think to hit the spacebar the
same time you're hitting F2 button), unless you've already soaked the enemy
down to where you want it.
(6) ALWAYS -- Quicksave the instant you successfully grapple (you can still
do so during the first cutscene when the camera zooms out away from the
ships). ALWAYS!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.02.03 Boarding/Fencing.
At first fencing will seem difficult and risky, but there is one method, that
once achieved will always work, even if you are outnumbered three to one and
the enemy's boarding skill is three or four points more than yours. It is
called "Zen Swordfighting."
Zen Swordfighting:
(1) As soon as the swordfight starts, take two or three swings (depending on
how fast you can be). These will be unopposed.
(2) Then go strictly on the defensive. Parry every swing by the enemy.
Since you're focusing only on parrying, you'll find you can usually spot the
enemy's feints as well and hold off your block until the swing. Keep parrying
until the enemy's stamina bar turns yellow.
(3) Then go on the offensive, only swinging and slashing. Feint before EVERY
swing. Only when the enemy reacts, THEN swing or slash (it doesn't matter
which or where, because when he reacts to your feint it leaves him wide open).
Since you're only focusing on attacking, you'll find you can usually spot when
he reacts to your feints, so that every swing you take will hit. Take no
defensive actions. Keep attacking until the enemy's stamina bar turn green.
(4) Keep repeating steps 2 and 3 until the enemy is dead. That's all there
is to it. It is really that simple! The fun of the method comes in becoming
so focused that you can catch the enemy's feints and his reactions to yours --
hence it's name.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.02.04 Midgame Ships.
Midgame ships are the fun ones, where you finally get to be the pirate you
always wanted to be, and you are defeating ships in battle! You want ships
that can attack and defend well at sea.
The Brig is the classic first midgame upgrade. Don't be afraid of its limited
number of cannons. It makes up for it with an excellent speed and turning
rate -- the two things that really give you an edge in a well-planned combat
encounter. However, you can't take out a fort with one -- you don't have
enough crew.
The other classic is the Corvette, which will take you to the end of the
midgame (or the entire game). It is the fastest ship, has just enough crew to
take out a fort (if you're good), but has a thin hull and few cannons. At the
end of your midgame, if you're really good at battles, it is the ship to try.
A skilled captain can put a Corvette into the blind spot of any ship! The
drawback to the extra speed and maneuverability is that a single broadside
from a large ship will take all of that away. With a Corvette there is no
room for error! If you're still taking a beating in battles, get a Frigate
instead -- the extra guns are great equalizers!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.03 Final Strategies for the Endgame.
4.03.01 What to Do: Defeating Quest Forts.
4.03.02 The Black Coat / Black Flag.
4.03.03 Endgame Ships.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.03.01 What To Do: Defeating Quest Forts.
The endgame occurs when you capture your first fort for a given country. You
have to be fairly well rounded in every aspect of the game to capture a fort.
It also is the point where the game forces you to stay allied with the country
for which you took that first fort (or risk not being able to complete the
game).
You can attack a fort at any time. You must first knock out the fort cannons
with the guns on your ship. Then you move close to the fort to "land" and
battle the garrison in a swordfight, the same way you battle the crew when you
board a ship.
If you are successful, you exit the swordfight into a "ransacked" city screen.
There will be only one person in the ransacked city in an unmodded game: the
governor (on islands that have one), or a "citizen". If you talk to either
one, you get a relatively large sum of gold, and when you leave the town, it
reverts back to its original control (same country, and fort is resupplied).
That's the only option you have, unless you are given a quest to capture the
island for a particular country, at which time a new dialog line lets you take
the island for your sovereign country, and the island switches to the control
of that country.
There's two general strategy methods used for taking out forts: (1) Long Range
Shelling; and (2) "Hide and Slide."
1. The Long-Range Shelling Method.
The Long Range Shelling method involves loading your ship with 1000-2000 units
of ammunition of a type which has a longer range than the guns of a fort
(cannonballs in the unmodded game). Then you sit out of range of the fort
guns and shell it until you get the prompt that you may land troops. This
method is long and rather boring, but guaranteed to knock out the fort. For
further details on this tactic, see Clokendagger's Fort Tactics., below.
2. The Hide & Slide Method.
The Hide and Slide method involves bringing your ship along the coastline
until you are right off of the left or right side of the fort, at point-black
range, but at an angle where the guns can't hit you. Then you slowly inch
across the face of the fort, firing broadsides at it from point blank range.
The idea is to slide only far enough across the face of the fort that you will
come into range of a single fort cannon at a time. You then fire your
broadside at that gun, hopefully knocking it out. Wait until your guns
reload, then slide a little further across the face of the fort, and when you
come up on a gun, dump another broadside into it.
This tactic takes a little while before you get the "feel" for where a fort's
guns are located, which means your first couple of times, you can get sunk by
a single broadside from the fort if you make a mistake. So Quicksave before
attempting it! However, after a couple of tries, you should be able to get
the rhythm down, and be successful.
The benefit of this method is that it takes out the fort much quicker, and
there is the added "thrill" of being instantly sunk if you misjudge your
sliding maneuver.
3. "You May Land Troops Now!"
You must knock out all the fort cannons before you can land your troops. When
you land troops, you will face the fort commander in a battle identical to a
ship boarding swordfight, and the fort commander's strength will be determined
by the number of fort garrison forces remaining after you destroy all the fort
cannons. It is very important to limit your crew losses while you destroy
the fort cannons -- if you're halfway through the fort cannons and your crew
numbers start to fall, bite the bullet and load a saved game. If you have a
very high boarding skill (9 or more with officer mods), and you are a good
fencer, you should have at least 250 men to assault the fort. If your skill
is less, or your swordfighting technique is a little rough, you should have
twice that number.
NOTE: If you save the game after you get the "You May Land Troops Now!"
message, when you restore the game, the fort will be reloaded with a small
garrison, usually taking only one broadside to defeat (you also get another
experience point award for defeating the fort again).
Even though you will get messages during your fort attack as you destroy
cannons, if you use your spyglass to inspect the fort, it will NOT show the
garrison (men) decreasing. Instead, it will show a full complement of troops
until you destroy the final fort cannon, at which time it will show the number
of troops remaining in the fort. This is the men that you will have to defeat
in the swordfight. Continuing to fire on the fort will not bring down this
number, unless you use the "save and restore" bug set forth above.
Your first couple of fort attacks will be even worse than your first couple of
ship battles. The fort attack is considered the pinnacle of your pirating
prowess -- you must be good at everything in order to defeat the fort: large
number of men, high boarding skill, taking the first 2-3 unopposed swings,
parrying every swing by the fort commander, feinting before every swing you
take. If you are lacking in any of these areas, go out and practice by
capturing more ships before attempting a fort attack.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.03.02 The Black Coat / Black Flag.
After you complete your first quest to attack a fort for a country, you will
receive a title (Admiral or Baron). You will receive a black coat to indicate
that you are now considered the "property" of that particular country, and
cannot change your allegiances by taking a letter of marque for another
country. The Agents on Skullshores will usually disappear, so you cannot buy
a LOM for another country, although you could take a LOM from a different
governor.
There's a similar point of no return in the Pirate Campaign -- but you receive
a "unique" Black Flag instead of a Black Coat. It comes when you resolve your
differences with a particularly evil gentleman who wears a black coat himself
(left vague so not to spoil it any further).
The "Black Coat / Black Flag" stage is extremely important in the structure of
the game. It is considered "The Point of No Return," meaning that you are
committed to finishing the game in the Campaign of the country that gave you
the title and the coat. Until that time, you can change allegiances between
any of the countries, without any detrimental effects.
So it is a good idea to make a good, well-labeled saved game right BEFORE you
get the Black Coat or Black Flag, so once you finish that particular campaign,
you can restore this game and switch to another campaign and not have to start
the game all over to play another campaign (although most veterans consider
the game more fun if you do start each campaign with a new game).
Once you receive the Coat or Flag, if you change your allegiance to another
country (by taking a LOM from a different governor, or buying a forged LOM in
a modded game), you MAY not be able to complete the game. The reason for this
is that the nationalities of the islands will now start to change as you
capture islands for the country that gave you the coat, and this can alter the
nationalities of the island so that if you change your letter of marque to
another country, islands that are assumed to be friendly by the game are no
longer friendly because you captured them for another nationality, and you may
not be able to enter them (since the agents are gone). Also, in certain
circumstances, a key individual that you may need to contact in one campaign
may have gotten killed off in another campaign if you passed the point of no
return.
This "mixing & matching" of island nationalities, characters, and letters of
marque after getting titled is very confusing. However, there are ways you
can juggle letters of marque after getting titled, if you have a walkthrough
and understand the concept. For example, one famous "juggling" that works is
the "bigamy quest" where you proceed along the French campaign to the point
where you get titled, and get married, and then switch to the pirate campaign
and complete that campaign, where you get married again. But if you don't
want to risk an unfinishable game, remember the GENERAL RULE: Don't change
allegiances after getting the Black Coat or Flag!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.03.03 Endgame Ships.
For your first time through, the endgame ships are always the big boys. You
will need the firepower and crew size to defeat forts and win the larger sea
battles that occur at the end of the game.
The "workhorse" of the endgame ships is the Armored Battleship. It has a lot
of guns, a thick hull, and a large crew. If it's your first time through, try
to save up enough gold to purchase one of these for your first fort assault
mission -- you'll be glad you did!
Where to Find that (M)MOW:
The Modernized Man of War is the largest ship in the unmodded game. You can't
buy a MOW or MMOW in any shipyard in the unmodded game, making them rather
coveted, and sailing one is considered a badge of honor for newer captains.
The only way to get one is to either through a couple of quests in the game,
or through random encounters with "Treasure Fleets" or "Great Armadas".
Without spoiling things too much, the only quests where you come across a MOW
or MMOW in the unmodded game are in the Spanish and Pirate Campaigns.
However, you can switch over to the Pirate Campaign and get the one there, and
switch back to the Campaign you are currently working on.
Bored With the Big Boys? Downsize!
As you become more experienced in the game, the challenge comes by finishing
the game in smaller and smaller ships. You can complete any campaign with a
Corvette, although with the mod ships, there are more and more stories of
completing campaigns with smaller ships (word is you can do it with a Pack
Rat).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.04 Future Campaigns.
4.04.01 Avoiding the Game End.
4.04.02 Restoring vs. Starting Over.
4.04.03 Side and Repeatable Quests.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.04.01 Avoiding the Game End.
When you finish your last island-capture quest of a campaign for a particular
nationality, you will go to an end-game movie, and the game will be over. You
do not return to the game.
While this could be easily modded out of the game, the simple idea is just to
make a good, well-labeled saved-game before talking to the governor the last
time. It's not always obvious which battle will be the "final battle" for
that nationality, so just save each time before you advise a governor that you
captured an island.
In comparison, the Mod Campaigns (Port Royale, Ellaybe and/or Dungeons &
Doubloons and The Pirate Plague) do not go to an endgame scene if you finish
them. You may finish either, or all, of them and proceed to any of the main
game campaigns.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.04.02 Restoring vs. Starting Over.
After finishing your first Campaign, the game isn't over! There's still the
other three Campaigns to try. Each campaign is a completely different story,
with 10-20 different quests necessary to complete it.
Each campaign gives you a different set of core-islands from which you operate
that campaign, with completely different NPC's that you interact with
(especially the Spanish Campaign, since it starts hostile to you and you don't
have much involvement with those islands outside of the Spanish Campaign).
Lastly, the Pirate Campaign is the only one that ties up all the interesting
loose-ends of the game story concerning Nicolas's father. From that
standpoint, it is the most enjoyable campaign of the game, but also the most
difficult one to complete due to some game bugs.
Once you finished a Campaign, you don't have to start over from scratch. You
can restore any saved game from any point BEFORE you received the black coat
(just look at the saved-game graphic), and you can switch to another campaign
without starting over.
It's a little more complicated with the Pirate Campaign -- if you want to
start a new game after finishing the pirate campaign, you need to load a saved
game from BEFORE you capture your first Island (i.e., before you receive that
"special flag").
However, it is the consensus of most veterans of the game that it is usually
better to start a new game if you are starting another Campaign. One reason
for this is that the starting missions of each campaign are designed for
lower-ranking captains. So if you start a new campaign from a saved-game
where you have a big ship and lots of gold, the game won't be as challenging.
Also, with the mods, there are many missions and quests now specifically
intended for low-ranking captains, making it just as enjoyable to play with a
small ship (you don't have to do all those blasted coffee runs). You will
find that your second time through the game, you will do much better at the
lower ranks and enjoy that time more than when you were a struggling novice.
A Small Bug: Sometimes if you start a New Game from the Main Menu, the game
doesn't completely reset. Usually this shows up where the island flags on the
2D map don't show the correct starting nationalities. (For example, if you
just finished the Spanish campaign, and start a new game, Tendales may still
be flying a Spanish flag). You should check this as soon as you start a new
game. Because of this, it’s a good idea to consider reinstalling and
repatching the game before starting a "new-game campaign."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.04.03 Side & Repeatable Quests.
Technically speaking, there are only a handful of side quests in the original
game. However, until you become titled for a given country, the early
campaign missions for other nationalities can effectively be treated as side
quests, although they come at a high cost if you use the agents to change your
LOM's.
NONE of the original game quests are repeatable. The random sea battle
encounters and non-quest fort assaults can be repeated indefinitely, but
otherwise SeaDogs is completely linear.
By comparison, many of the mod quests and missions are repeatable. Also, most
of the Mod quests and campaigns are designed to be fully integrated with the
main game, such that they do not interfere with the main campaigns and can be
played like side quests at any time.
==============================================================================
5.00 KNOWN GAME BUGS AND HOW TO HANDLE THEM.
5.01 Autosave = Autodestruct!
5.02 "ENT" (Event Not Triggered) Bugs.
5.03 Traffic Jams.
5.04 Miscellaneous Minor Bugs.
5.04.01 The 3000 Bug.
5.04.02 The Ship Switching Bug.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.01 Autosave = Autodestruct!
Neither Bethesda nor Akella support SeaDogs anymore, and there is no access
to the hard-coded game. Therefore, there are a few known game bugs that we
are cursed with. They will never be fixed, and you WILL encounter at least
one of them. But there are a few workarounds that can help.
These bugs appear infrequently in the unmodded game. They come up much more
often in modded games, as the mods effectively double the size of the game,
and push the game to its limits.
Leaving the Autosave Option On in the "Options" menu is NOT advised. The
Autosave function will sometimes attempt to save the game at inopportune times
(like during mid-duel, or during a teleport, or before a large battle
completes its loading), which will sew the seed of destruction in your game.
These problems are not isolated to the autosaved game file, and can actually
corrupt the entire game! Known problems include agonizingly slow load times
for saved games and in-game scene changes (5 to 8 minutes per load), random
teleports (wheeeee!), towns that will become inaccessible or cause the game to
crash, and crashes in mid-load of NON-autosaved games. These errors have just
been getting isolated, and they may be related to other non-autosave
functions. But for now, it seems that shutting off the Autosave helps limit
these problems.
The worst part is that the problems do not always come up right after an
autosave. They can lay dormant for some time, until some other event causes
them to come up, often without warning, or come up when you restore a non-
autosaved game.
These hassles are not worth the "convenience" of the Autosave function. Turn
it off!
Instead of relying on the Autosave function, a good general prophylactic is to
"save smart." This means to make one well-named good save right before you
start a quest, mission, or leg of a campaign, and then "quicksave" at the
intermittent parts of that given quest, mission or campaign leg. The
quicksaves will overwrite themselves, so the number of saved games will be
more manageable, and you will have a good record of the named-saves, which
will help you handle other bugs, as set forth below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.02 "ENT" (Event Not Triggered) Bugs.
The Event Not Triggered Bug (as named by Captain Hayredden Barbarossa) is THE
bane of SeaDogs. Play the game long enough, and you WILL encounter it! It
has to do with certain conditional quest events not advancing when they are
triggered.
ENT Bugs also can come up in modded games when there are too many mods
installed. It is the first indication that too many mods are installed, and
if they come up in this fashion, the workarounds listed below won't help; you
have to start the game over!
Since it is such a serious error, the information here is detailed and
repetitive, so you'll know when you've encountered it, if you can work around
it, and if so what you have to do to continue the game.
There's usually three flavors of ENT Bugs:
(A) A character or ship fails to appear when it should;
(B) A new dialog or new logbook entry fails to appear; or
(C) A street-duel does not place Nick in the right location at its conclusion.
(A) Character or Ship Fails to Appear:
If a character or ship fails to appear where you know it should, this is often
an ENT bug (or a "traffic jam", below). These sort of events come up in
escort missions, or quests where the next clue is dependent upon you reaching
a particular location.
To workaround the bug, you need to either retrigger the ending event, or
restart the leg of the quest that created the event.
There are three workarounds to try for a missing character or ship, which you
should attempt in the following order:
(1) Try to "reload" the trigger scene by exiting the particular 3-D scene
where the character or ship is supposed to be and returning, so the scene will
reload. If you're at sea, go to the sea map and sail away briefly and return.
If you are on the street, enter a building and then go back out. Doing this
two or three times may cause the new ship or character to appear.
(2) If that doesn't work, load a saved game from a different scene that's
right BEFORE the one with the missing character or ship. Then go to the
encounter area and see if the character or ship is there. Save Smart: It's
a good idea to do a Quicksave right before you enter a scene where you're
expecting to meet up with a character or ship, so you can restore from that
point if you hit an ENT bug.
(3) If that doesn't work, load a saved game that's right BEFORE the first
event (quest) that made you aware of the encounter with the character or ship
you're trying to find. Then re-take the quest or re-choose the dialog that
informs you of a new contact, and go DIRECTLY TO the next encounter area -- do
not go on any other side quests or make any stops on the way, and try not to
save the game too often. The chance of an ENT bug increases with the more
intervening events you encounter and the more times you save your game between
the time you start a quest or set an event, and the time you trigger the
concluding event. While this is a serious "backtrack," this workaround will
usually clear out the bug if you try it a couple of times. Save Smart: It's
a good idea to make a clearly-named, regular saved game before talking to a
character that you know is going to give you a quest or direct you to a new
contact, so you can restore from that point if you hit an ENT bug. If that
still doesn't work, you may have a "traffic jam" problem (below). If that's
as clear as mud, maybe an example will help:
Example (A) Character Fails To Appear:
You speak with Duke Marijn in the townhall on Marina, and he tells you to sail
to Ellaybe, where he'll meet up you in the tavern (this sets a quest with an
"event" to relocate Marijn to the Ellaybe tavern when you land at Ellaybe).
You go to Ellaybe and Marijn's not in the Tavern (the "event" of landing on
Ellaybe did not "trigger" the command to teleport Marijn from Marina to the
Ellaybe tavern).
You suspect an ENT bug, so you run through the three steps above to clear it
out: (1) You first exit the tavern and re-enter the tavern a couple of times
to see if Marijn appears. If he doesn't, then (2) You load a saved game from
when you were on your ship in the Ellaybe harbor, right BEFORE you landed on
Ellaybe. Then you land on Ellaybe again, and check for Marijn in the tavern
(this would work if the “triggering event” for Marijn’s teleport is landing on
Ellaybe). If Marijn's still not in the tavern, then (3) you load a saved game
from a time right BEFORE you spoke with Marijn back on Marina. You restart
the dialog with Marijn that tells you to meet up with him at Ellaybe (this
would work if the “triggering event” for Marijn’s teleport is the completion
of the dialog). Then you go straight to Ellaybe, with no diversions or saved
games, dock and enter the tavern. He should be there.
If Marijn's still not there, look around and make sure there is an empty bench
or spot near the tavernkeeper for him to appear -- if not, the tavern may be
full and you might have a "traffic jam" bug instead of an ENT bug (see below).
(B) Dialog or Logbook Entry Fails to Appear:
If a dialog choice or logbook entry fails to appear when you are sure one
should have come up, it’s a very good chance you've encountered an ENT bug.
This is the most common form of ENT bug, and it usually comes up in quests and
missions where you are to sink/capture an enemy ship. Most "sink the bastid"
missions generate a logbook entry when the ship is sunk, so if one doesn't
come up, it’s a good sign of an ENT bug. And if no victory or reward dialog
comes up from the person giving you the quest or mission, then you know for
sure it is an ENT bug.
There are two workarounds, which are identical to steps (2) and (3) above:
(1) Load a saved game from a different scene that's right BEFORE the one where
the expected logbook or dialog entry doesn't show up (e.g., a scene before a
combat encounter). Then go to the encounter area and do whatever should have
triggered the event (e.g., sink the ship), and see if the expected logbook
entry or dialog line comes up.
If the trigger IS to capture or sink a ship, try to single that ship out of
the battle and defeat it as early as possible. The chance of an ENT bug
increases the longer a battle lasts, especially if there are a lot of things
going on in the battle -- many ships, a fort, and/or other quest events
happening mid- battle.
Again, you want to Quicksave at a scene before the scene of the trigger
(battle), so you can restore from that point if you hit an ENT bug.
(2) If that doesn't work, load a saved game from a scene right BEFORE the one
where you took the quest or started the dialog that first made reference to
the "event." Then re-take the quest or re-choose the dialog that sets up the
event (battle), go DIRECTLY TO the next encounter area and trigger the event
as soon as possible (sink the ship right away).
Again, make a clearly-named, regular saved game before talking to a character
that you know is going to give you a quest or mission, so you can restore
from that point if you hit an ENT bug. This bug comes up a LOT, and usually
THIS saved game file will be the one that will clear out the bug. Another
example to help this make sense:
Example (B) Logbook or Dialog Fails to Appear:
Continuing with the example above. You get to the Ellaybe tavern and Marijn
is there. You speak to him, and he tells you that the Archipelago isn't big
enough for two pirate kings. He offers you 50,000 gold to defeat Beltrop by
sinking or capturing his MMOW, The Gorgon, which is raiding merchants at the
Mermaid Reefs (sets a quest with an "event" that is triggered by sinking or
capturing The Gorgon).
You accept the quest, but decide you need a bigger ship before attacking the
Gorgon. So you capture and sell a few random ships until you can afford a
ship upgrade. In your new ship you sail to the Mermaid Reefs, and The Gorgon
is there (so you don't have ENT variety "A"). You defeat The Gorgon in a
glorious battle, but no logbook entry comes up to record the momentous
occasion. Suspicion: ENT Bug. (the "event" of defeating The Gorgon did NOT
"trigger" the command to update your logbook with an entry about sinking the
Gorgon). To confirm this is an ENT bug, you return to the Ellaybe tavern
and speak with Marijn. NO new dialog lines come up regarding the defeat of
Beltrop. Confirmation: ENT Bug.
So you try the two workarounds above: (1) You load a Quicksave you made at
Highrock on your way to the Mermaid Reefs, sail to the Mermaid Reefs, sink The
Gorgon again. If that doesn't cause a logbook entry to come up, then you (2)
Load a saved game from a time BEFORE you spoke with Marijn on Ellaybe about
killing Beltrop. You talk with Marijn, and take the quest to defeat Beltrop.
This time though, you don't work on a ship upgrade -- instead you sail
directly from Ellaybe to the Mermaid Reefs, and defeat The Gorgon (it's always
easier the second time). This time a logbook entry should come up when the
ship is sunk or captured, and Marijn's dialog should include an option by you
where you tell him "I defeated Beltrop!" and get your 50,000 gold.
(C) "Random" Teleport After Street Duel.
"Street Duels" (swordfights on land) are only available in the mods. A
variant of the ENT bug can come up during a street duel that causes Nick to
reappear in the wrong location at the end of a successful duel, either:
(1) The street scene of Ransacked Costa Sinistra (the island fort that is
"borrowed" for the duel). The message box will say it is either "... Street",
or the street of the correct island with the correct island's NPCs, but the
loaded screen will still be that of Ransacked Sinistra.
(2) A street scene on some other island than the one where you should be
(usually the island you were dueling on immediately prior to the island with
the current bug-infested duel).
If either of these bugs occurs, restore a saved game from a point before the
duel, and complete the duel again. Usually the correct ending will load on
the next attempt or two. If not, reload, and try to complete some other
"task" before attempting the duel again (yes, this is exactly the opposite of
the "trigger it ASAP" method for clearing out ENT bugs occurring in sea
battles).
Example (C) Wrong Teleport At End of Street Duel:
Following the example above, you take Marijn's mission to kill Beltrop, defeat
The Gorgon, and get a logbook entry recording your heroic victory (all good
news -- no ENT bugs). You return to Ellaybe and speak with Marijn, and do get
a new dialog line, but the crafty mod designer decides to have Marijn draw his
cutlass on you rather than pay you the 50,000 gold.
This loads a "street duel" between you and Marijn. The Ellaybe tavern
disappears and you and Marijn appear in the dueling area (borrowed Sinistra
fort). You defeat Marijn, and the dueling area disappears. But instead of
reappearing back in the Ellaybe tavern, the scene looks like it is a ransacked
Spanish City, even though the message box says "Ellaybe, tavern" (or
alternatively, you may teleport to the last place where you did a street duel,
like Highrock). A confirmed ENT bug.
The only workaround is to load a saved game from before you spoke with Marijn
for your reward, and you'll have to fight Marijn all over again. If you still
don't return to your proper starting point (at least someplace on Ellaybe)
after killing Marijn this second time, then reload the same saved game. BUT
before talking to Marijn, speak with the Ellaybe tavernkeeper, Pegleg Butcher,
and buy a bottle of his Private Reserve Rum. Then speak with Marijn, and duel
him again. This time, you should return to Ellaybe.
NOTE: If you absolutely CANNOT get the duel to place you in the right
location at the end, AND if you got a logbook entry indicating that you won
the duel, you PROBABLY can continue the game from this location without any
adverse effect. Since this is qualitative response (there's no way to really
know if everything's OK until you play things out), only continue if there's
no other way to clear out the ENT bug. Note: Because you're teleported to a
strange location, your ship stays back at port at the "correct" island, so
when you exit this strange town, you will enter the 2D map at your original
location be. (e.g., you start a duel in Ellaybe and wind up teleported to
Highrock. You exit Highrock and your ship appears on the 2D map at Ellaybe).
Also, it is worth repeating that if you have a game overloaded with too many
mods, none of the above-mentioned workarounds will help. You have to start
the game over. You will quickly know if you have this type of ENT bug,
because instead of occurring in only one place, the bug will hit several times
and get worse and worse until you can no longer play the game.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.03 Traffic Jams.
Several islands have a limit on the number of characters that can appear at a
given time. If too many quests are open which assign new characters to appear
at a given island, or too many allies are in your fleet when you land, certain
characters may not appear on the streets. Nobody has yet cracked the exact
order in which characters are placed on the street except in limited
situations (like, "if you take more than three allies to Ellaybe, Hosehead's
Chicken won't appear," or "two escorts in your fleet and the Junkbonders
bounce the Undertaker off of Dead Island," etc.). So it is still hard to
determine in advance exactly which characters will or will not appear if an
island is "overpopulated."
The "normal workaround" where a character is not appearing and a traffic jam
is suspected is to "clear out" as many characters as you can on a particular
island street or location, exit (into a building or into the harbor), and re-
enter the original location to reload the scene. By "clearing out," the idea
is to try to go through particular characters' dialogs and try to complete the
character's role on the island so that they will not appear when the scene is
reloaded.
A good prophylactic is to limit the number of allies or escorts you have with
you when you're headed to meet a contact at a small island. Large fleets (in
excess of eight ships) are a source of their own problems. Traffic jams with
fleets can make it very hard to dismiss a particular ally if you can't get him
to appear on an island, leaving "dismissal by sinking" as the only available
option. If you have a lot of allies, and can't get the last one to appear so
you can fire him, consider getting to an Island street scene that you know
doesn't have a lot of characters.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.04 Miscellaneous Minor Bugs.
5.04.01 The 3000 Bug.
5.04.02 The Ship Switching Bug.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.04.01 The 3000 Bug.
When you are first starting out in an new game, if you ever hit a total of
3000 experience points EXACTLY, you will never level up after that. You will
continue to receive experience' point awards, but you won't gain any skill
points after that.
No workaround exists for this, except to watch your experience points and
judge your awards so you don't hit the magic 3000!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.04.02 The Ship Switching Bug.
This bug comes up when you've captured a ship at sea and are in the pillaging
screen that lets you switch to the prize ship and sail it (scuttling your old
ship if you don't have a first mate, or placing your old ship under control of
your first mate if you do have one).
If you switch more than once (for example you switch to the ship you captured
and after checking more closely you see it's too damaged and switch back to
your old ship), then your crew will be reduced to the smaller of the two
ships. This can be quite a shock if you captured a small ship with your
Tyrant, or really soaked down the enemy's crew before boarding!
There's no "workaround" for this bug, just a warning: One Switch Only!
==============================================================================
6.00 WALKTHROUGHS, HINTS, AND CHEATS.
6.01 Walkthroughs.
6.01.01 Sailor Al's Walkthrough.
6.01.02 Walsh's GameFAQs Walkthrough.
6.01.03 Scrogdog's Walkthrough.
6.01.04. Mary Read's Walkthrough.
6.01.05. Graybeard's Walkthrough.
6.02 Hints & Tips
6.02.01 Clokendagger's Fort Tactics.
6.02.02 Finishing the Pirate Campaign.
6.02.03 Lucky Jack's Trade Spreadsheet.
6.02.04 Hayreddin Barbarossa's SD Charts.
6.02.05 Lord MacAlpin's Mod Hints.
6.03 Cheats.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.01 Walkthroughs.
6.01.01 Sailor Al's Walkthrough.
6.01.02 Walsh's GameFAQs Walkthrough.
6.01.03 Scrogdog's Walkthrough.
6.01.04. Mary Read's Walkthrough.
6.01.05. Graybeard's Walkthrough.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.01.01 Sailor Al's Walkthrough.
In the several years since its release, SeaDogs has gotten a nice share of
fan-generated walkthroughs and hint guides. These are the more famous ones
that are still around.
Sailor Al's Walkthrough was the first SeaDogs walkthrough. It is a "complete"
walkthrough of every quest in the game. How he ever figured it all out so
early on is truly amazing! It is a straightforward walkthrough, with a few
tips and tables at the end. It is considered the "Gospel" for finishing the
game.
Here's a link to where you can find it at SubSim (thanks to Hayreddin
Barbarossa for finding the link!):
Subsim Sailor Al's Walkthrough: http://www.subsim.com/ssr/walk_sd_intro.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.01.02 Walsh's GameFAQs Walkthrough.
Michael Walsh is credited with the SeaDogs walkthrough posted at the famous
GameFAQs.com website. It is set up more like you would expect a published
"Game Guide" to be organized, with a walkthrough of all four campaigns and
many sections on various aspects of the game: skills, ships, officers, etc.
Here's the link to that one (sometimes the link is down -- if so just go to
GameFAQs.com and dig it out):
Walsh's GameFAQs Walkthrough: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/913861-sea-dogs/faqs
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.01.03 Scrogdog's Walkthrough.
Scrogdog created a "getting started" walkthrough of the early parts of the
English Campaign. It is designed for the new player who's head is spinning
with all the things to do, and could use a tutorial-type introduction to the
game.
His walkthrough is another victim of the demise of the Cyberport, so I've
included it in the appendix at the end of this file.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.01.04. Mary Read's Walkthrough.
Mary Read has a two-pronged walkthrough that takes you to the conclusion of
either the English Campaign or the Pirate Campaign. It is thorough, and in a
"written-as-it-was-played" format that makes it very easy to use on the fly
while you're working your way through the game.
With the demise of the AOL "hometown" service, this great walkthrough may be
lost forever. If we can find a copy on a pirate friend's hard-drive, we'll
get it back up where it can be appreciated!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.01.05. Graybeard's Walkthrough.
Graybeard has a "getting started" walkthrough that will get you to a point of
self-sufficiency in the English campaign.
The site with this walkthrough had gone down. If we can find a copy on a
pirate friend's hard-drive, we'll get it back up where it can be appreciated!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.02 Hints & Tips
6.02.01 Clokendagger's Fort Tactics.
6.02.02 Finishing the Pirate Campaign.
6.02.03 Lucky Jack's Trade Spreadsheet.
6.02.04 Hayreddin Barbarossa's SD Charts.
6.02.05 Lord MacAlpin's Mod Hints.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.02.01 Clokendagger's Fort Tactics.
As set forth above, Clokendagger gives a thorough walkthrough of how to take
down any fort. It used to be located at the Cyberport, but since that port of
call is no longer on the map, it's reproduced here:
..........
Another trick (I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this recently) is to
fire at the fort from a safe distance, i.e. out of the range of their cannons,
but with the fort just in range of yours.
To do this (and I must warn you, it's tedious and un-adventuresome, but it
does get the job done) you need to take the following steps.
• Make sure you're ship is fitted with 24 pounders.
• Load up at least 1500 cannonballs before embarking on your mission.
• When you get to the island and first exit the Sea Map, Don't use the "Sail
To" command to get to the fort; Sail in Manually.
• "Load guns with balls, aye aye, Cap'n!"
• Watch the mini-map at the top right of the screen, and position your ship so
that the end of your firing arc just intersects the pink blob that represents
the fort, or maybe a little beyond.
• Drop your sails at this point, and switch to FPV ("Q" key). Now your guns,
with cannonballs (your longest ranging ordnance) can hit the fort, but they
can't hit you.
• Aim the cursor at some point high above the fort, somewhere where it's
blinking, and fire. Keep an eye on where the balls impact.
• Reload, and adjust your aim with each shot until the majority of cannonball
impacts are somewhere near the top edge(rampart) of the fort's walls.
• When you've ranged your guns just right, leave the cursor there. Don't
jostle or move it.
• Just keep hitting the "R" key to reload rapidly, and the Spacebar to fire,
again and again (this may take a little time, so don't get discouraged), until
the cannons start blowing up.
• Destroy as many cannons as you wish in this fashion, until you feel the odds
are evened up enough that you can sail in and finish off the remaining ones
with bombs (you may choose to destroy All of them this way, and thus not take
Any Damage before the boarding attack.)
• As a final precaution against the possibility of losing the ensuing
swordfight in the fort itself, save the game just before pushing the "Land
Troops" Icon.
• If you lose the fight, reload that game. The enemy's flag will again be
above the fort, rather than a white one, meaning the fort is still enemy
controlled; however, no cannons will be active.
• One broadside will cause the fort to surrender again. This not only gives
you another 20,000 exp. points for reducing the fort again, but will serve to
cut down the garrison strength some more.
• Save the game again, then press the "Land Troops" icon and see how you fare
against a slightly more weakened garrison.
• Lather, Rinse, Repeat.... ) and try some of the more action-oriented styles
after a few times.
Happy Plunder and Rapine to ya'!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.02.02 Finishing the Pirate Campaign.
The Pirate Campaign was the bug-magnet of the game. It was originally
unplayable, but with Akella's Official Ver 1.06 patch, it can now be
completed. However, there are a few areas where you can run afoul of bugs.
There were two threads on the SeaDogs forum: the first addressed the bugs in
the Pirate Campaign, and the second gave a walkthrough of the Pirate Campaign.
I've included synopses of them here, in the wake of the demise of the SeaDogs
forum.
The first is by Clokendagger, which concerns the problems with the Pirate
Campaign as originally written by Akella, up through the Ver. 1.05 Patch. He
suggests remaining neutral with both England and French up through the battle
with Beltrop, so that you can still get into all the islands that you need to.
This is the "conservative approach", and guaranteed to work. But since the
release of the Ver. 1.06 Patch, most of these bugs have been cleaned up.
However, out of an abundance of caution, these old bugs are included here so a
light will go off if something goes wrong when you're playing the campaign.
1. Clokendagger's Conceptual Analysis of the Pirate Campaign Problems (Ver
1.05):
[Minor Spoiler]
"The way the Quest works (and it's a tricky one) is....
1. Never fire on English or French ships prior to the encounter w/Beltrop.
2. After the encounter, but before getting Malcolm Sharp's flag, you'll be a
pirate; your logbook will list all nations as "hostile" to you.
3. After getting M.S.'s flag (visually distinguishable from the common pirate
variety ONLY by the flag on the small ship icon in the lower left of the
screen, which will be blank white or black, instead of a jolly roger), check
the logbook again, and France and England should have returned to neutral.
(Here again, I’m not sure, but I think if you were LOYAL to one of them, and
carrying out their quest with a letter of marque, that nation will remain
HOSTILE, even after you've gotten M.S. 's flag).
4. This neutrality is vital, 'coz you'll need to visit a few French and
British islands yet in order to complete the quest, BUT...
5. You CAN'T change your flag ever again to do so, 'coz that means giving up
the M.S. flag; you need that flag to complete the quest. Could this BE any
trickier or confusing?"
Rrakkiss discovered that with the 1.06 patch, you can take English and French
LOM's and even lose Malcolm Sharp's flag. This is the "liberal approach." It
usually works, but it's good to remember Clokendagger's analysis as you're
working your way through it, so you'll know the instant something goes wrong.
2. Rrakkiss' Short & Sweet Walkthrough of the Pirate Campaign (Ver 1.06):
[Major Spoiler]
"I can verify that I have finished it 3 different times without flying the
Sharp's flag (patch 1.06 installed). As I had done several of the English and
French story quest before turning pirate, I had 2 or 3 nations hostile toward
me at all times during the pirate line. I simply got a LOM for the nation I
needed when I needed it during the pirate story line. I even went as far as
marrying the French governor's daughter once and also married Anna, so you can
get 2 wives in the game.
So here goes my tale of becoming a pirate as I recall it:
- Talk to Eugene Huckster on Dead Island and let him examine your medallion.
He will tell you about your father and one of his crew members with a scar.
- Talk to Olaf Ulsson on Shark Island. (You should have option to tell him
somebody told you he wanted to see you). Get him to talk about your father and
3 crew members.
- Talk to Spanish agent and get a Spanish LOM.
- Head to Costa Sinistra and talk to barkeep in tavern and ask about your
father. He should send you on delivery errand to Grand Avilia and back.
- Head to Grand Avilia and deliver note and pick up wine shipment from store
merchant.
- Head back to Costa Sinistra and talk to barkeep again. (This time he should
offer to sell you his half of your father's treasure map).
- Head back to Shark Island and talk to Olaf, he should point you toward
Beltrop after hearing you have map half.
- Head to Gray Sails and talk to Beltrop and ask him about your father. (He
doesn't provide anything helpful).
- Head back to Shark Island and talk to Olaf again. He should offer you errand
to kill merchant near Grand Avilia and then go to Tel-Kerrat to collect
payment. (At this point, once I keep Spanish LOM and another time I got French
LOM while in tavern).
- Head to Grand Avilia. Avoid the fort and find the "San Miquel" ship and sink
it. (If you have a Spanish LOM still, you will have to fire 1st shoot manually
and lose LOM).
- Head to Tel-Kerrat and talk to Tricky Marcus to collect payment. Also tell
him you have need of his services and he will make you a false treasure map.
- Head back to Shark Island and talk to Olaf, he should mention he has a idea
and is trying to develop a plan to trick Beltrop.
- Head to Gray Sails and talk to Beltrop. Offer him the treasure map if he
will tell you about your father.
- Visit tavern and talk to Anna and she will agree to get other half of
treasure map for you if you kill Beltrop's first mate Sangre.
- Head to Isle d'Orange and kill the pirate Sangre.
- Head back to Gray Sails and talk to Anna again. She should give you the
other half of treasure map after you tell her Sangre is dead. NOTE: After
getting other half of map, Teltak opens up for you and Beltrop is waiting
there in his MMOW. (Easiest way I've found to get an MMOW without taking on a
Treasure Fleet or Armada).
- Head to Teltak and capture Beltop's MMOW and then land on island and collect
treasure. (Need to sail into island inlet until boarding icon appears).
- Head back to Shark Island and tell Olaf of your deeds. Talk to him again and
he should tell you that you need to stop the upcoming French attack on
Skullshores.
- Talk to French agent and get French LOM (if you don't have one already).
- Head to d'Orange and talk to drunk sailor in tavern.
- Head to Omory and bribe superintendent not to attack Skullshores.
- Head to Shark Island and tell Olaf the French problem is taken care of for
now. He should then tell you that you need to find a English ally. Stop by
English agent and pick up an English LOM.
- Head to Highrock and talk to McMellon in the tavern.
- Head back to Shark Island and inform Olaf you have an English ally. Olaf
should then send you to Gray Sails to meet new leader there Butcher Phil.
- Head to Gray Sails and talk to Butcher Phil in townhall. He joins you for
upcoming fight with 2 Spanish lineships attacking Gray Sails when you exit to
sea. (Try to be nice and not kill him after fight is over and he turns back
pirate and you're still English).
- Head to Shark Island and Olaf should give you his good bye speech and sail
away.
- Head to Highrock and talk to McMellon again. He should give you a mission to
sink English fleet ships at Dead Island and ask for 3000 gold.
- Head to Dead Island and sink the English ships there. (You will have to fire
the first shot manually from first person view, since you still have a English
LOM at this point), and then you turn pirate. Highrock should be under pirate
control after this fight and I had no problems sailing into it.
- Head back to Gray Sails and talk to barkeep and get letter from McMellon.
The letter tells you to attack the ships and take fort at Isla Balleno.
(Another captured city for the pirates now).
- Head to Gray Sails and talk to Pegleg Berquist and he should have 2nd letter
from McMellon for you. This letter instructs you to take Grand Avilia.
- Head to Grand Avilia and capture the city for the pirates.
- Head to Highrock and talk to McMellon again. He should tell you the other
governors have fled but 1 and he needs you to take d'Orange.
- Head to d'Orange and take the city for the pirates.
This should be the end of the Pirate story line and in the video, McMellon
tells you good bye and you sail away.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.02.03 Lucky Jack's Trade Spreadsheet.
Trading in SeaDogs is pretty straightforward. Most people just buy what's
being exported and sell where it's being imported. However, if you really get
into the mechanics of trading, with the goal being to make as much gold as
possible, there is a lot within SeaDogs simple trading engine which you can
exploit. But if you're looking for action, skip this section -- this is for
those who love micromanagement and detail!
Lucky Jack's Trade Spreadsheet is a tool which lets you milk every ducat out
of trading in the Archipelago. It is an Excel spreadsheet -- but not just a
cell-based chart of average prices. You input the prices and quantities of
each good into the spreadsheet every time you visit a store, and it computes
the profits for selling that item at every store in the unmodded archipelago.
It also computes the maximum profits on "return runs" so you can plan a step
or two ahead. It varies from the most simple, one-screen page of where to
sell what goods, to a super-detailed spreadsheet with every figure you'd ever
want to know.
Lucky Jack's Trade Spreadsheet can be Downloaded from Hosehead's Mercantile:
http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/downloads/SeaDogsTradeLog-021102.zip
Here's a "guided tour" of Lucky Jack's Spreadsheet:
http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/lj1.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.02.04 Hayreddin Barbarossa's SD Charts.
Hayreddin Barbarossa has created two Sea Dogs charts showing all the trade
routes and another showing all the ships. These are particularly handy
because they include all the new trade routes and ships included with the
mods.
Here's download links for them. You need to download and unzip them to view
them, but it's worth the effort!
Hayreddin Barbarossa's SD TRADE Chart:
http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/downloads/SD_TownsS.zip
Hayreddin Barbarossa's SD SHIP Chart:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.02.05 Lord MacAlpin's Mod Hints.
The "Most Unique Hints/Walkthrough Award" has to go to Lord MacAlpin, for his
"Fer de Newbies 'ere" thread at the original SeaDogs forum.
Part hintguide, part walkthrough, part colorful narrative, it is designed to
help new players get started with some of the mod quests, particularly the
Blackbeard quest and Objective: Marijn! quest. It shows where to integrate
them into the beginning parts of the game and how to finish them. But the
best part of all is that colorful MacAlpin style.
[Edit] With the demise of the SD forum, this great walkthrough may be lost
forever. If we can find a copy on a pirate friend's hard-drive, we'll get it
back up where it can be appreciated!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.03 Cheats.
The cheats are a little fussy to get to work. There's no popup menu, and no
bell or indication that you've done it right, except that they will either
work or they will not.
Try it a couple of times, and it will usually cooperate:
1. Be sure you are at sea.
2. Press the PAUSE key to pause the game (not the letter P -- the manual is
wrong).
3. Press the CAPSLOCK.
4. Press CTRL + Z (hold CTRL down while pressing Z), and hold both keys down
for about three seconds.
5. Type ONE of the following cheat codes:
HAVE LIVE - for ship repaired & full crew
EXPU MNE - for extra experience
DENEG DAY - extra money
GET ME MAGIC - extra cannon damage
NOW I FLYING - after activating, CTRL+F will allow you to move the camera view
with the mouse
FIRE FROM CAMERA - after activating, "0" on Numpad will fire from camera view
TELEPORT - after activating, CTRL+L will teleport the ship to the camera's
location
6. If you want to activate more than one cheat, press CTRL+Z before typing
each one.
==============================================================================
7.00 SEADOGS MODS.
7.01 History of SD Mods.
7.02 Modding Tools.
7.02.01 Essential Modding Tools.
7.02.02 Modding Manuals.
7.02.03 Helpful Modding Tools.
7.03 The SeaDogs Add-On Installer.
7.04 The Future of SeaDogs Modding.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.01 History of SeaDogs Mods.
SeaDogs has a pretty extensive set of mods, generated from a unique history
and a very small group of team-oriented modders.
SeaDogs was shipped with a partially-working in-game editor, with no support.
However, the critical files necessary for modding work required additional
tools. These tools were released by the game developer to the original SeaDogs
Mod Wizard, Orzel, who began making mods for the game. Only a few were
developed and released at his site, sosenkas.com.
A year later, Orzel moved on to other waters and released the "necessary"
modding tools to the SeaDogs fans. There was no support for these tools.
Black Jack Incognito picked up the tools, the in-game editor, and slowly
started trying to mod the game. Nobody else really understood them, or took
the effort to figure them out (except for Framnk, who made a tool for editing
ships). BJI started posting on the SeaDogs Forum about his modding
discoveries, to very little response. After over a year of waiting for mods,
people had given up. But BJI didn't give up, and he just kept posting,
whether people responded or not. He even included a table of contents for his
posts to help people sort through his posts. These postings comprise the
"Original SeaDogs Mod-Manual."
[Edit] The original SeaDogs forum at Bethesda has been shut down.
BJI finally was able to start producing finished mods, first an officer
(Pugwash) and then a quest (Blackbeard). At this point, it was becoming
clear that SeaDogs mods could finally be made.
The greatest advancement in modding SeaDogs has come from the graphical
designers. Initial efforts by Duke Surak'nar and Clutch Marauder with only a
few bare-bones tools available resulted in a procedure for making new ships
and characters almost "from scratch." This involves cloning existing ship and
character models, exporting their graphic image "skins" and modifying them in
graphics programs, and changing the stats for the new item to make it a
completely new object in the game. This complicated process can take hundreds
of hours for a single object, and is rapt with difficulties and frustrations,
but there are over a dozen new ships and a new character resulting from them.
The process has evolved over the course of the last couple of years with input
by others in the small modding community. There has also been a recent
breakthrough where a few completely new ship models have been produced, which
should be released with the next version of the Add-On Installer. As the
ships are the backbone of the game, this area of modding has done more than
anything else to create a new atmosphere and generate interest in the mods!
To help with installing the mods, an Add-On Installer program was created,
which made the mods easy to install and playable by anyone.
The most unique aspect of the SeaDogs modding community, which is usually
comprised of less than a dozen individuals at any given time, is that all the
members of the community attempt to work with each other to keep their mods
compatible. As a result, the mods are generally of a higher quality, and the
information of how to mod the game gets passed along to all the members of the
community (avoiding problems that stagnated early development of the mods).
With the advent of sequels, the passage of time, and the frustrations of
modding the game now that it's maximum modded size has been reached, SeaDogs
modding is pretty much a thing of the past. Version 1.12 of the Add-On
Installer includes all the basic modding tools, so if anyone wishes to pick up
where the SD Modding community left off, the keys are available....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.02 Modding Tools.
7.02.01 Essential Modding Tools.
7.02.02 Modding Manuals.
7.02.03 Helpful Modding Tools.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.02.01 Essential Modding Tools.
This is not meant to be a guide on how to mod the game. It is only a short
introduction to the various resources available for modding.
In order to mod SeaDogs, you need the following tools:
1. The in-game editor. This allows the character, ship and quest files to be
edited.
2. The three "basic tools" from Akella, courtesy of Orzel: Action Editor (for
editing action files), Item Maker (for editing data files for ships, islands,
and goods), and the TF Converter (for converting graphic file "skins"). Orzel
has graciously allowed his SeaDogs modding tools and works- in-progress to be
archived at Hosehead's Mercantile. Here's a link to the "Orzel Page" there:
Orzel's Tools & Mods: http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/orzel.htm
3. Framnk's Ship Editor. Used for adding or manipulating new classes of
ships. It is also available at Hosehead's Mercantile, from this page:
Framnk's Ship Editor: http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/downloads/Framnks.zip
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.02.02 Modding Manuals.
Once you have these tools, what do you do with them? Now that the Bethesda
site is down, we are fortunately left with a conversion of BJI's original mod
posts that was done by GreyDog. He has converted the mod posts to an easy-to-
read text format, which you can view here:
BJI's Mod Manual Text File By GreyDog:
http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/downloads/mod_%20manual.txt
You can also stop by some of the web sites that still discuss SeaDogs modding,
including Ellaybe Island (see below).
The graphical designers have also generated a few of their own online mod
manuals and tutorials. The first one is a short explanation of reskinning
posted by Duke Surak'nar at the original SeaDogs Forum, to accompany the
release of his first reskinned ship:
[Edit] The original SD forum is down, we'll look for an archived copy and add
it to the site here.
Captain Hammered also created an online reskinning tutorial, located at the
SeaDogs Forum:
[Edit] The original SD forum is down, we'll look for an archived copy and add
it to the site here.
Hayreddin Barbarossa is compiling and updating BJI's original Mod Manual into
a thorough modding guide. It is not completed yet, but should be soon. He is
incorporating portions of it to a private modding site that he is also
relocating to new waters (he's a busy guy!). Keep your eyes open for posts
about these developments at the SeaDogs modding sites!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.02.03 Other Helpful Modding Tools.
Most of the other modding tools are listed at the links previously mentioned.
They include the following:
1. The Russian RC2 Editor.
Another incomplete SeaDogs editor, but one that's very easy to use and much
more user friendly than the in-game editor. It is particularly helpful in
editing quest files and action files (it compiles them automatically and has
all the commands in menus).
2. Orzel's .DEF Editor.
A powerful, complicated modding tool that's useful for fine-tuning mod ships.
3. The SeeAnimation and SeeLOD viewers.
Helpful for viewing the 3-D graphic objects in the game.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.03 The SeaDogs Add-On Installer.
The Add-On Installer is a simple-to-use, stand-alone program for installing,
uninstalling and changing player-made mods for your SeaDogs game. It
eliminates the problems of incompatible patches and complicated manual file-
copying instructions. With the Add- On Installer, you pick a mod from the
list and install it with a single mouse click.
The Add-On Installer debuted in late 2001 with five mods by Black Jack
Incognito. There are two "final editions" of the Add-On Installer:
Version 1.11
Version 1.11, released in May 2003, has 29 mods, over 10,000 downloads, and is
very stable (even with all the mods installed). Everything is included in a
single, 50MB file.
Version 1.12
Version 1.12, released in August 2004, has 31 mods (with many improvements to
the 29 mods from Ver 1.11), and about 1,000 downloads. It includes many
"extras" - the official patch, modding tools, etc. It was intended as the
"final release" of SeaDogs mods. Unfortunately, after thousands of hours of
playtesting, it still has an "overloading" bug that can make the game
unplayable if too many mods are installed and the modded game is played for a
long time. Everything is included in a single 100MB file.
Here's a link to the download page for the Add-On Installer Program, with
descriptions of all the mods:
SD Add- On Installer Download Page:
http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/sdaddon.htm
Instructions for Downloading and Installing the Add-On Installer, are located
here:
Add-On Installer Download & Installation Instructions:
http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/inst.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.04 The Future of SeaDogs Modding.
With the release of subsequent games in this genre, such as Pirates of the
Caribbean and Age of Pirates, there has been an expected shift of modding
interest from SeaDogs to these later games. One of the reasons for this shift
is that SeaDogs modding is very much more limited than that of PotC or AoP,
which has Open C code that makes it very moddable.
Additionally, with Ver 1.11 of the Add-On Installer, many of SeaDogs
limitations have been reached, including the maximum number of new ships, the
maximum number of new islands, and the maximum number of new character sounds.
There were a few more mods included in Ver 1.12, including a new campaign, a
few new quests, and several new ships and cannons. These mods in Ver 1.12
have exceed the maximum number of mods that may be installed at one time, and
have resulted in the release of Ver 1.12 with a caveat that all mods should
not be loaded together. It is not even certain that this is due to
overloading, as it may be a bug that was not discovered in the thousands of
hours of playtesting that went into the mod.
While there are no groups modding SeaDogs at this time, the main modding tools
have been included in Ver 1.12, and the rest can be accessed from the links
above. So the keys are still available for those interested.
==============================================================================
8.00 WEBSITES.
8.01 "Official" Sites.
8.02 The Brotherhoods and Multiplayer Pirate Games.
8.03 SD Modding and Info Sites.
8.04 Other Pirate Sites.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.01 "Official" Sites.
SeaDogs was developed by a Russian game company called Akella, and released by
Bethesda Softworks.
Originally, Bethesda had a web site with a forum for SeaDogs. This forum was
THE home for nearly all gaming pirates in cyberspace for several years.
Bethesda kept the forum going for many more years than expected for most game
sites; however, the time finally came when it got shut down.
Akella still usually has a page on their site about SeaDogs, but you have to
dig for it as it gets moved around frequently:
Akella: http://www.akella.com/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.02 The Brotherhoods and Multiplayer Pirate Games.
The Brotherhoods were originally formed in anticipation of the promised
multiplayer option in SeaDogs II, comprised of like-minded individuals who
wanted to play the game together with the same style. When multiplayer got
cut, the brotherhoods evolved into groups of friends getting together in a
pirate/SeaDogs-themed environment on the internet.
Now that a multiplayer component has finally come to light (in Age of
Pirates), it is ironic that most of the brotherhoods are long gone. The only
one that has stood the test of time is the LIB:
The Legion of Independent Buccaneers: http://www.thelib.com
(The Fist were floating around the Pirates of the Burning Sea site, but all
the links appear to be down).
In the Massively Multiplayer Online universe, there are quite a few games out
there. However, only a few of them capture some of the aspects of SeaDogs:
Uncharted Waters Online: http://global.netmarble.com/uwo/
An Age-of-Sail trade, exploration and combat MMORPG that has a similar
atmosphere to SeaDogs. A good sandbox for every type of age-of-sail fan.
Many of the old SeaDogs players hang out there. The LIB have a "company"
where many of the SeaDogs and Cutthroats fans sail together. It is free to
play.
Pirates of the Burning Sea: http://www.burningsea.com/page/home
Another free-to-play MMORPG for hardcore naval fleet PvP combat. It has also
become free-to-play.
Pirates of the Caribbean Online: http://piratesonline.go.com/welcome
Disney's family-friendly MMORPG that ties into the movie series. Basic play
is free.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.03 SD Modding and Info Sites.
All of the SeaDogs modding sites have disappeared into the ether, with
exception of the Mercantile:
Hosehead's Mercantile: http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/index.htm
Hosehead's site, home of the SeaDogs Add-On Installer and Orzel's Modding
tools.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.04 Other Pirate Sites.
Pirates Ahoy! http://www.piratesahoy.net/
A site with information and downloads about all pirate games. Most of the
modders working on PotC and AoP can be found there.
The Pirate Ring: http://www.webring.org/t/Pirate-Sites?sid=22
A link page for Internet Pirate Sites. Great for general pirate information.
==============================================================================
APPENDIX:
A-1 Scrogdog's Walkthrough.
A-2 Legal Info.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A-1 Scrogdog's Walkthrough (Used by Permission).
Before I start, I’d like to dedicate this work to those who were so helpful to
me when I started out. I may have put much of what you see here on paper, but
it is really they that are responsible. Thanks guys.
This walkthrough is quite different than Sailor Al’s fine walkthrough, which
deals solely with major quests and how to ‘win’ for a given country. We’ll
cover some quests not covered by Sailor Al (if I remember correctly), simply
because they are not important in terms of advancing a storyline. There is one
simple goal here. That is, to get you a better ship and a crew with officers
to go with it in the shortest possible time. Most new players start out
thinking that they must go attack and capture right off (I did too, BTW). That
is not a good idea for a number of reasons. To start, your first ship, a pink,
is quite weak. Further, your crew is not large enough to engage in hand-to-
hand combat. Additionally, you can’t capture ships (pretty much the meat of
your economy will be the selling of captured prize ships) without a first
officer, and you can’t afford one yet. Worse still, your own personal skills
are poor at this time.
Except near the end, when we have to go to Skullshores to get a couple of
officers, this entire walkthrough will occur in the relative safety of English
waters. I have actually done this whole sequence without getting in a random
battle even once until I left English waters (there is one battle we will
surely get in because of a quest, though). However, you may see a pirate or
two. Whether or not you fight is up to you, but I’d advise running or hitting
ENTER twice unless you get a very small ship you know you can handle (we’ll
fight the quest battle – but I’ll also show you how to cheat past it, if you
are so inclined). I prefer running myself; escape can be as exciting as battle
in my mind, but it’s up to you. Whatever you choose to do, SAVE GAME. A lot.
A discussion on skill point allocation exceeds the scope of this work. I can
only say this, gunlaying and boarding are *extremely* important at this point.
Everyone has a different style and opinion on what’s good, so experience is
the best teacher as far as an overall strategy is concerned. Ok, so maybe I
will give a couple of not-so-subtle hints about it later, but there is no
right or wrong about it.
Although we’ll do quite a few quests, both minor and not, this isn’t about
quests; it’s about getting you a better ship and crew with officers. Some
quests will be left unfinished at the end.
During the walkthrough, responses to Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are given in
order. Select one, and the next one will appear. Some NPCs will say important
things, so read everything.
Finally, we’ll focus on gaining experience in the beginning. Gold is a trifle,
as you’ll see. Here’s your mantra; ‘Gold is easy, experience is not’
Ready? Here we go…
You start in the town of Highrock looking down a street. Immediately turn to
your right and you should see a guy in a purple suit. Walk up and talk to him
so you don’t have to look for him later. His name is Albrecht Zalpfer. Say the
following:
Calm down, who are you?
I’m sorry… but I’m curious. Why don’t you want to talk?
Look, you lose nothing by telling me your story.
Here’s a thought, sir. If you are a shipwright, I could hire you as a master
carpenter. That’s one cheap way to leave the island. And right away. (journal
update / Zalpfer joins your crew)
Well, yes, Mr. Zalpfer. Certainly. Not a lot of spies out at sea, no sir.
Now, go back and face the town gate.
Talk to the guard on your left (Billy) first. Say the following:
I’m Captain Nicolas, and I’m strolling through the town, not ‘hanging about’.
I accept your apology. It must be difficult to stay here all day under the
scorching sun. Do you have any relief during the day?
Yes, that’s awful. Maybe I can help you somehow?
I know how difficult it is to stand on duty sometimes. I’ll bring you a bottle
of wine. (journal update / you’ve accepted a quest)
I’ll be back in the blink of an eye with your bottle.
Game Tip: Press SHIFT while moving to run instead of walking around town.
Turn around and face back down the street opposite the town gate. Go forward;
take a left and then an immediate right. The tavern is on your right. Enter
it, and go all the way to the back. Talk to the man there (Jeremy Windem) and
say the following:
Quit your giggling, Mr. Windem, and talk seriously a minute.
I just recalled that I’m asked to buy a bottle of wine.
Well, that’s great, but I only need one bottle. How much to you want for it?
I’ll take the wine, Jeremy. But at those prices, you won’t find many buyers. (
-1 gold / get wine)
No I don’t… etc.
Leave the tavern and go back to the front gate. Talk to Billy:
Here, take it.
Don’t worry about the money. I’m just glad I could help you. (lose wine / +1
reputation / +250 experience)
Thank you, my friend. Farewell.
Now talk to the other guard, Frederick:
Why so glad to see me, soldier? What are you so happy about?
What? You want me to buy you wine, too?
Well, you’re not shy boy… I’ll give you that. Etc… (journal update / quest)
I’ll return shortly.
Go back to the tavern and talk to Jeremy Windem again. Say the following:
Quit your giggling, Mr. Windem, and talk seriously a minute.
Damn! I meant to say… I need to buy some rum.
Come on, Jeremy. Sailors drink rum in a tavern without buying a tun…
This is the most amazing load of bosh… etc…
All right. My spirit is broken. Here’s your gold. Give me the rum. You’ve
certainly earned it. ( -1 gold / get rum)
Careful, Jeremy, you’re going to choke. Etc…
Leave the tavern and go back to the town gate and talk to Frederick. Say the
Following:
Here, take it. I suppose … etc… (+2 reputation / lose rum / +250 experience)
Well, Soldier, you should return… etc..
You’re welcome, Frederick. Farewell.
Game Tip: You’ve just used one quest to unlock another. In other words, if you
had talked to Frederick first, he would not have given you the rum quest.
Since you talked to Billy (and completed his quest) first, the rum quest was
‘opened’. This is a reoccurring theme in Sea Dogs. Consider the implications.
Just because a given NPC has nothing to say *now*, does not mean he or she
will not *later* due to events in the game. Sorry! That’s life in Sea Dogs!
Hopefully, you should have seen a peg-legged gentleman wearing a sword during
your trips back and forth to the tavern. He is the Old Gunner. You can usually
find him if you walk straight ahead from the town gate at that intersection.
If you don’t see him, go look around. He usually wanders around the building
across from the tavern. Say the following:
Yes. How did you know?
You’re a cannoneer? Maybe you could… etc….
I do! What is it?
What about shot range?
Oh, yes, tell me more about cannons! (+250 experience)
Thank you for your advice. I will … etc…
The next guy you want to meet is Theodore. He wears a green jacket and is
dressed as a gentleman. If your back was against the town gate, Theodore is
usually wandering on the right side of town, around the large building at the
rear right of the town. Find him. Say this:
It is. My name is Nicolas. Who are you?
Surely, old-timer, you have my attention.
Sure. What else should I do whilst in town?
What’s a Tartan Boat?
Oh! This is fascinating. Go on, tell me more
Okay. Now you’re just insulting my intelligence... etc… (+250 experience)
Time to meet the governor! From the town gate, proceed as if you were going to
the tavern, but continue all the way down to the end of that street to the
door where the two guards are standing. Go in and talk to the governor, Samuel
Mortons:
Sir, I am a man of action. I have important matter to discuss.
Are you interested in a new privateer, ready to serve England?
Yes, sir. I want to be an English privateer.
I am indeed eternally in your debt, Sir Samuel. Etc…
Yes, Sir Samuel. (get English Letter of Marque)
Goodbye, and thank you, sir.
Don’t leave, talk to Mortons again:
Sir, I am a man of action. I have important matter to discuss.
You have my thanks for the letter of marque. Do you have any errands for me
now? (Tendales Island opens – meaning you’ve been given a map to it and don’t
have to ‘discover’ it. Journal update / quest)
I am not a fool, Sir Samuel. Etc…
You won’t be disappointed, sir. I’ll set sail immediately.
Note that we will *not* set sail immediately. There is no time pressure
associated with any quest in the game, regardless of what a given NPC may tell
you. Now, leave Mortons and go back to the tavern.
As long as you haven’t talked to anyone but Jeremy Windem so far (people can
change seats or leave after you talk to them), the Old Sailor is at the first
table on the right. Talk to him:
You do not look old enough to call me ‘boy’. Etc…
If the advice is free, I think I can spare a moment to hear what you have to
say.
Aha! But tell me, what is the best way to use the wind?
I understand. Then, tell me how to sail faster from one island to another.
Do you have any more advice for me? (+250 experience)
Indeed I am, thank you, sir.
You don’t need to talk to the other man, Roberto Gorrando right now, but you
can if you want to.
Go to the last table on the right and talk to Pete Dalton:
Calm down, lad. I mean you no harm. I just want to talk.
Are you afraid of something, or somebody? What happened?
Look lad, I can see you’re afraid of somebody, Etc…
Wait. How about if I pay you to hear your story?
Let me decide that.
That is a tragic story, but why are you frightened? (journal update / +1
reputation / +100 experience)
That story was well worth the price of passage, Mr. Dalton. Etc…
I’m a sea captain. I can arrange for your passage to Tendales. Etc…
Now, let’s work back down the left side. There are two men at the last table
on the left. You do not have to talk to Julius Ironcast yet, but go ahead of
you like. Do *not* hire him. We definitely want to talk to the Old fencer:
My name is Nicolas, what of it?
I am interested. Go on.
I’d like to hear about fighting and skill.
What about fatigue?
Let me know how to feint in boarding.
I’d prefer to know all about blocking.
I am sure I know everything I need to. Goodbye. (+250 experience)
Now, go to the front and talk to the man at the first table, Christopher
Claystone:
My name is Nicolas. What are you doing here?
No, you are wrong sir. I am not trying to steal your state secrets. Etc…
Wow! A genuine state secret? Fascinating. I’ll buy you a drink. (journal
update / +200 experience)
But that doesn’t make any sense. Etc…
Go get drunk? Goodness. Etc…
Now, go back and see Governor Mortons:
Sir, I am a man of action. I have important matter to discuss.
I’ve heard that two frigates came to the Highrock shipyard for fresh supplies
and arms. (journal update / +100 experience)
That is most unfortunate, sir. Etc…
I beg your forgiveness, Sir Samuel. Etc…
I met a man in a tavern who… etc…
But, sir…
Goodbye, sir.
Congratulations! You have just gotten as many experience points as are
available in Highrock at this time!
Hit F1 to make sure that you have 1900 experience points. You only need 1100
more to achieve the next rank. You’ll need to get to Rank 10 to sail a
Shnyava. A fully staffed Shnyava is the ultimate goal of this walkthrough. If
you don’t have 1900, try to figure out what didn’t go right and do it now. If
you haven’t allocated your initial three skill points yet, do it now (pssst!
Gunlaying or boarding… all 3…)
When you are ready, go to the front gate, exit, SAVE GAME, and sail to
Tendales. Ignore all ship contacts in this walkthrough. If you get attacked,
handle it as you wish. It would probably be best to run, or double ENTER so
you don’t have to spend much money on repairs and ammo. Money isn’t a problem,
don’t worry, but the less you spend the better at this point.
As soon as you enter the town, Zalpfer leaves your crew, and you get +100
experience. Zalpfer should be wandering around on the street right in front of
you. Go talk to him:
What will you do now? (get sketches)
Well, thanks, Albrecht. Goodbye. And good luck.
With your back to the town gate, you face the tavern. Go down the street on
the left side of the tavern to the shipyard. Go in and talk to the shipwright,
Bertram Michaelson:
Good day to you, Mr. Michaelson. Repairing my ship is a little premature.
However, is there anything I can do for you?
I want to offer you some interesting papers. Etc…
Here, have a look of them. It is a draft of new ship types.
So, what do you say about the drafts?
Done deal, you can take it. (lose sketches / +1500 gold)
Exit the shipyard, turn left, and go to the governor’s mansion. Go in and talk
to Governor John Clifford Brin:
I wish to discuss business with you, Sir John.
The Governor of Highrock, Sir Samuel Mortons, gave me a message for you. He
instructed me to hand it to you in person. (+500 gold / +500 experience / +2
reputation)
No, sir.
How can I refuse when people are dying of starvation? I’ll take the wheat and
deliver it to Dead Island as fast as I can (Dead Island opens / +150 wheat)
Goodbye, Sir John.
You should have 2500 experience now.
Leave the mansion and exit the town. SAVE GAME. Sail to Dead Island and enter
the town. You should see the tavern down the road and to the right. Go in and
talk to the man in the back, Alfred Stergen:
No, thanks. I am more interested in what you have to say, Alfred, not in what
you have to eat.
I’ve heard that famine has stricken your island.
Well, Alfred, the governor of Tendales, Sir John Clifford Brin, etc…
Yes, it seems Sir John might be that rarest of creatures… etc…
Easy, Alfred, you’ll swell my head. Etc… (journal update / lose 150 wheat)
Goodbye, Mr. Stergen.
Leave the tavern, go left, then right, past the town gate to the store. Go in
and talk to Nigel Fester.
How much are you offering?
Sounds like a simple task. How large is your load of linen?
How much?
Fair enough, it’s a deal! (journal update / quest / +133 linen)
You now have a problem, you are overloaded! Talk to Nigel again:
Yes, show me what you have.
You are 85 cwt over limit. If you sell all your ammo, you’ll get just under
the limit at 399 cwt. Don’t worry, you’ll SAVE GAME when we leave town. If you
meet a pirate and lose, you can simply re-load.
Exit the store and leave town. SAVE GAME. Sail to Tendales and enter the town.
Now, let’s go see Brin and get our reward for delivering the wheat. Go to the
governor’s mansion and talk to Brin:
I wish to discuss business with you, Sir John.
The inhabitants of Dead Island are alive and well. Etc…
This is enough, sir. I haven’t done anything special. (+3 reputation / +1000
experience)
Thank you, sir. I’m flattered. Goodbye.
You should have just gained a rank (level up). Hit F1. You should now have
3500 experience. One more rank to go, and you need a total of 8759 experience
to achieve it. Allocate your skill points (pssst! If you gave your first 3 to
gunlaying, allocate these 3 to boarding, and vice-versa).
At this point, it’s time for a slightly better ship. Go to the shipyard and
sell your pink. Then buy a light sloop. It’s the fastest ship you can sail
right now, and it will help you avoid unwanted battles for the remainder of
the walkthrough. Light sloops can carry 100 more cwt than a pink.
Now, go to the store and talk to Christopher Offut:
I have no interest in handkerchiefs. However, maybe we could talk about other
matters.
You bought a consignment of linen from Nigel Fester. Etc…
You can get it at the docks. (journal update / +150 chocolate / +1 reputation)
Excellent. I’m glad to hear that everything is in order.
Goodbye.
Talk to Christopher again, and buy some ammo. Knippels are important as you
can fire them from your rear cannon as you attempt escape. This will slow the
enemy. You also should be able to afford bombs if you like, which I highly
recommend. You have to win at least one battle to complete the walkthrough, so
be as ready as you can. My typical load out at this point would be 300 bombs
and 100 knipples. Forget grapes, you won’t be graping crew for some time yet.
You’ll be just about broke now, but don’t forget, we’ll collect another 2000
gold when we deliver the chocolate to Dead Island.
Leave the store, and the town. SAVE GAME. Sail to Dead Island and enter the
town. Go to the store and talk to Nigel Foster:
No, I have a couple of important matters to discuss.
I delivered your linen to Mr. Offut.
I have the chocolate on board. (+500 experience / +2 reputation / lose 150
chocolate)
Thank you. (+2000 gold)
Now, leave the store and go to the tavern. Talk to the first guy in the right,
David Murray:
Of course, who would refuse free drinks?
What happened?
Well, at least you’re here to tell the tale. What happened?
The ship was that poorly built? Are you telling the truth, Mr. Murray?
You’re right. It’s not a pretty tale. Thanks for the drinks. I’ve got to go
now. (journal update / +1000 experience)
No go to two tables down and talk to Jacob Ashton:
Nothing. My name is Nicolas, and I am captain… etc…
Yes, tell me about the details.
I like your offer. I agree. (Ashton’s ship joins you / journal update / quest)
I understand. You can rely on me. Good day to you!
Leave the tavern and the town. You should now have 5000 experience. SAVE GAME.
Sail to Highrock and enter the town. As soon as you enter the town, you get
+500 experience and Ashton leaves you. Go to the tavern and talk to Ashton
again:
Yes, our previous trip was easy enough for me… etc… (Iktal is opened /
Ashton’s ship joins yours / journal update / quest).
Leave the tavern and the town. SAVE GAME. Sail to Iktal and enter the town. As
soon as you enter, you get +1000 experience and Ashton leaves you. Find Ashton
wandering about town and talk with him:
If you need me again, let me know. Goodbye. (+800 gold / +3 reputation)
You should now have 6500 experience. Just over 2000 to go! Leave town, SAVE
GAME, and sail back to Highrock. Go talk to Governor Mortons:
Sir, I am a man of action. I have important matter to discuss.
I came back to ask you if you have any errands for me. (journal update / quest
/ Lemuelle joins you)
No. I’ll set sail immediately. Goodbye, sir.
Goodbye, sir.
Leave town, load bombs, and SAVE GAME. You are about to enter the quest battle
I mentioned at the start. Be ready. Pause the game as soon as you get to the
Tendales area. Ok, now sail to Tendales.
You should see a red ship on your mini-map (upper right corner of your
screen). It’s a pirate Brig called ‘The Cuttlefish’ and it will try to sink
you. There are three ways to handle this. First, you could engage him in
battle. Lemuelle’s ship will help you. Between the two of you, particularly if
you have a light sloop with bombs (as you should!), you should be able to sink
her. Secondly, you could leave Lemuelle to fight alone and sail directly
towards the fort to gain its guns protection. Lemuelle is almost never sunk,
and as long as he isn’t, there is nothing bad that happens to you as a result
of him simply taking damage. Enter the town ASAP. Or, you could use the ‘sail
to fort’ icon by pressing ENTER TAB ENTER ENTER. This instantly transports you
to the town, which you should enter immediately. When you come out, you’ll
find that the enemy has followed you in to the harbor. You don’t have to do a
thing. Usually, the fort will sink the ship by itself, but in odd cases you
might have to help. When the battle ends, you get a note from some guy named
Beltrop who ordered this ship to specifically attack you. Beltrop wants you
dead for some reason.
One advantage of simply battling The Cuttlefish to start with is that you will
gain experience even if you don’t sink her. You gain experience just for
hitting other ships with your cannon fire. You also get a final experience
award for sinking ships. You only get the final experience award, though, if
you are the one to deliver the killing shot. Keep that in mind during multi-
ship battles (like if you help English ships fight pirates, for example, or
now, as Lemuelle is helping you in this battle). Other ships can steal
experience away from you by delivering the killing shot even if you delivered
most of the damage (but you’ll still get the experience for just getting
hits). Anyway, why not try to sink the Cuttlefish? You can always re-load and
use one of the other methods if you have trouble. I highly recommend re-
loading until you win this battle, however. It’s not a tough one and if you
can’t win it, you need the practice anyway!
Because I don’t know whether or not you’ll win the battle, or how much
experience you gained if you did win it, I can no longer say exactly how much
experience you’ll have from now on. However, because you get experience just
for hitting a ship, you can actually level up during a battle without having
sunk any ships! In fact, you may level up if you sink the Cuttlefish (you get
+3 reputation too). If you do, allocate those skill points, lads! If it were
me, I’d go with 3 on sailing, but you’re on your own!
Enter Tendales (you get +500 experience and +2 reputation as long as Lemuelle
wasn’t sunk), go to the tavern and talk to Lemuelle Humm:
Yes. My name is Nicolas.
Ahhhh! Sir Samuel Mortons insisted that your ship… etc…
Fifty men? Very strange indeed. (journal update / +2000 gold)
Fair winds to you, Mr. Humm.
Now go to see Governor Brin:
I wish to discuss business with you, Sir John.
I heard a strange tale… etc…
Goodbye, sir. (+250 experience points)
Go to the shipyard and make repairs.
If you still haven’t leveled up, fear not. You simply need to win a pirate
battle or two during the next phase.
Here you become a trader for a while. A Shnyava costs 20,000 gold. Even though
you will get a rebate on your ship (not what you paid for it, you’ll get about
6600. Less, if it’s damaged), you will need money to survive for a couple of
months while we go around and hire (and quest for) some officers. You also
want enough to upgrade your cannons. I’d recommend trading until you get to
25,000 gold.
Go to the store and buy all the coffee you can. Now, leave town, SAVE GAME,
and sail to Dead Island. Enter the town, go to the store, and sell the coffee.
You just made a tidy profit! You can buy some linen and sugar to bring to
Highrock. You won’t make as good a profit, but it’s better than going empty.
Go to Highrock, sell your cargo and buy all the coffee. Sell it at Dead
Island. The ideal situation is to buy a product where it is being exported,
and then to sell that product where it is being imported.
Keep trading and fighting easy pirate battles (run or double ENTER from the
others) until you have 25,000 gold, and have achieved rank 10. It’s best if
you stay in English waters. Just go between Dead Isle, Highrock and Tendales
for now. It won’t take long. Don’t forget to SAVE GAME a lot!
Now you are ready for a Shnyava. Congratulations, Captain! If you ever run
short of money again before you are able to capture ships, you know what to
do. Just don’t run so low that you can’t buy coffee! Go to Tendales, buy the
Shnyava, and upgrade its cannons.
Now it’s time for officers! We’re going on a kind of a longish quest, but the
result is a free surgeon for your ship. After that, we’re just about done. All
the other officers are easy to find. No need in paying them while we go on
this quest.
Go see Governor Brin:
I wish to discuss business with you, Sir John.
Life on the seas has been dull of late. I miss those rousing sea battles.
Do you have any idea whom it might be?
Sir John, I am loathe to risk my crew… etc… (journal update / quest)
Goodbye, sir.
Leave Brin, and go to the tavern. Go talk to the man in the back, Thomas
Hancock:
Skip the gossip. Let’s get right down to business, Mr. Hancock.
Have you heard anything about ships lost on the route from Tendales to
Highrock? (journal update)
Poor Marcus, and it sounds like… etc…
That was actually quite interesting, Mr. Hancock. Etc…
Leave town. SAVE GAME. Sail to Highrock and enter town. Go to the store and
talk to George Havensile:
At the moment I have everything I need. However, etc…
Have you heard any rumors that might interest a man of my calling? (journal
update)
Where would I find this doctor? Etc…
Thank you. Goodbye.
Now leave the store and go look for Dr. Alumnus. He looks exactly like
Albrecht Zalpfer, the paranoid carpenter you hired briefly early in the game.
Talk to him:
You can call me Nicolas: Captain Nicolas. Etc…
Ahem. I beg your pardon, Doctor, but… etc…
I have no time for this. Etc…
Goodbye, Doctor Alumnus. And thank you. (get small sack / journal update /
+250 experience)
Now, leave town, SAVE GAME, and sail back to Tendales. Enter the town and go
in to the tavern. Talk to Thomas Hancock again:
Skip the gossip. Let’s get right down to business, Mr. Hancock.
That ailing merchant, Marcus, the one who escaped… etc… (lost small sack /
journal update / +5 reputation)
Take this sack, Mr. Hancock. You will find… etc…
Be sure of it, Mr. Hancock. Etc…
Now, leave town. SAVE GAME. Go sail around for a couple of days and come back.
Enter the town and go to the tavern. Talk to Marcus who will be sitting at one
of the tables. He’ll have a red jacket on:
I think you can. Etc…
Very sharp practice – or good luck. Etc…
Count on it, Marcus. Thanks…etc… (El Caimano opens / journal update)
Leave town, SAVE GAME, sail to Highrock and enter the town. Find Dr. Alumnus
and talk to him. The first time you talk to him he brushes you off. Simply say
you’re leaving, and then talk to Dr. Alumnus again:
I wanted to thank you, Doctor. You can indeed do miracles. Etc…
I do owe you much, Doctor. Tell me more… etc…
I think I could fetch you this herb. But my men… etc…
Yes, I agree.
You do indeed, sir. Etc… (journal update / quest)
Now look around town for a ‘stranger’. He is dressed in brown and looks like a
pirate. Talk to him:
Why does every stranger always know who I am?
Oh, really?
On Skullshores? At the pirate colonies?
Who is this Ulsson? What’s his relation to Beltrop? (Shark Island opens /
journal update)
Wait! Damn.
Before we sail to the pirate islands, check your gold. Make sure you have
enough to make repairs. You’ll very likely see a couple of battles before
reaching Shark Island. Fight them if you wish, but you still have no officers,
which greatly increase your skill. You have a fast ship that is adept in
avoiding battle. Very soon you will be ready, but for now I’d just concentrate
on finishing this walkthrough. Anyway, three or four thousand gold is good. Go
trade if you have to. From now on, make sure you always have enough gold to
make repairs. The longer distance you travel, the more you will need.
Now, exit town, SAVE GAME, and sail to Shark Island. As you approach, you will
probably discover the other pirate island, Gray Sails. Stay on course for
Shark Island. Enter the town. Take a left. Pablo Loco is between that fence
and the first building. You might have to go around the corner to see him.
Talk to him:
Are you Pablo Loco, the herbalist?
Indeed. ‘Laughter of Flowers’, eh? Etc…
Doctor Alumnus sent me for it.
Thank you for the insight. Etc…
I will buy you one.
You are being very difficult, Pablo, you know that? Etc…
Tezhkataly wood? Etc… (journal update / quest)
There’s a shipwright in town. Find him and repair if you need to. Now, leave
town and SAVE GAME. You’re going to Dead Isle, but set course for Highrock
first so you can repair if you need to. Then go to Dead Island and enter the
town. Go to the store and talk to Nigel Fester:
No, I have a couple important matters to discuss.
Well... I need Tezhkataly wood.
I’ll buy it. Thank you and goodbye. (get Tezhkataly wood / journal update / -
1500 gold)
Leave town, SAVE GAME and sail back to Shark Island. Enter the town, and talk
to Pablo Loco again:
I’ve got the wood you want. Here it is. Etc… (get Tzeskatlat Umtat / journal
update / +500 experience)
You mean you had the bloody weed all along? Etc…
Leave town, SAVE GAME, and set sail for Highrock. Enter the town and find Dr.
Alumnus. Talk to him:
Tzeskatlat Umtat?
Yes. Here it is… etc… (journal update / +1000 experience / +2 reputation)
And where is my new surgeon?
Good luck to you, too, Doctor. Etc…
Now, go to the tavern and talk to **** Oakenwood. He wears a white shirt with
a blue vest:
My name is Nicolas. I am a ship’s captain… etc…
My crew will be most grateful for your services… etc…(Oakenwood joins your
crew.)
Congratulations! You have completed the great and convoluted surgeon’s quest!
Well, now you have an officer who gives you +2 defense, and certainly he was
the most difficult one to get. We’re almost finished. Now you need money to
hire the other officers. Also, officers are expensive. You need to make sure
you have enough to buy officers, make repairs, and possibly pay salary at
least once. About 10,000 should do it and give you enough for repairs. Go
forth trader!
When you’ve got the money, go to Tendales, and hire both Shoo and Murray from
the tavern. Now go to Gray Sails and hire Jaque Dullarse and Dreyfus the Fuse
from the tavern. Then go to Shark Island and hire the bald pirate Raymond
Ibelin who wanders outside; to the right usually.
Well, that’s it lads! You are now set to really tackle the game. What you do
now is totally up to you, but keep in mind that ship capture or trade pays
your crew. You’ll need 5500 gold a month to pay this lot, but you can get that
by capturing and selling a single light merchant. I’d go base myself at
Highrock, and go search for light Spanish ships around Granda Avilla. This is
an excellent base to start off at because you always have the trade route to
fall back on if you get in trouble. Also, you are near your home base to
quickly sell off any Spanish prizes you acquire.
Be warned that when you capture a ship, your first officer sails it. If it
gets sunk, your first officer is lost for good. There is another one around
(on Isle D’Orange) who is slightly better than Ibelin. But that’s it, just
two. Other than that, you already have all the best officers in the game.
Don’t forget to add grapeshot to your ammo load out now. I usually carry 500
bombs, 160 grape and 160 knippels. I only carry regular cannonballs if I want
the extended range to attack a fort. If you want an additional challenge in
the game, don’t use bombs at all (they are fictional anyway).
Don’t forget you most store sailcloth and planks in your hold for your repair
skill to work.
Also, don’t forget you have unfinished English quests, not that you have to
complete them. The game is completely open ended. Sail forever and never
finish. Become a full-time trader. Fight for any of the powers and maybe win
it for one of them. Be a true pirate and fight for yourself! The choice is
yours.
Though you are now strong enough to fight other ships and either sink and
capture them. You are not invincible by any means. Judge your battles
carefully. Escape if you have to. And most of all, if we ever meet on the high
seas, remember that the old Scrog helped ya!
Good luck, lads (and lasses, perhaps?)! Have fun in the world of Sea Dogs!
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A-2 Legal Info.
This guide is Copyright 2013 by Greg Highnote.
Sea Dogs is Copyright 2000 By Bethesda Softworks, A Division of ZeniMax
Media Inc. I'm not affiliated with either company in any form and was not
involved in the making of the game.
This guide is available only on gamefaqs.com and my own site Hosehead's
Mercantile (http://www.highnotez.com/hosemerc/index.htm). Any other site
which posts, publishes, displays, or makes this document available by any
other means must first obtain my consent. Nothing may be changed, added,
removed, rearranged, or transcribed within this document, and it must remain
in its original form (seadogs_guide.txt). This document may not be sold or
used in any fashion for a profit. Use it, don't abuse it, mates!
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