Vengeance
So we're back to Hamburg.
We invested some money again. This should be enough to get Hamburg's economy and industry up to 1000.
Our investment won't take effect until next month, though, so we went to the guild to see if there's any quest we can do to kill some time.
In the end, though, I decided to go on a tour around North Europe instead.
We dicked around Greenland for a while, discovering a port but no villages.
Also, we found Khayr's fleet parking near Iceland on our way back. I'm not quite sure what he is doing here.
The journey was long enough to give Catalina a level.
Hamburg's industry has been maxed out. Unfortunately, its economy is not.
This should be enough to bump its economy up to 1000 next month.
But while we're waiting for our investment to take effect, let's pay a visit to the shipyard. I think most of the things that I was going for has already been unlocked.
Now that Hamburg's industry has been maxed out, we can see some new ships that wasn't available before.
This is the
Frigate. It's... not very good. It's better than the Galleon, but considerably worse than the Galeass.
And this is the Full-rigged Ship. It's the ultimate ship in the game. This ship is only unlocked at 1000 industry, and even then, only a selected few ports are able to build it. It's a lot larger than pretty much every other ship in the game. Unfortunately, it's also slow as hell. Obviously it would make an excellent battleship, but I still decided against building one, partly because it would be kind of overkill and partly because it's hard to come up with a name better than Feminism.
Maxing out a port's economy and industry capacities does more than unlocking a bunch of ships -- it also unlocks the ultimate figurehead and gun. Unfortunately these are only available if your commodore has maxed out luck, and in case you've forgotten, Catalina's luck had just taken a big hit from the ghost ship event. This should be easy to fix though.
We did the donation exploit again, and Catalina's luck was remaxed in no time.
Now the next step is a bit tedious. You have to go to the shipyard and ask about figureheads. There's a
chance that you'll see the secret figureheads; if you aren't, try again until the shipyard worker tells you that they have a great selection today.
This is what we're looking for, the Angel figurehead. It does what the other figureheads do, but better. I mean I'm not even sure what does the other figureheads do but I'm pretty sure Angel does it better. Yeah.
Getting the port's economy and industry capacities high also unlocks this: the
Carronade. It's the ultimate gun in the game, as powerful as the Cannon without the Cannon's shitty range. If you grind up your battle level, learn Gunnery, and install Carronades on your ships, you'll actually be able to sink enemy ships reasonably efficiently. Not that you would really want to do this, as sunken ships can't be sold at shipyards. Guns are so useless.
Earlier in this thread, Kattze mentioned that we could buy Frigates and Barges in Bristol. I don't remember much as to how to unlock these ships. We have already seen Frigates in Hamburg, but I didn't see any Barges. Maybe they're only available in Bristol.
So if we invested to improve the port's industry, we'd be able to buy ships that doesn't suck?
No, Istanbul - Athens is a much better trade route. You're so full of shit, market guy.
Right now the only ship available here is the Caravela Redonda. We invested another 50k coins at the shipyard in hopes that this will unlock some non-shitty ships.
Also, the item shop here sells Claymore, an A-rank weapon. It's pretty cheap for its power.
Also, Hamburg's industry is finally maxed out, so we can now purchase the ultimate figurehead:
The Goddess is the hardest figurehead to unlock, requiring maxed out economy and industry and maxed luck for your commodore. Its effect is also the most powerful of all figureheads.
I still don't know what the figureheads actually do.
We went to Bristol and invested again. It'll take a few months to get the port's industry up to 1000.
We went back to Seville to moor Qwinn and take out our battleships again.
Also, I changed Feminism's cargo capacity to make more room for the crew. We didn't really need so many guns anyway.
We hired some people into our fleet, then went back to Ceuta.
Turns out that Ceuta has decided to ally itself with Portugal again.
We solved the problem by investing at Ceuta again.
We spent a few days hiring crew before set sail.
Hmmm... It's Idin Leis. Now that Catalina is equipped with overpowered magical gears, maybe she'll actually stand a chance against Idin.
Well, let's try taking them on.
Ugh. I was hoping that our flagship would spawn near Idin's so that we could challenge him to a duel immediately, but apparently our luck wouldn't have it that way.
I ordered Kaiserin to run away, while Catalina waited for the enemy flagship to get closer.
Kaiserin ended up tanking a hit anyway, though it's nothing too serious.
Dammit, Idin's ship is parking just outside our melee range.
I guess we have no option other than charging right into the enemy formation, then.
Enemy gunfire knocked Feminism's durability down to 22 in a single turn, in addition to killing quite a few of her crew.
The good news is that Idin's flagship is finally in our melee range now.
If our opponent had focused fire on Feminism for another turn, we'd be dead now. The AI is dumb, however, and attacked us in melee instead of keeping shooting at Feminism.
Also, Idin challenged us to a duel when he has no real reason to. WTF. Well, in any case, if we want to win the battle, this is our chance.
The duel started well for Catalina, who managed to land several hits on Idin while blocking all his attacks.
Unfortunately, due to Idin's super high level, getting hit by him even once hurts like hell.
In the end, Catalina was unable to defeat Idin within ten turns, so the duel ended a draw.
However, thanks to the sheer stupidity of the AI, we managed to live yet another turn and got another chance to duel Idin.
Unfortunately, the duel wasn't going very well for Catalina.
Idin kept landing hits, while Catalina kept missing. Idin quickly turned the tide around and defeated Catalina in a few rounds.
...So our Spanish piratess is dead now.
Well, that sure went poorly. Let's try again.
During our second attempt at defeating Idin, I discovered something unexpected. Previously, I was telling Catalina to dodge every turn because I thought it would counter Idin's strongest attack, but it didn't work very well. This time, I told Catalina to block every turn, and this tactic is actually working really well, Catalina is blocking a lot of attacks and even when she fails to block, she doesn't take that much damage. Still, she was unable to win the duel in 10 turns.
A few turns later, the enemy ships suddenly started retreating. Turns out that we were killing more of their men than I thought we were, and their flagship's crew number is dangrously low. The AI is too stupid to realize that one more direct hit on Feminism is enough to sink her, so it decided to retreat.
I tried to take out the enemy flagship via regular meleeing. We were killing more than they were, but we're still losing the fight. I guess we had no option other than duelling Idin after all.
I... can't believe that actually worked. With a few lucky blocks, Catalina was actually able to defeat Idin!
We won the battle with 6 points of durablity and 12 crew left. To be honest, though, the retarded AI is the only reason we're able to win the battle at all.
Evidently, we can only seize enemy ships that were in our vision range when we won the battle. In this case, it's only Idin's flagship. Oh well.
Pretty much everyone on Feminism was killed during the previous battle. We could barely gather enough people to get our fleet back to Ceuta.
Catalina has gained a lot of experience from defeating Idin. At least I think she has.
Hmmm... Now that I think about it, that's a fine Galeass we've got. Maybe we shouldn't sell it.
Alright, we're keeping this ship for ourselves. We named it after the most distinctive feature of its former owner, and Andreas was appointed the captain of our new ship.
Oh, I almost forgot. We used some lumbers seized from Idin to repair Feminism.
Well, it's time to go out and murder some unfortunate bugger again. Hopefully against someone not ridiculously overpowered this time.
Yeah, this guy looks like an easy target.
Catalina beat him handily in a duel.
Note that our piracy fame is over 30,000 now.
I'm... not sure what we were doing in the screenshots above. I think we were dicking around the Iberian Peninsula looking for preys.
:yawn:
Also, there was a lot of wine on their ships. Yay, I guess?
The wine were worth about 10,000 coins. I suppose some extra money is always nice, but at this point we don't really have many things to spend it on.
We beat up some more weaklings,
And Catalina finally gained another battle level.
In addition to being hated by pretty much every country, Catalina is now pretty famous as a pirate. Fames cap out at 50k, so I think we can expect a progression in the story soon.
Have we signed contract with the wrong sponsor? Well, it no longer matters now.
Also, it's a new month, so we invested in Bristol again.
A surprising number of NPC fleets decided to show up near Bristol while we're dicking around to kill time. We murdered them all.
When December rolled around, we went to pour even more money into the shipyard in Bristol.
The shipyard now offers a respectable selection, including Galleons and
Sloops.
Neither of them are of any use to use, though.
Industry here should be maxed out next month.
Now that our business in Bristol is concluded for the time being, we should go back to pirating around Ceuta again. A few days later, our old friend Khayr decided to show up.
Hmm. We were barely able to beat Idin, who was a bit weaker than Khayr. Still, I want to try our hands at beating Khayr as well..
We shall see about that.
Our tactic is the same as that we had used agained Idin: rush to the enemy flagship and duel their captain.
The enemy ships landed some nasty hits on Feminism, but that's to be expected.
I... don't really know what happened here. Catalina kept landing hits on Khayr while blocking just about every single counterattack.
Khayr was down before long.
"Tell me, what happened to the fleets you had attacked?"
"FEMINISM HAS UNMADE THEM."
"What happened to Idin and his men?"
"FEMINISM HAS UNMADE THEM."
"I... see."
I swear I didn't savescum here. It's just a complete fluke.
We did seize quite a few Galeasses, which is pretty sweet.
Said Khayr before
Catalina Feminism Unmade him.
We can get much more fame from defeating a powerful pirate like Khayr than we do from beating up random dudes. Catalina is close to maxing out her piracy fame.
Catalina gained a large chunk of experience from besting Khayr in a duel as well.
Hmm, looking at Catalina's fame, I couldn't help feeling that we should have made some progress in the story long ago. Maybe we just have to visit the right building.
Well, no. I've checked every single building in Ceuta, but no special event occured.
Perhaps we need to visit a port that isn't located in Europe? I remember at least one special event that can't be triggered in European ports.
Nope. Nothing happening here.
We went to check Argin, but still didn't get any special event. Both Santa Cruz and Argin are allied with Portugal though, which may be the problem.
There happens to be a bank in Argin, where we deposited most of our cash.
We checked out another port, which is allied with Holland. Still no special events.
But then we went to Algiers and finally ran into the person we're looking for.
"Oh, it's you."
"So, Joao was in that port just as I said, wasn't he?"
"But things didn't go very well there."
"Well, I just told you to go there. I never told you to let him go, and get all tied up!"
"How dare you say that!"
"People loved the story how that old man tied you up like a cow!"
"Shut up, dog face. I'll teach you to make fun of me."
"Whoa! Hold on a minute there."
"I won't stop Andreas if you were only looking for us so you could tease us, you weasel-faced numskull."
"Ouch! No! Ouch! It just slipped out of my lips! Ouch! The true reason is, ouch!, I've got some information for you."
"Information? That must be about Joao."
"Uuuhh... Let me go..."
"That's enough, Andreas. Stop it."
"Gasp, gasp... I thought I'd never breathe again."
"Tell us what you know."
"I will, but in one condition."
"Andreas, he's all yours. Have fun."
"Oh, no. OK, I'll tell you. There's someone who knows where Joao's fleet is."
"Who is it?"
"A Portuguese nobleman of high rank. But I'm not supposed to tell his name."
You were not supposed to get strangled by Andreas either, were you?
"That sounds suspicious. If he is a man of high rank, why can't he identify himself?"
"I haven't finished yet. That nobleman has a grudge against the Francos. That's why he's been following Joao's activities. If you wish, he can help you, he says."
"Sounds too good to be true. It might be a scheme."
"It isn't a scheme. But he has a request of you. His son has a crush on a girl called Lucia in the Lisbon pub. He wants to see her alone."
I like where this is going...
"But because he's a nobleman, he can't see her in public. So he wants you to take her to meet him at another port. If you can do that, he'll let you know where Joao is."
Totally not suspicious. Not at all.
"Is that all? It's easy to kidnap a girl."
"Not a kidnapping. We need to take her out secretly."
No Emilio you're so full of shit. This totally is kidnapping.
"I'm not too keen on this scheme, but if we can find out where Joao is..."
"It's a great opportunity. You accept the deal, right?"
"OK, it's a deal. Where do we bring the girl?"
"There is a port called Ceuta, just south of Lisbon. Bring her to the lodge there. I'll report our deal to the nobleman. Good luck!"
"Any day now, Joao will be within our grasp."
"It's not a bad deal. It's good to have support from someone."
So we're now kidnapping young barmaids for some shady Portuguese aristocrat and possibly-rapist? Wow. That's a new low, even for us.
"There's a woman over there."
"Would you like anything to drink?"
"She's beautiful, but not young."
"No, not an old lady like her."
"Who're you calling an old woman?"
"Oooops, she heard us."
"Of course, everyone heard you, you loudmouth."
"Old lady, my foot. Just get lost, children! You're not welcome here!"
"Blast! Let's get out of here."
"We're not having much luck with this older generation. First Rocco, and now this!"
"Excuse me, are you Lucia?"
"No, Lucia is my daughter."
"May I speak to Lucia?"
"Why yes. Actually, if you're a traveler, tell her some interesting stories. She'll be delighted. Lucia! You have a cuntomer. Lucia!"
"Yes, mother."
"This lady wants to talk to you."
"Oh, are you a stowaway? Oh, I'm so envious. I'd love to travel, too."
"Anyone can travel, if they have 2 things - a ship and plenty of courage."
Tell that to all the seafaring dudes we've murdered.
"But I have to work here."
"That's true. Not to change the subject, but do you know a young noble who visits here from time to time?"
I don't think Perot had ever said anything about the nobleman being "young". Catalina is just making shit up here.
"Yes, he comes here incognito. He is always kind and sincere, and he's very handsome."
"That man said he wants to meet with you, but he can't come here right now. He's asked me to bring you to visit him."
"Really?!"
"Would you like to go? He's in a port called Ceuta, just to the south of Lisbon."
"Ceuta... I heard it's beautiful. What luck - taking a trip and seeing you-know-who! Please take me!"
"Then get ready, quickly. Where's a good place to meet?"
"OK, I'll be ready as soon as possible. Wait for me at the lodge in 2 hours."
"Tell your mother so she won't be worried."
"Alright."
Well, that was easy. You'd think Lucia's mother would be able to recognize Catalina, but apparently our piratess is less famous than we'd thought.
Later, at the lodge...
Another hour later...
"Yes."
"I hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long."
"No, we just got here. Let's go to my ship."
"I'm so excited!"
We arrived at Ceuta without any trouble.
"Yes, he's waiting for you. I also have a message for you from a man called Perot. He wants you to go to the pub after you bring Lucia to the lodge."
"Thank you!"
"Catalina, thank you very much. I won't forget your kindness."
"I have an appointment so I must leave now. Good luck!"
Yeah, good luck not getting raped, girl.
At the pub:
"Commodore, she looked happy. Feels good when you do a good deed for someone."
"And she was pretty. No wonder that nobleman likes her."
"He's probably a respectable guy, unlike those Francos. According to her, he is kind, sincere, and handsome. I can't believe that somebody as sly as Joao could also be a Portuguese noble."
Seriously, are you guy really THIS bad with criminology?
"Hi Catalina, it seems you safely brought Lucia to this port."
"So Perot, can you tell me now where Joao is?"
"Sure. Joao is in Alexandria."
"Andreas, Emilio, let's go."
"Good luck. Try not to botch up the job again!"
Immediately after leaving Ceuta, we found Idin's fleet parking nearby, doing nothing. I decided to fight him again for XP because hey, if we could beat him once, we should be able to do it again.
Before going into battle, I captured a screenshot of Catalina's character sheet so that we could know how much XP she could gain from besting Idin in a duel.
Let's go.
Our tactic is still the same as the last time: rush the flagship, duel the commodore and pray it works.
Unfortunately it didn't work very well. The duel ended in a stalemate.
On the next turn, the enemy ships sunk Feminism with a barrage of cannon fire.
Well, that went badly.
So let's do it again.
As you can see, the outcome of a duel can... kind of fluctuate at times.
We got to seize a lot of good stuff this time, including 4 galeasses.
Said Idin before
Catalina Feminism Unmade him. Again.
Seems like Catalina gained 490 points of experience from all the trouble. Not bad, but I was kind of expecting more. Oh well.
Later, when we hit the shipyard, I decided to reserve another one of Idin's Galeasses for our own use. I named the ship BlkBeard. You should be able to tell by now that I'm really good at naming our ships.
Goodbye Kaiserin, you have served us well. Now our fleet consists exclusively of Galeasses.
Oh, and I ordered all guns on BlkBeard to be removed to make more space for cargo.
Okay,
now we're heading to Alexandria.
At the pub in Alexandria:
"Today is the day I will defeat Joao. We must act carefully."
"Excuse me."
"You are...?"
"Otto Baynes. I command a Privateer Fleet from England."
"What would a commodore of England need from me?"
"I've been following you since I saw you in Ceuta. The pirate you were talking to in the pub is Bret Perot, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is. What about him?"
"He's been linked to Marquis Martinez. Are you aware of that?"
"I see. So the nobleman that Perot was talking about is Marquis Martinez. What about him?"
"Then you are kidnappers. Where is Lucia? If you return her now, we'll save your life."
"What are you talking about? If you insist on making false charges, I'll dump you in the ocean as shark bait."
"Watch your mouth, pal!"
"What! You shut up!"
"Calm yourself, Andreas."
"Otto, why are you saying we kidnapped her? I just accepted Marquis Martinez's request to take her to Ceuta."
"Are you saying that you did it without knowing who he is? I found out about this crime only by chance. Matthew, explain it to them."
"Yes, sir. A while ago when I was drinking at the pub in Algiers, I overheard a conversation between Marquis Martinez and the pirate, Perot. It seems Lucia inadvertently overheard a big secret of theirs. That's why they plotted her kidnapping. It was a clever idea. If a woman like you invites her, the girl and her mother would not be suspicious."
I think "overheard a big secret" is a pretty weird way to say "being the target of a rape".
"Is that really true?"
"Why on earth would we lie?"
"Blast! Perot tricked us!!"
"That means Lucia is in danger! Otto, I caused this terrible situation. I must take care of it."
"You must do what you feel is right. While in the pub, I also heard that Perot is heading to the Black Sea."
"Than you for telling us."
Well then, to the Black Sea we go. Istanbul is the biggest port near the Black Sea, so natually, we went there first.
We checked out several buildings in Istanbul, but found no trace of Perot.
The item shop here has some stuff for sale, but we already have all the useful ones anyway.
Maybe we should go check out other ports in the Black Sea.
To be honest, I didn't remember there was any port in the Black Sea other than Istanbul. There's not much of interest in the Black Sea, so I usually wouldn't explore here.
We looked in a few more ports, but still couldn't find Perot.
Turned out we actually got to Black Sea
earlier than Perot. Perot is arriving only now.
Perot's fleet attacked us when our fleet got close to them.
All right, now. Remember when I said that I've never completed Catalina's story? This asshole is the reason for that.
Many years ago, when I was a mentally healthy elementary schooler rather than the mondblutist savescummer that I am now, my parents bought me a bootleg CD of UW2. After beating the game once as Otto, I decided I'll play Catalina next. I was pretty bad at the game back then, and I wasn't able to build up a powerful fleet in a short time like I did in this LP. So I mostly just fought small merchant fleets to build up my fame.
In that playthrough, I progressed in the story very quickly - too quickly, perhaps. I actually got to this point of the story before I could get enough money to buy Catalina some good equipment. Anyway, Otto told me about Perot's whereabouts, so I went to the Black Sea. But I didn't take my battleships with me; instead, I just headed to the Black Sea in a single small, fast ship. Why? I don't know. Probably because Perot acted like such a big pussy up to that point that I didn't expect to battle him at all. So, I went to Istanbul, looked all over the place for Perot to no avail, and spent a few days in Istanbul doing nothing. And when I eventually left Istanbul, I found Perot waiting for me just outside the port.
It was a quick battle. I wasn't prepared for a battle at all, so Perot easily crushed my fleet even though he's not that strong himself. I reloaded and tried to get away from Istanbul to retrive my battleships, but was unable to escape from Perot because he'd just attack me right after I left the port. After a few attempts I gave up. I then tried to defeat Perot's fleet with the few resource I had on my hand, but unfortunately my lone ship is too small to stand any chance against the enemy, and Catalina has shit equipment so duelling Perot personally is out of question. Worse yet, I'd just spent all my money on a new Venetian Galeass (which was still in construction in Venice), so I can't even buy a bigger ship at Istanbul's shipyard.
Finally, I didn't have a backup save - my only save was the one where I'm being blockaded in Istanbul.
In other words, I got caught in an unwinnable situation.
I spent a few days frantically trying to salvage the save, but eventually gave up. Ever since then, I've developed a habit to
always backup my save once in a while, while I'm playing a CRPG. I've also gone back to UW2 a few times, beating the game with different protagonists, but I never gathered the courage and motivation to replay Catalina's story... until now.
This isn't Catalina's vengeance. This is
my vengeance.
Enough of this whining, though. Let's get back to business. This is Perot's flagship. Winning this fight is actually pretty piss easy as long as you don't make any spectularly retarded decisions as I did when I'm 10.
Perot pretty much didn't stand a chance.
We also got to seize some Galleons after the battle, not that it matters at this point.
"Bret Perot! What have you done to that girl?!"
"Ha, ha, ha! You'll never find her! She's probably on the far side of the world by now!"
"You'd better tell us what you've done, or I'll break every..."
"Even if you did defeat me here, there's no way you'll ever stop the Atlantean armies. They will conquer the world!"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Perot. But don't kid yourself. You're just a scurvy pirate, and you always will be."
"Even so, he said some pretty interesting things, wouldn't you say?"
With Perot finally taken care of, we returned to Istanbul to see if we could gather more information about this "Atlantean armies" thingy he was talking about.
Next time: Monstrous Bat doesn't take 3 months writing an update. Hopefully.