Puzzle Pirates Guide

[Natalí Stibb]

1Go on regular pillages. Aim for 90% Jobber's Delight or above when possible. Jobber's Delight is the best pay rate for you. Set an easy goal of 1k per day. You may make much more than this a day, depending on how much time you have to play.

3. Keep track of your earnings, and be smart about it! Don't buy unnecessary items, like swords, clothes, pets, and other furniture. You must prioritize spending in order to maximize it. There will be time for excess spending later.

4. Optional: buy a "little chest" furniture item which you can put your pieces of eight in after placing it in your shack, so you can have a clear sense of what you earn. The fee is 3 doubloons (roughly 10,000 PoE) plus the cost in the Furnisher (around 1,000 or less). You will attain your goal slower this way, but it may help you avoid those poker tables.

6. In order to create a crew, you need a "narrow" Experience standing in certain puzzles. Read the Crew (link) page for more information. As you pillage with other crews via the notice board, your experience in these certain puzzles will go up, along with your stack of pieces of eight.

a) You need an officer Badge in order to sail your ship. You can be promoted to the rank of officer and still will not be able to sail your ship. These are quite expensive considering your current budget, at 8 doubloons. When purchasing, buy a wrapped badge so you can use it when the right time approaches.

b) The crew you join must have a way for you to be promoted to officer. Ask the captain or a high-ranking pirate in the crew what these requirements are. Be smart about this! Begging for the position will get you nowhere. Typically, a certain type of stat ranking is needed in order to attain officer. However, this is secondary to your main objective: officer standing in a crew.

c) Sometimes crews will be in flags at-war with other flags, in which case you can lose your new prize in a sinking battle. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND joining a peaceful crew to begin your career. You can check to see if you are joining a crew at-war by looking at their Flag Page (link). If they have no flag, then you need not worry.

8. Once in a crew at officer ranking and holding a sloop deed, you can begin to practice the two puzzles essential for you: duty navigation and battle navigation. You can also practice these through the navy, although I don't recommend doing that because it is not as fun. I suggest running a solo pillage the first few times if you are nervous.

9. Optional: With having to stock your ship, you may look for several other forms of income aside from your own pillages and other players' pillages (which you can and should still go on). One option is to buy a Bravery Badge (5 doubloons) and to go on sea monster hunts. These can be much more profitable than pillages, but they take a lot of time. Another option is to buy a Labor Badge (5 doubloons) and seek employment at any tailor, shipyard, weavery, distillery, iron monger, or furnisher (depending what puzzle suits you). The pay will be less but you don't have to puzzle as much. You can work up to 3 jobs at once and puzzle only once a week (except at a furnisher or tailor, which do not require puzzling). At any rate, both options will be better than no options.

11. If your intent is indeed to create a crew, note that you need a Captain Badge (20 doubloons) as well as an additional 10 doubloons to start one, plus Narrow in all the adequate puzzles. You will already have your ship deed.

Creating your own crew by yourself without any support from anyone else can be difficult when you start out, and probably henceforth. You will have to get enough jobbers for each of your pillages from the notice board posting. Getting members to stay in your crew is also difficult. Also, you will not be a part of a lively, talkative crew or flag. You must be comfortable with loneliness, lots and lots of loneliness.

You have complete control over what you want to do in terms of your crew. You're now the captain. You can: join a flag, make a flag, have no flag, recruit members, have no members, and set your booty division to your heart's content. You do not answer to anyone else, unless you join someone else's flag. You do not have to log in at certain times for certain things, like blockades. You do not have to pay dues to anyone. You can be gone for a months on end (although a doubloon purchase is necessary to keep your pirate from getting erased) without worrying about disappointing anyone. If the mood strikes you, you can PvP whenever you want. Fair winds!

Disclaimer: There is no set way to play this game, and this is just a suggestion; neither is it a comprehensive guide. None of the above is game-playing truth--it is based on my experiences only. I am the sole author of this particular page.

After you've installed the Yohoho! client and chosen an ocean to play on (there is a guide to choosing an ocean here), you need to create a pirate before you start playing. Click on one of the three buttons labelled "Create new Pirate" and start creating your character. You can choose your pirate's gender, hair color, and skin tone, as well as the color and style of the clothes your pirate will wear. You can also choose facial hair (only for men). Once you've started playing, these features can only be altered through the use of special (and expensive) potions.

The game window consists of a few different parts. Most of the window is taken up by the world view. Here you can see your pirate walking around (and clicking somewhere will move your pirate to that location), or the current game board, or other information such as user info pages, the notice board, etc.

The small area in the top-right corner of the interface is called the minimap. The minimap provides a smaller view of the world around you even when you are playing a puzzle or viewing some other information.

Underneath the minimap you will find the sunshine widget. The sunshine widget is organized into tabbed sections that let you do many things, such as get help, view your inventory, view your crew and hearty lists, and other things like that.

Finally, underneath the sunshine widget, at the very bottom right corner, you can see how much PoE you have in hand and, if you are on a doubloon ocean, how many doubloons you have (doubloons not shown in above image).

After your pirate is created, you will see a menu with three missions to attempt. You can either start with one of these, or click on "More Missions" for taking you to a board showing many more missions to do. The first mission you should take is called "Learn about your items," which transports you to the Pollywog. After a short tutorial from a Non-player character, called an NPP (Non-player-pirate), you should have learned some basic game etiquette and have been taught how to wear clothing.

After you first disembark from the Pollywog, you should find yourself at the docks to an island, with a yellow arrow behind you. Somewhere near the docks you should spot the notice board, which brings up a screen similar to the first screen you saw before boarding the Pollywog.

Click on the notice board by the docks to view it. You can also view the notice board from anywhere in the game by clicking the "Ye" tab on your sunshine widget, and clicking the button marked "Notice board". Viewing the notice board brings up valuable information about jobbing for a crew, missions, featured shoppe jobs (for subscribers), and even island news and events planned by the governor.

Clicking "Go!" for a navy mission will instantly whisk your character to a navy ship, where you can practice puzzles and earn money with the navy. As you gain more experience, more missions will be available from which to choose. For more about missions, see below.

Once on land, there are several options to earn PoE as a new pirate. First off, you can enter the inn and challenge any of the NPPs (they have white names) to a wagered fight. The NPPs will wager up to 26 PoE at a time.

You can choose to take a crafting mission from the mission section of the Notice board. This mission will instantly whisk you to a shoppe or stall requiring labor. By playing the puzzle at the shoppe, you are providing labor for the shoppe to produce its goods. The better your performance at the puzzle, the higher grade of labor you will provide. Higher grades of labor generally pay better than lower grades.

You can also take a mission with the navy from the notice board. Navy ships sail from their home islands to neighboring islands and give you the opportunity to practice the duty puzzles without the pressures of pillaging. You will be paid a modest sum per league that the naval ship travels. Better performance earns you better pay.

And finally, you can pillage with a live crew of pirates to earn your money. However, this is significantly different from jobbing with the navy. You only earn money if the ship you are on fights and wins one or more sea battles. However, it is expected that you puzzle before, during and after the battle or else the Commanding officer (XO) may plank you and dock your pay. Be willing to work hard and stay for an extended time if you are going to pillage. It is best to work with the navy for a while before pillaging to learn the various puzzles.

Spamming is repeatedly typing the same line over and over in a brief period of time, such that innocent bystanders' chat windows scroll so much that ordinary conversation is impossible. Repeatedly shouting is just as aggravating, as the larger text causes the chat window to scroll much faster than normal as well.

When you find yourself aboard a player's ship jobbing for a crew, it is expected that you work at a puzzle to earn your PoE. If there are NPPs aboard the ship, it is rude to challenge them to a drinking, rumbling, or swordfighting contest. Serious infractions of crew rules such as lazing about, fighting or drinking while sailing, refusing to take a station, or leaving the ship during sea battle can incur the wrath of the XO who may decide to plank you and dock your pay when the booty is finally divied.

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