Egregious uses of savegame

[TheoParke]

1) Save the game right before entering the alehouse. Spend a few hundred thousand dollars trying to get the location of Shangri-La. If nobody gives it up, restore from the savegame and try again.

2) Save the game before putting to sea, every time.

a) Whenever you lose a ship in combat, restore.

b) Flee any intercepting pirates .. if you don't get away on the first try, restore.

c) Check the marketplace upon docking at any given city. If you don't like the selling prices there, restore and go somewhere else.

[USNAVYSEAL]

That last comment is not quite right. If you restore you can still go to that same city as before and it will actually have different prices.

[TheoParke]

I thought that was true but I wasn't sure. Besides, it's still just as shameless to do that as it is to sail somewhere else!

I had a few more of these but I couldn't think them up at the time I was writing the post .. of course, just cause they're shameless and wussy doesn't mean I don't use them ...

[Kieren]

I'm a terrible addict of the old Save/Reload cheat :)

My most commonly used one is terrible and despicable, so I won't describe it here, but shall we say the Port Authority have never caught me yet...

*cue maniacal supervillain laughter*

[Space_Cadet]

Even more despicable I've never lost a ship!

[ArchiveGuest]

(This post was originally by drdeath)
Yeah I've used this one often. I used it combined with fleeing to jet from Sangri-La to Jia to Edamame while I finished my Brig fleet.

[kgish]

Wasting all that time with continuous use and re-use of the good old savegame trick sure takes alot of fun out of the game play. I would much rather take part in the risks with my neck sticking out and thereby enjoying the games much much more. Don't be such a boring weakling!

[Saxman19]

Somebody suggested that Madame Tso is hard to play on, so I decided to have a game as Madame Tso, WITHOUT RELOADS, as suggested in the forum.

Finished it just 20 minutes ago. (now about an hour ago, writing this post and all) It's possible, but I kept grunting at hard parts. Not easy, even lost Brigantines on separate occasions.

At one point around $880mil in the bank and 14 vessels (lost a Brig previously, down to 2), Shangrila was having a Port side sale on Dream Dust. Real cheap, on a non-reloaded game! It was $4000 per unit (or crate) (I've seen it go down to $3500 in another game), so I thought I'd risk it, sell all the cannons, load the 3 Brigs and other vessels up totally of DD's, and run for Edamame. Got intercepted by 15 vessels, with 5 Brigs! kept running, but lost another Brig in the process, lots of DDS at the bottom of the ocean. I'm glad I was able to escape on the third run. Still made money, but at a steep cost. Fitted each vessel with at least 20 cannons at the yard after that. No more big time trading for Madame Tso, what with all them pirates.

Then Gossamer's henchmen showed up at the next port, Jia-Ching, and robbed all the earnings! So that trip made no money at all. Won the game with bank interests a few turns after that and retired on April 1869 scoring 9,019,560 points.

The bar tips helped a lot. Made a bundle storing Silks in warehouses.

Tips here for people who'd like to give it a shot, to see just how much fun it is.

- Buy every ship, even the junks. Every one helps, 'specially against those 15 Junk ship pirates. Then sell small and buy bigger.

- Use bar tips, plenty. Madame gets discounts on bar rounds, even though it's still peanuts for other characters. Plan your destinations!

- Buy warehouses. Even easier with Madame Tso, but useful for everyone. Stock up on those cheap Silks or DD's. Don't worry about being robbed. You still make good profit if you trade right. Practically a MUST later when more canons are a must against pirates (heck, I ain't risking running.)

- Make every reasonable trade. Eventhough it may have made a little money, it's better than not making anything.

- Use the bank. I mean 100 million in the bank will net you 3 million a month. Can you make that much money trading Arms in a month? Hardly, especially without warehouses.

- Defeat pirates to reveal Shangri-La! Not only are there a LOT of money to be made trading with this place, the Ships being sold here are all Smugglers.

Think it's all talk fighting the pirates? Here are BIG TIPS on battling the pirates:

- Count your cannons! The enemy one-masted sloops are almost guarenteed to sink in about 20 shots (not hits, 'cause it's even less, like 15 solid hits), the two-masted sloops sink in about 30 shots, and the Brigantines sink in about 40 shots. So aim your 120 cannons at the 3 Brigantines or 4 two-masted sloops. Tried and true, honest.

- Distribute your cannons evenly amonst your many fleet vessels! Having all the cannons on a few dedicated ships don't help against 15 one-masted sloops

- Always select your targets if the risks are high, and aim them at the biggest ships, but this last part should be quite obvious. Combined with Tip #1 on counting your cannons, almost guarenteed to solidly cut pirate numbers.

- I won't write more so as to spoil the game, but I'll tell you now that the pirates increase ship - let's call it - total 'mass' up to a manageable maximum, and they increase no more.

That's it for now. What a ride!

[kgish]

Excellent tips, and nice story telling mode also. I will surely give them a go for the moeny during my next sitting.