Overview
Ahoy fellow seekers of adventure! This guide will introduce you to the basic concepts of the game that the tutorials don’t always do the best job of describing and lead you on your path to becoming the King of the Pirates! Wait sorry that’s something different, I meant the King of Seas! Anyway, I will also offer general advice on how to create the best gameplay experience for yourself, with some tips and tricks for snagging all the achievements too. Are you ready to conquer the seas?
Intro
Upon starting a new save file, the game provides a brief tutorial to get you going on your adventure. It introduces basic concepts like navigating, unfurling your sails, firing cannons, and quests. However, playing the game through for the first time myself, there were several things I felt weren’t explained very well. I of course went straight to the internet to find answers, but with this game being as new as it is, I didn’t find much help. I will do my best to explain some of my findings to make your playthrough much more enjoyable. Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions!
Experience and Levels
This game is very similar to Sid Meier’s Pirates! if you have ever played that. You sail, fight in naval battles, collect goods, and trade. What sets King of Seas apart though is its experience and leveling system. There are 3 main ways to gain experience points:
1. Sinking enemy ships and capturing forts
Pretty straightforward, but there are many types of enemy ships you will encounter in the game.
Sinking them gives decent EXP as well as loot. Royal Navy Commanders and Ghost Ships
(encountered only at night) give the most EXP
Forts are much more difficult foes, and should not be challenged until much later in the game
when you are at least level 35. Conquering them gives the most EXP in the game by far
2. Completing quests
Again, pretty straightforward. You will be assigned main story quests and have the option of
picking up additional side quests when visiting ports
The 3 main types of side quests are delivery quests, sinking quests, and escort quests. Escort
quests are usually not that difficult and give the most EXP, I would highly recommend taking
them when you can
3. Interacting with objects found while sailing
This category is most broad, but will most likely be your main source of EXP. While sailing, you
will encounter many objects floating in the water, such as crates, rafts, and explosive barrels.
Simply sail over the crates and rafts to collect EXP, as well as cargo (crates) and additional crew
members (rafts). As for the barrels (and the game doesn’t explain this), you can shoot them
instead of simply dodging them for some easy EXP. My biggest advice– don’t ignore these
floating objects, even once you get later into the game. The EXP they give is not negligible and
they’re easy to nab while on your way to other ports or quests
You will also encounter other oddities while sailing that will require you to bring your ship to a
stop if you wish to interact with them. These include fishing spots, buried treasure marked by an
“X” on islands, and shipwrecks. There will also be other spots you can stop and interact with on
islands and rock formations indicated by a small glowing orb. All of these things give about the
same EXP as the floating objects but will also give you loot.
You will quickly gain levels through these various means. At first, your levels will not seem to do anything, not until you reach level 10. At that point, you will receive your first skill point, and you will earn one for every level you gain going forward. You can use these to obtain skills in 3 different skill tress which I will discuss later
Cannonballs and Equipment
The game provides a brief combat tutorial early on, but I think a better explanation can be given for the types of ammo at your disposal. There are 3 types of cannonballs that you can switch between:
1. Normal shots- Damage the enemy’s hull (red)
2. Chain shots- Damage the enemy sails (blue) and cripple their movement
3. Grapeshots- Damage the enemy’s crew (yellow) and minimizes the amount of cannonballs they fire per volley
To be completely honest, you will probably only need to use normal shots for pretty much the whole game. They are the ones who will actually damage the hull and sink the enemy ships. They are also the only type of shot that will damage forts
If you do want to add strategy to your fights, there are different types of equipment you can collect from completing quests, buying in shops, or finding at sea
The types of equipment you can find that directly influence combat are of course cannons and cannonballs. You can read the in-game descriptions for cannons; better versions will reload at a faster rate, fire further, and deal more damage. Compare and pick the ones that fit your playstyle the best. As for cannonballs, they can add different status effects to your shots for more damage. The three status effects are:
1. Fire damage- deals damage over time to the hull, sails, and crew
2. Poison damage- deals damage over time directly to the crew
3. Curse damage- seems to be exact same as poison (sorry I’ve done experimenting and can’t seem to find what the difference is lmao)
Fire damage seems to objectively be the best upgrade for your cannonballs. It will deal damage over time to ALL categories of your enemy’s ships while you reload for your next volley
Other types of equippables you will find on your journey include things like new sails, hulls, crews. The game provides detailed descriptions of what each one will do for you. They will do things like increase your ship’s max health, increase your resistances to enemy attacks, or reduce the cooldowns of your skills. Feel free to experiment and find a style that fits you best!
Classes of Ships
You will begin your adventure on the Sloop, the fastest out of the 5 ships at your disposal. There 4 other classes of ships that will become available to you after a certain point in the story. THIS IS IMPORTANT: even if you have enough gold to purchase a ship from the Eagle’s Den, you WILL NOT be able to buy one until a certain story beat which will force you to buy a Flute for 20,000 gold. After that, you may purchase any ship you want.
Here are the 5 classes of ships and their stats:
In summary:
The Brig is an all-around better version of the sloop, making it your pick for a fast ship
The Flute is your choice for transporting large amounts of cargo
The Galleon is your slow, but heavy-hitting powerhouse
The Frigate is a nice balance between power and speed
Choose the ship that suits your playstyle best or switch whenever you’d like at Eagel’s Den when the situation calls for it
There are also special skills unique to each class of ship that you will find along your journey
Filling Out the Map
It’s not made readily apparent, but the game’s world is laid out in a 7×7 grid. There are a total of 49 sections to fill out.
Your map will initially be blank, with the exception of Eagle’s Den and the Royal Palace. In order to fill it out, you must stop by Baadle’s observatories, which look like this:
Baadle will charge you a small amount of gold in exchange for filling out one section of the map. There is always one observatory per section, meaning you will need to visit 47 of Baadle’s observatories in total in order to completely fill your map (which you will also get an achievement for). So get exploring!
Fishing
While not necessary to complete the game, fishing can be a great source of both EXP and gold. You will not be able to start fishing until you reach the Golden Fish restaurant and accept the first quest offered to you by the chef. He will then give you a fishing rod
Once you have the fishing rod, you will be able to start fishing, but only at common spots. There are 3 rarities of fish, indicated by the color of diamond floating above them. The first fishing rod only allows you to collect fish with the white diamond above them. The expert rod will allow you to collect from green diamonds and the legendary rod will allow you to collect from the blue diamonds
(To be totally honest, I have a REALLY hard time telling the colors of the diamonds apart, but the game will tell you if your rod isn’t good enough when you get close)
In order to upgrade your rod, you must complete unique quests offered by the chef
Catching all fish in the sea will also earn you an achievement!
Trade
Whilst pillaging the seas, you will gather large amounts of cargo which you can trade at any of the various ports. Each port will produce a large amount of one commodity and a small amount of another. The game makes it easy by indicating this in the market
So, of course, if a port produces a large amount of something, you can buy it in a large quantity and sell it to another port that produces a small amount of it. This might seem like the perfect time to break out the Flute, but there is actually an easier way to transport your goods– the bank
The bank, unlike your ship, does not have a limit on inventory space. The bank is accessible from any port, meaning you can potentially store hundreds of commodities in it, and wait for a good port to withdraw and sell your goods. This is also much easier than trying to memorize which ports buy which commodities for which price
Another cool tip, fish don’t take up any inventory space in your ship!
Fish can be sold at any port, but the chef at the Golden Fish will pay the most for them
Talent Trees
There are 3 trees in which you can choose to invest your talent points
The navigation tree focuses mostly on mobility and gaining extra gold and experience
The battle tree is just what you’d expect, it focuses on extra damage, critical hits, and flames
The voodoo tree is a real mixed bag. It features things like poison damage, increasing resistances, and health regeneration
Obviously, you are free to invest in whichever skills best fit your playstyle. But there is one major thing to keep in mind–
THE MAX LEVEL IS 60, MEANING YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO COMPLETELY FILL ALL 3 TALENT TREES. The maximum number of skill points you can gain is 51. You will need to carefully consider which skills you want to acquire. That being said, I will give my personal recommendations.
The Navigation tree is by far my favorite. In it, there is a skill you can acquire early on that will increase the amount of experience you gain from ALL sources by a maximum of 10%. Even if you do not choose to go down the Navigation tree, I HIGHLY recommend at least getting this skill to make grinding less of a chore. Other useful skills in this tree increase the speed at which you sail, and also the speed at which your ship turns, something I find to be very useful. One of the final skills in this tree increases your chance of landing critical hits by 0.5% (if fully upgraded) for each piece of the map you have filled out. This means an increase of 24.5% if you have the whole map completed!
Conclusion
That’s just about everything! I appreciate you taking the time to browse my guide. I hope you’ll enjoy your time sailing the seas, finding treasure, and sinking your foes! Please feel free to leave any questions or suggestions you have. Happy pirating! 🙂