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I tried harvestsun's tactic, and he was spot on with the upgrades, but to get the most money, starting level 3 to 9, shoot a very small amount of cannonballs(and hit with them) to get a 100% accuracy rating after the level. You see, starting from level 3, onwards, a 100% accuracy rating gives you more money than the 2500 gold they give when you don't shoot a thing.
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To all my fellow badge hunters, I would recommend NOT listening to the top commenters on this game. I followed their advice and failed miserably on my first go. Here is what worked awesomely for me... First, buy men until they are maxed out, and for levels 1-9, DON'T FIRE YOUR CANNONS. You will get a 2500 gold bonus for not shooting. Once men are maxed out, max out speed. You will need it. Then get a few turning upgrades (4 or so), and then max out reload and damage. By level 10, you should have them almost maxed out, but not quite. If you have spare money, put it into number of cannons. The most important advice, though: DON'T BUY SHIP STRENGTH. Ship strength BARELY increases your health, and it makes you a much larger target. It is not only useless, it makes you worse off. With those upgrades, levels 10-12 should be a breeze.
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I love it when there are two enemy ships right next to each other and the one in the back tries to shoot but almost kills the other ship. lol
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Level 12 on Admiral is a piece of cake. Just follow harvestsun's instructions, but keep in mind that after level 2 100% accuracy bonus would be better than All ammo saved bonus. So make one shot with 2-3 cannonballs - and additional money is yours!
Now let's talk about how to complete the final challenge. You see, this Big Bad Ship has one nasty ability: additional ships spawn. It doesn't count towards ship total, and appear after some part of boss total hp is gone... So let's fight him without dealing damage at all. You need save your pirates on board across all level encounters. Dodge like hell, don't let engage yourself in close combat, damage, damage, damage. Oh... and save at least 120-130 pirates for Boss. When you succeed and the boss finally appears, just let your pirates make bloody carnage on it's ship decks =))). Yes, they CAN kill 400+ enemies. YAARRRrrrrrr! Plus this to keep it on top!
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12 Boss tip: if you leave 2 wrecks (without plundering them) after the boss come, his helpers will not show :) Hopes this helps :)
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Sometimes this feels like a mitchell and webb skit! "Fire all cannons to the starboard side!" "but sire all of the enemy are on the port side" "Who's the captain?" "Firing all cannons to starboard side..."
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Ain't it *amazing* how the CPU can fit more armour, more cannons, and more crew, while remaining the same puny size? :(
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You'd think that, after hearing of a captain who sacrifices 50 crew members every battle only to snap up another couple dozen replacements in the nearest town as soon as he's done, prospective pirates would stop showing up for job interviews. :S
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I'm just going to say that the pirates on your ship are way too op, I literally had a fight once that every pirate on board had at least 25:1 KD ratio when fighting hand to hand, If you max out your crew and do melee fighting this game is really easy.
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Strategy for Level 12: Avoid close combat if at all possible during the initial waves to save your pirates. If you have at least 120 pirates leftover at the end just charge the boss ship and your pirates can take out his. Since you aren't doing damage to his ship the additional ships will never spawn!
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So when you are pointing North/South (bow to the top of the screen. aft to the bottom), what meaning does "shooting up or down" have? When I am moving around, it sucks to shoot 20 or so cannons in the wrong direction... Seriously, it needs to fire starboard (to the right of the relative direction of the ship) or port (to the left of the relative direction of the ship. I never know which way I'm going to shoot unless I am pointing left or right.
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In the last level, when it says 13 ships on the horizon, I expect 13. Not 2 more every time I defeat the last two simply because I can't beat the final boss fast enough. I went through 10 of those in the first 7k life of the boss. I beat the 12 small enemies and I'm on the thirteenth, I don't want to fight 12 more surprise enemies.
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"Cap'n, by the looks of things this fight is our crew of 18 against their crew of 84" Board and attack mateys! "Cap'n...somehow...we managed to kill off every single enemy..."
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@ aee369: the easiest is captain and the hardest is admiral... This is because in real life the Admiral ranks higher than the Captain.
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I'd like to add that firing cannons at the enemy ships decrease their value, so when you're going for your accuracy bonus make sure you don't get too carried away :)
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For all those people who don't seem to understand, the accuracy bonus is scaled by level. For 100% accuracy on level 1, you get 1000 gold, level 2 is 2000, level 3 is 3000, etc.
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i had 22 pirates after the battle with the flagship and i killed well over 400 :D that shows a win on the pirates side go pirates XD
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i kept wondering why level 12 is so hard since ships kept coming in, and the boss joined in eventually.
...until i realized you can just hold space to rapidfire -.-
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So, just got my Admiral win. I have to say, it was pretty damn hard. It was... quite the challenge. In the end I cheesed it. (shh...)
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If you are getting confused about which way is up, it is whichever side of the ship is pointing more towards the top of the screen. If you appear to be pointing exactly straight up, it's probably whichever side was last pointing upward.
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the edge of the ocean is super annoying, you think you can dodge some cannon fire, but then you sail into an invisible wall and you explode. oh yay. Also I dislike the not being able to fire in the right direction all the time. Otherwise, there is nothing more satisfying than ridiculous amounts of rubble after a 100% full broadside.
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Bloody Buccaneer Badge ( easy ~ 5 points ) You acquired this badge on Mar. 13, 2008.
Scurvy Scallowag Badge ( hard ~ 30 points ) You acquired this badge on Apr. 22, 2011.
Almost 3 years... that's not too long is it?
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Wow great game challenging but not to the point of not having fun anymore.
First play through I followed HAVESTSUNS advice I died a bunch on boss cause I just sucked haha but I played through again mixing his advice with FIRANVE's advice the extra bonus from accuracy adds up quite a bit looking at my 2 saves the difference is 346,000 gold vs 388,000.
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What really makes it worthwhile is seeing those little cannon dots destroy everything. I found that really satisfying.
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i agree with XenoShadow215, while it is better to win the first two matches without firing a shot, after that it becomes far more lucrative to fire and hit all cannonballs on level 4 or 5 i got 5000 gold bonus for 100% accuracy, and i goes up from there. so like harvestsun said, starting at the beginning:
1)First two levels win by taking your ship close to the enemies.
2)Level up number of pirates first, then speed.
3)Get a few turning upgrades, this is just so you can move fast and avoid cannon fire.
4) Once all of the above are maxed, work on reload and damage
5)Lastly work on number of cannons, just remember to only fire up close to keep the ratio of shots fired to shots hit close to 100%.
6 NEVER upgrade ship strength, as it barely helps with ship health. Also it really just makes you much bigger target for cannon fire, staying small and agile wins the badge.
7) Enjoy your new hard badge.
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lvl. 10 "wow thats not to hard."
lvl. 11 " what the f**k how do i fight 8 ships at once each with 200 people and 2000+ hp?"
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hmm, the tactics of harvestsun are great... but it makes the difficulty of the game bad - lvl 1-9 are extremely easy, and lvl 10-12 are pretty hard. 4/5 for the game - could be better.