{"id":39380,"date":"2017-06-28T05:29:05","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T09:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=39380"},"modified":"2017-06-28T05:34:26","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T09:34:26","slug":"nan-o-war-ch15-free-shipping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=39380","title":{"rendered":"Nan o’ War CH15: Free Shipping"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of B&G: Caribbean!<\/em>‘s most transparent influences is Captain Blood, a character made famous by an Errol Flynn film that still sets the standard for half-assed Irish accents. Captain <\/em>Blood <\/em>is the classic tale of a doctor branded traitor by a kangaroo court and dispatched to Port Royal as slave and political prisoner. Before long he and some former revolutionaries escape in a boat, steal a ship from the conveniently attacking Spaniards, and are so successful in carrying out acts of noble piracy across the New World that the now-famous Blood is pardoned by the English usurper, William of Orange, and appointed the new governor of Port Royal. And under his righteous administration, no-one was ever unjustly enslaved in Jamaica again, probably.<\/p>\n

It’s a classic movie, and when they get around to re-making it I’ll probably go re-see it. But you know what I’d rather watch? The movie where a grandma is indentured for forty seconds, falls in with a bad crowd, breaks some kneecaps, scores some headshots, wins a horse racing championship with a pocketful of hand grenades, and then parlays a literally undefeated career of gambling into an entire island’s worth of thriving rum distilleries and miscellaneous business enterprises.<\/p>\n

And if that’s too much trouble, I’ll settle for thirty seconds of Diana Rigg wearing this costume.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It turns out that when you climb the tax brackets in this game, you unlock a higher “merchant reputation” or something. When the morning after my big win rolled over, said reputation instantly skipped like four levels. When the next <\/em>morning rolled over, it skipped like four more. I think I literally advanced too much for the game to process at once.<\/em> I’m currently a “Chairman.” Of what, and by whose leave, remains unclear. All I know is that I definitely deserve to be in charge of whatever it is I’m now in charge of.<\/p>\n

Which would at least include my new flotilla of ships snapped up cash-on-the-barrel at ports around Hispaniola—and you better believe every deck of them has been decked out<\/em>. This whole game I’ve been pressing my nose up against the greyed-out “buy upgrades” button in the shipyard menu, hoping against hope that someday I’ll unlock the ability to pay craftsmen for services. Well, “that day” happened after all. Every single upgrade tier just popped literally overnight. It’s Christmas(!) in the Caribbean(!).<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

So I took all my newest purchases to the shop and blew their slots on the likeliest looking improvements. With their iron scantings and fat culverins and reinforced timbers and silken lines, my ships represent the absolute best fully-upgraded vessels a merchant ranking can buy in this videogame. Without exception, each and every one of them fucking sucks.<\/p>\n

See, there’s just one problem. This game has two different reputation systems, merchant and military. A high merchant rep only allows you to buy innocuous things, like powder magazines and cannonball heating furnaces and foreign mercenaries. To buy something as dangerous as a medium-sized ship<\/em>, you first need to prove yourself in battle against…whomever, I guess?<\/p>\n

“Hey, can I order a frigate?”<\/p>\n

“Sir, do you really think I’m going to sell a dangerous warship to a stranger?”<\/p>\n

“Would it help if I’ve sacked San Juan for no reason?”<\/p>\n

“You know, I thought your horde looked familiar! I’ll draft the paperwork.”<\/p>\n

At least, that’s my best guess of how it works. It’s not like this game’s documented. Assuming I’m right, I’m left with two related problems to solve: I need a better ship, and I need to raise my military reputation. The solution to both seems pretty straightforward: like you’re actually supposed to do in these games, I’m going to join a faction, follow orders, grind through about a million sensible battles, and carefully build my reputation and standing through service of the good and virtuous King Diez.<\/p>\n

You’ve heard of him, haven’t you? King Diez of House NUTS?<\/em><\/p>\n

Seriously, I’m just gonna find pirates with awesome ships and pick really stupid fights with them. And what have we here?<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

“Sixth-rate frigate” sounds like a good starting point over the first-rate waste of money I’m currently bobbing around in. Let’s get into it.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

As I’m growing more literate in this game, it’s getting to the point where I can actually read a lot of strategic information from screens like this. Take the line that says “There is a light breeze blowing from the north.” From this data, I can tell you with absolute certainty that I’m going to start off engaging them from the south.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

I’m also getting the hang of naval combat. Note the little icon by the minimap in the top right. You can click and unclick that option to switch what kind of ammo you fire; when it’s glowing, like it is right now, your ships will fire grapeshot that damages crew more than it harms the hull. This is ideal for when you want to capture a ship, not sink it like my flotilla is about to fucking do anyway OH WHOOPS<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

#AtLeastILeveled<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, there goes the whole point of this engagement. Might as well wring the maximum XP out of it and board the next ship. At least this time, the boarding parties are hilariously uneven in my<\/em> favor.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

The fight consists of me swinging over to the other ship and clicking my mouse exactly twice. As mortal combat goes, it’s pretty serene. From an actuarial standpoint the battle is less hazardous to my crew than about thirty seconds of breathing air in the tropics.<\/p>\n

Right up until the resolution screen, apparently. That’s when my crew decides to LARP the last scene of Hamlet.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Sometimes this game makes me feel like I’m in one of those really bitter D&D<\/em> campaigns. A DM sets a gratingly tedious obstacle. A player starts basically cheating, which is hilarious. Then the DM starts basically cheating back, and it’s the worst thing ever.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention—I picked up some named crewmates earlier. I have a Dutchman named Vanhouten, a Frenchman named Frogling, and an Englishman named Baron Blighty Fishandchips of Arse-on-Buttock.* What they lack in compelling characterizations, they make up in warm, warm bodies for my waterborne murder mills. They level up pretty much all the time, and every so often I remember to pop over to their character page and cash in like eight unspent attribute and skill points at a time. Someday I’ll really get my act together and look at their inventory screens. This is unfortunately how I play all Mount and Blade<\/em> games.<\/p>\n

*I think I’m making this one up, but I’m not going to bother wading through my party screen to check. <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

This next ship also has, like, two guys. Both are hiding in the crow’s nest. There is literally nobody on deck. We could<\/em> just start sailing away and see how long it takes for things to get awkward.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Two of my guys manage to die in the amount of time it takes for me to climb the ratlines and skewer this dumbass. Meanwhile, as my own “sharpshooters” fill the air with gunsmoke and embarrassment, his one remaining guy remains conspicuously alive.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

I am a reasonable captain. I’m gonna give my man over there like five more seconds before I throw this.<\/p>\n

Five seconds later, I’ve won! And I gained some<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

everything<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

aaAGGH OKAY I GET IT I GET IT I GE<\/p>\n

NEXT WEEK: THE GAME FINALLY RUNS OUT OF UPDATE TEXT, HOPEFULLY<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of B&G: Caribbean!‘s most transparent influences is Captain Blood, a character made famous by an Errol Flynn film that still sets the standard for half-assed Irish accents. Captain Blood is the classic tale of a doctor branded traitor by a kangaroo court and dispatched to Port Royal as slave and political prisoner. Before long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}