Sorry for the schedule slip, I was busy with, uh,
other activities. Won't happen again. Promise.
Cheating A Bank In Two Steps
Off we go. In case you've forgotten, we're on a quest to deliver some fishes to Genoa.
We "discovered" the port of
Palma on our way.
It didn't take too long for us to get to
Genoa.
Another event was triggered when we entered a random building.
"Is it about Duke Franco or Commander Ezequiel?"
"Duke Franco. I've heard that the Prince of Portugal is missing right now. Some people say Duke Franco may be involved."
"Oh really? How so?"
"Well, they say Duke Franco plotted to eliminate the Prince so his son Joao could take the throne."
"If that rumor is true then Duke Franco is a real villain."
"He's worse than we pirates!"
Leon Franco was a pirate!
It's possible to buy silver in Genoa. Catalina doesn't really care to trade, though.
This is true if you don't want to do battles, but if you do, then it's a good idea to keep as many crew on your ships as possible at all times.
More random NPCs.
We took the goods to the market. Unfortunately, we can't even get our reward yet. This quest is way too much trouble for 1000 gold coins, I tell you. In fact it's probably the worst quest in the game.
Here's the goods list of Genoa.
We also went to the shipyard to check if there's any good used ships we can buy.
There isn't, sadly. What we want is a mederate-sized fast ship. None of these ships fill the bill.
We can also order new ships in the shipyard. Unfortunately, new ships take a long time to build, and I'm an impatient guy, so we probably won't bother with this option.
Also, Genoa is the capital of Italy, so there's a palace here.
Well it seems like we're pretty famous!
Here, we can meet with the ruler or defect to the country. If we were a noble of this country, we would also be able to ask for gold and ships here.
We'll meet with the ruler first. Sphere of Influence tells us which ports are allied to this country. Letter of Marque allows us to ask for a letter of marque. You can't ask for a letter of marque unless you're loyal to this country. The Tax Free Permit, on the other hand, can be requested by anyone. The permit is only effective in the country's allied ports. You typically have to pay a lot of money to get a permit, and it only lasts for about half a year. Since Catalina isn't really interested in trading, this option is also useless to us.
To be honest, all these infomation are quite useless.
You can also defect to a country at their palace.
Defecting to another country can render the game unwinnable in some circumstances, so doing so is not advised.
Anyway, let's visit the bank! Most of the commands here are pretty self-explanative.
Right now our credit line is hilariously thin. I think the credit line increases when you rise in rank, but I'm not completely sure about that.
Of course, we can also deposit money here.
I deposited most of our money at the bank. The reason of doing so will soon become apparent.
Before we would venture into the Uncharted Waters, it's a very good idea to improve our luck first. The main way to raise one's luck is to donate to the church. I don't exactly remember how donations work, but I believe the increase in luck is related to BOTH the absolute value and the proportion of the donation (i.e. the increase is larger if you donate all of your cash at once).
To max out your luck with the least amount of money spent, you should deposit most of you cash into the bank, leaving only a few thousand coins on you, then donate them all at the church.
Next, withdraw a few thousand coins from the bank, then donate them again. Repeat a few times and your luck should be maxed out.
Of course, don't forget to withdraw your money after doing all of these.
Our next stop is the item shop.
Using a measuring instrument on the seas will tell you the longitude and latitude of your current position. It's very useful, but since I'm quite familiar with this game I don't really need it right now.
The Velvet Coat is an accessory item. These items are close to useless.
Also, we went to the local fortune teller's to have Catalina's fortune told. It seems like she has indeed maxed out her luck.
While we're at it, I decided to have Andreas' fortune told as well. Seems like he's pretty lucky!
Let's check out if there's any good navigator for hire at the pub.
As I've said before, NPCs who is already the commodore of their own fleet will never join you, so don't bother.
Roberto and Nicolo are the only vagabond sailors here. Let's try hiring them.
Hurrah! They both agreed to join our team!
We went to check the item shop again at 2 AM, but I apparently forgot to take a screenshot of the merchandise list. I don't think there was anything of importance.
It's time to sail out again.
Let's pay a visit to
Marseille. It's close enough to Genoa, after all.
Somehow, Roberto managed to level up after less than a day of sailing. That reminds me, I've yet to take a look at the character sheets of our new mates.
Roberto here has pretty terrible stats across the board. He's also nominally loyal to Portugal, but the truth is: once one has gotten aboard on our ship, he will be loyal to us, and
only to us.
Nicolo only has slightly better stats than Roberto.
If you aren't reading a FAQ (or this LP), this should be how you find out about the secret merchandise in item shops.
Sometimes you might find an item shop (or any other building, really) in a port that is larger than normal. They may look pretty, but they aren't functionally different from the same type of buildings in other ports.
The local item shop has a pretty poor selection. Treasures are as useful as accessories, which means they're also nearly useless.
The shipyard doesn't have any good ships for sale either.
We're running out of cash, so let's withdraw all of our money from the bank.
The secret item here is the Estock, a B-rank weapon. B-rank equipments aren't amazing, but they're good enough to be worth using, and they don't cost much. There're better ways to spend money in the early game though.
Our next stop is
Barcelona.
Ooh, there's a cartograhper in this town!
Well, let's go to the shipyard.
Eh?
Oh shit.
You see, since we're officially traitors now, we're going to run into problems in Spanish ports. Every time we enter a building in a Spanish port, we must succeed a dice roll or we'll be recognized.
If we're recognized, we'll get another roll to escape from the mobs. If we failed again, we'll lost most of our cash.
Thankfully, we managed to escape this time.
This is what usually happens when you enter a building in a hostile port. The first mate warns you about this, but you don't get recognized.
It's in Barcelona that we finally found what we're looking for: a La Reale!
The La Reale is a bit small to be a battleship, but it's
very fast (it's one of the fastest ships in the game), requires relatively little manning, and since it's a galley it can sail fairly fast even when sailing agianst wind. These traits make it the ideal ship for adventuring.
We attempted to buy the ship, but we couldn't afford the money.
We haggled a bit with the master of the shipyard.
Unfortunately, he wouldn't accept the price we named.
If the shipyard master rejects your offer twice, you get kicked out of the shipyard and can't enter again for the duration of a day.
This must be the residence of Diogo.
Cartographers are a special type of NPC. If you sign a contract with one of them, you can get rewarded with money and adventure fame for mapping out the world. For the protagonists who need adventure fame, this is critically important; for those who don't, doing so still provides some nice extra cash.
The problem is that your protagonist must have the Cartography skill in order to sign a contract with cartographers. The good news is that any cartographer NPC can teach you the skill for a fee.
The bad news is that Catalina is too dumb to be a cartographer.
God knows how long it will take to raise her knowledge score to 75. We will probably never bother.
Here's the local item shop.
The dagger and leather armor are shit equipments that are pretty much never worth anything.
The balm, on the other hand, is one of the most useful items in the entire game. It actually
calms down a storm. No, it doesn't make sense. I bought a few bottles of those.
On the next day, we returned to the shipyard and attempted to buy that La Reale again.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the shipyard master wouldn't settle for anything less than 35,000, which is more than what we can afford. Oh well, we'll return later.
Let's check out
Valencia next.
The item shop here has some lime juice for sale. Other than that, nothing interesting.
Back at Algiers, we finally collected the reward for our quest. In addition to the money, we also got 200 trade fame for completing the quest.
We went to check if there's any new quest available at the guild and saw a Collect Debt quest. This type of quest is important as it's related to one of the most ridiculous money exploits in the early game.
We took the quest and set sail for Venice,
Discovering the port of
Ragusa on our way.
We reached
Venice after a few days.
The Marco Polo bank in UW2 is a true amazement. It's apparently the biggest banking dynasty in the 16th century, with branches in literally every corner of the world, from the Americas to China. It's also ran by a bunch of retarded fuckwits - you'll see soon.
Incidentally, Venice is probably the largest and coolest city in UW2.
A blue bird sign denotes one of importance. Let's pay him a visit!
However, as soon as we entered the building, an event was triggered.
Seems like we'll have to check out the shipyard first.
"Those two people are being attacked by that huge mob of pirates!"
"Andreas! Emilio! Let's save them!"
"Hmph, you're pretty tough. Hey guys, it's time for you to take care of the kid!"
"Not if I have anything to say about it!"
"Who in the blazes are you?"
"A pirate, like yourself. But not so vile as the likes of you, to attack two people with so many men."
That's right. Catalina prefers to win by abusing broken game mechanics instead!
"A lady pirate?! Ha, you're that Spanish traitor, aren't you!
"No one has survived a duel with me. On guard!"
Uhh, sorry Catalina, but you haven't actually duelled anyone yet.
"Blast! You'll regret this!"
"Pirates have such a limited vocabulary. Can't they ever say something original?"
"Thank you very much. You saved my life."
"Don't mention it. You're Portuguese, aren't you?"
"I am Joao Franco. As a token of my thanks, I'll play a song on my lute for you."
"What's the matter?"
"I am the sister of Commodore Michael Erantzo of Spain. You are responsible for his loss. Prepare yourself for my fury!"
"W, Wait! I don't understand! Why do you want to fight me?"
"No more stalling. Pick up your sword!"
"Commodore, just a moment. I heard something outside."
"Pirate Catalina, I know you're in there. You're under arrest by orders of the King of Spain, Carlos I. Throw down your weapons and surrender!"
...When did YOU get here?
"Ugh, I could almost... Listen kid, you were lucky this time, but next time we meet, revenge will be mine!"
Catalina then managed to flee from Ezequiel's invisible Spanish army. Again.
Well. That was some fun detour, but let's not forget what we came here for.
Hmph. This is just another fetch quest that doesn't even pay well... OR IS IT?
Remember the building with a blue bird sign before? Turns out it's just the residence of another cartographer.
Now, we're on a quest to collect some debt from a dude called Antoine Fitch. We've no idea how should we do it though. Maybe the waitress at the pub would know something?
The first two options here are used to increase your standing with the waitress. Investigation is used to acquire infomation about NPC fleets. Ask info is used to acquire other infomation. Sadly, wooing waitresses didn't become possible until UW3. I'm pretty sure that Catalina is straight anyway.
A waitress will reject your request for investigation unless your standing with her is high enough.
Let's try treating someone, then.
Sadly, it seems like nobody here knows anything about Antoine.
There's also a single unhelpful navigator at the pub.
It's 2 AM so let's check out the item shop again!
Shitty C-rank equipment.
Sextants are basically the same as quadrants, except more accurate.
More shitty items. Treasures and accessories have precisely one use (other than being sold in shops): you can gift them to waitresses to raise their standings with you. It's generally unwise to spend money on this though.
Maybe someone in another port will know something about Antoine?
Let's check Ragusa first.
Nope. Nobody here knows anything about Antoine.
And the item shop does in fact have a poor selection. What a lackluster port.
Next up is
Naples.
Ooh, another special NPC.
Here's Juliano's home.
Meet Professor Juliano. He plays an important role in Gaiden. In UW2, however, he just teaches the Celestial Navigation skill.
Unfortunately, Catalina is once again too dumb to understand the art of astronomy.
Good thing that Catalina can just have the men do all the stargazing for her.
We met an unemployed navigator in the local pub.
Sadly, none of the people here knows anything about Antoine either.
The unemployed navigator agreed to join our team though!
His stats aren't amazing, but we don't care.
For some inexplicable reasons, the item shop of Naples is located in the middle of a forest. Do they even get any customers?
Some intersting items for sale here.
The leather armor is still crap.
Rat poison is another useful utility item. We bought a bottle.
And then... there's the Crusader Armor.
The Crusader Armor is a piece of ☆-rank equipment. ☆-rank equipment are the most powerful in the game. All of them makes you practically invincible in duels, and all of them costs an exorbitant amount of money to buy. We'll definitely come back for this armor when we've enough money. For now, though, we have more pressing matters to attend to.
Upon entering
Pisa, Dante gained a level. Nobody cared.
Ah, so there's an possible sponsor in this town!
Also, have a look at the Upright Tower of Pisa.
This must be the residence of the Duke.
Let's try signing a contract with him.
Now, the sponsors. These are the helpful people that helps turning your discoveries into money. Basically, you find something, report it to your sponsor, and you get money and fame! It's strongly advised that you find a sponsor before you would go adventuring.
We now have a sponsor!
If asked, your sponsor will also give you clues about where to find villages (and therefore discoveries).
Also, we finally learned the location of Antoine!
Our trip to Pisa has been a fruitful one.
The item shop had some nice things for sale, although we didn't buy any.
I decided to autosail to
Bordeaux.
The journey took ten days. Dante gained another level.
Aha! Antoine is indeed here! But wait, I see another navigator called Jacob. Let's gossip a bit with him first.
We welcomed Jacob into our fleet.
Now, Antoine Fitch...
Well, that was easy. Sometimes the debtor will run away when you tries to collect his debt, and you'd have to track him down again.
Anyway, here's Jacob's character sheet. His stats aren't terribly exciting, but he knows the Accounting skill, which is very valuable.
I appointed him as our bookkeeper immediately.
By the way, there's another possible sponsor in Bordeaux. Since we're already in a contract with the Duke of Modena, there's not much reason to bother with him.
Mmm, Bordeaux wine.
At the beginning of each month, we'll have to pay the wage of our mates. It's a pretty negligeable expense.
They say one has to know one's enemies, so let's take a look at
Lisbon!
Duke Franco sure lives a luxurious life, huh.
We went to the shipyard to check if there's a La Reale. There wasn't, sadly.
This is Duke Franco's mansion. Is... is that thing supposed to be a kennel?
Anyway, let's pay a visit to the Duke! I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
"That doesn't sound fair."
"May I help you?"
"No. No, thank you. No surprise attack, of course. Excuse us.
"Hummm, they're a suspicious lot..."
Duke Franco is actually a possible sponsor, but due to obvious reasons, Catalina can't sign a pact with him.
Well, that was fun. How about we check out the pub next?
As you can see, Lisbon's pub is quite crowded. It's the capital of Portugal after a-
Wait. Who's that?
Didn't you just get Executed by Catalina an update ago? I'm pretty sure you did.
Incidentally: while most navigators prefer to hang out in the pub, sometimes you'll find navigators at the lodge as well. We didn't bother hiring any of the people here, though - Catalina already has a lot of mates. There's a hard cap as to how many mates you can have, and getting rid of bad navigators can be surprisingly tricky.
There's a Telescope for sale in the shop here. The Telescope is an useful item that gives a big bonus to the fleet's lookout range. With a Telescope, you probably don't need more than a few crew assigned to lookout anymore.
Well. Now, I said before that the Debt Collection quest is related to one of the most ridiculous money exploits in the early game... And now I shall demonstrate how to do the exploit.
See the five ingots we got from Antoine Fitch? They look shiny, don't they? Do we really have to return them to the Marco Polo bank?
Well, we don't. We can easily claim the money for ourselves. The exploit is quick, simple, and utterly retarded.
Find a branch of Marco Polo bank (NOT the headquarters in Venice!) and deposit most of your money there.
Then, go back to the headquarters in Venice.
The banker scolds us, and the quest is terminated.
What did we lost? Well, 100 points of trade fame, and... that's it, actually.
Now go back to the bank and withdraw all the money, and we're done.
That's correct. We just prevented the Marco Polo bank from taking our money
by depositing the money in their bank.
You'd think there's some punishment for doing such a ridiculous exploit, but there really isn't. In fact, if we wish, we can take another Debt Collection quest from the guilds and do the exploit again. Because the bankers at the Marco Polo bank are
retarded.
Well, I believe now is about time that we went adventuring. A good place to start adventuring is the
Nile. There's lots of things to discover and very little risk.
We discovered a village when we're sailing for the Nile. Finding a village is a very good thing for an adventurer, since village means discovery!
We landed on the village and were presented with several options. I'll explain most of these options later. For now, let's search.
Ooh, ancient civilization!
We have made our first discovery: the
Rosetta Stone! Sadly it's a D-rank discovery, so it's not worth much.
Before going down the Nile, we should resupply at
Alexandria.
Patriotism is overrated. Catalina only cares about vengeance!
Most ports in Western Asia have mosques rather than Christian churchs. For Muslim characters (only Ali), mosques are functionally identical to churchs. Christian characters can't enter mosques.
Fun fact: you'll automatically convert to Islam if you'd defected to Turkey.
There's also another possible sponsor here.
We should buy some items now that we have the money.
Catalina bought herself a set of half plate and a scimitar. These equipments are hardly amazing, but they'll have to do for now.
We also bought a sextant.
Catalina equipped the half plate and the scimitar. She'll be able to actually win some duels now.
Alright. It's time for ADVENTURES!
Next time: Catalina journeys around the world.