Curly's Best Bets for Basic Access

This is a guide to how to get the best out of basic access. It is put together with ideas and experiences from my three of four years playing pirates (had unlimited access once for a month but...). This will show you how to spend your points (Since you only get 7 per weapon EVER in basic access), how to sink strong ships, how to survive invasions, and more!

Crewing, Guilding, and Friending
To a BA member, his crew can be the most important thing that they have. As BAs can only get 2 ifferent kinds of ships, Crews can provide the vital resources that a BA needs. Also, having a guild is helpful to find a way to be involved in something bigger. BA Members cant create a guild, so being in one will stop those pesky requestsfrom Guild Owners to join their Guilds. Crews can give you percent bonuses, and extra experience means extra level, which is a fairly hard thing to come by if you have BA. Friends are always important. They are like aguild, exept they are limited to 100 and are more special. In friends noone commands anyone else, and friends usualy feel more oblidged to help eahother than guild members, as guild members might not even Know who you are.

Fighting
To begin let me say this. Fighting is the easiest way to gain experience. So weapons are very important to basic access members, even more than to unlimited. We only get 7 levels per weapon, and when we max that out, we cant get any normal experience from the weapon or weapon experience.

Navy
The navy are possibly one of the easiest targets in the carribean. They seem to be afraid to use thier muskets, so they bayonet you the whole way. I woul suggest using voodoo doll on them whil running around randomly in circles. They get confused, and have a hard time hitting you. Unfortunatly yu cant use gun on them.

Undead
For the undead, I have one thing to say. Use cutlass. They arent the smartest, attacking anything and everything they see, no matter the level, but they have deadly aim. running around in circles with your doll wont help you here. For quick easy fun, gather 5 or 6 weak undead around you and sweep, not only will it be fun to watch them all die, but you might scare some newbies too.

Eitc
Its the same deal as with the Navy. Strike them with your voodoo doll and run around in circles. You can use cutlasses on the ones with dggers, as the can hit you when you run around in circles.

French/Spanish Undead
Four Simple words. Stay Away From Them. they are extremely powerfull and can take you down, no problem. If you are atleast level 17 it might be okay to aproach some of the weaker ones.

Wild Animals
Alligators, Bats, Scorpions, Crabs, Fly Traps, Stumps, and all of the other wild things under jollys controll. These are some of the easiest ways to get experience. although some, such as the stronger fly traps and all of the stumps, should be avoided generally by weaker pirates. I would suggest pistols, snce they can be used from long distance and the creatures arent generally that fast.

Sailing
Saling can be either fun or dangerous, depending on how good you are at sailing. With basic acess (BA as I will call it), you can only get the light Sloop and the Light Galleon. I would suggest a combo of two light galleons and a light sloop if you are the sea fightng type, and two light sloops and a light gallleon if you travel alot and hate the sea. Why these? you see the light galleon is a very stong fighter and the light sloop is very fast. so the fighting type might find themselves in a situation where they need to get somewhere fast, so they have the sloop. A traveler might find him or herself in a quests that involve sinking ships, hence the galleon. Now these are the strategies for fighting the different ships.

Light Ships
These are the weakest of the weak, an wll do you just about no good exept for with quests.

Navy Light Ships.
For hunting those pesky little navy weaklings, I would sugest, actually, a light sloop. the sloop is fast and those navy scoundrels have many a tricks up their sleeves. Plus the Navy Ferret, possibly the weakest ship in the carribean, is a low down ship, hard to reach for the galleon broadsides. If you are using a galleon then when broadsiding, you should tilt in the direction that you are about to fire in. other than thes tips, theres really nothing to say. they use simple round shots and the occasional chain shot, and they are nothig to be afraid of being in the path of. Go in and hit them full force on thier sides.

EITC Light ships
These are the rarest find of EITC ships. There are only Sea Vipers in the general path around Tortuga-Port Royal-Devils Anvil. The others are hiding out somewhere near kingshead. To take these out, use a light galleon and DO NOT USE BROADSIDES. The Ships love evasive maneuvers. Go to a cannon and fire away. they have a general tendency to stick to one side of your boat when you are stopped so it shouldnt be that hard. Come in close, leave the wheel, and tear them to little bits.

Note--- If you are looking for cannon experience, just line your ship up with the enemy, leave the wheel, take a cannon, and rain fire on them yourselves.

Medium Ships
These are the middle of the crop,basicaly the top tht you willever see BA players facing.

Navy Medium Ships
For these guys,its actually quite a surprise. after those weak Navy lights, youd think these guys would still be a piece of cake. But instead, the ships are going up by about 10 levels and are very smart. they have lots of strategy, and are carefull to avoid your line of broadside fire. To sink these smart ones, use a light galleon with its Tacking manuever fully mastered perferably. Spin alot, and dont bother to try to get out of their line of fire. If you dodge, then you will usualy be in the line of fire of a couple of its other Navy medium buddys, or it could have just put you in a pin, an extremely hard situation to get out of. To take these toughies down, use your galleon and swing around its backside, alternating broadsides.

EITC Medium ships
These ships are very hard to find. If you think that they are all that you can take, dont go looking for them. They hang around in Uncharted Waters with Death Omens, Phantoms, Man-Of-Wars, and the rest of the strong bunch. If you have the courage to aproach them, stay to thier backside. Basicaly sail around thier ship in circles with your light sloop. Pin them with fire untill they simply sink.Circling them will keep them from drifting into thier other strong ship buddies, and then your dead meat. Why the Light Sloop so much? In case you do attract the attentionn of the other ships, you need a quick getaway.

War Ships
These are the toughest, strongest, most deadly ships you will ever see. They are about lvl 20 and above, high above what mst BA members can deal with.

Navy War Ships
War ships. The name sends a shiver down the spines of most BA players. War ships are the strongest ships out there, and strike you full force. They seem to enjoy pelting your ships with a mix of fireballs and dozens of dozens of round shots. For the Navy War Ships, I wuld suggest a light sloop. thats right, a light sloop. Light sloops are fast and low down. The ship will have troube aiming at you, and when they fire, you can just dodge it easily. I think that the thing that most scares players, is the fireballs, which actually do alot less amage then they look like they would do. If you are not afraid, are a good sailor, have a good crew, and have quick reactions on the keyboard, then you can take down dozens of Navy War Ships without sinking. Stick to thier edges, and fire away wth the same broadside, the can turn fast and will pelt you with shots if you try to alternate, and you can do just fine.

EITC War ships
Generaly you should avoid these. they stay in packs, presumably to protect their expensive goods.If you are lucky enough to find some on thier own, use a light galleon and STAY ON THIER BACKSIDE AT ALL TIMES. Their flaming cannon shots can sink just about any light ship that they hit. Also, as a plus, thier backside is thier weak side, and you can light it on fire, and sink them in about 2 minutes.

Undead War Ships
Straight to the war. no Light ships, no Medium ships, not evenn anyof the weaker War ships. all released Undead ships are War Frigates. Surprisingly enough, theyare prettyweak on their own.They usualy havefriends, but without them, they are almost hopeless. they use mainly Lightning Shots, which hurts your sails, but not to much. use a light galleon and line right up to their sides, dont bother to hit their back. hit them ashard as youcan, releasing broadsides as fast as youcan, and you can deal with these eaisier thn a bulwark.

French/Spanish Undead War Ships
The name sends a shiver down even me own spine. My top death, second only to Invasions, is from these evil things. To take them on, I would suggest having a good shooting crew. You can stay from a distance a sharp shoot the ships. They use Those ghost-like shots, which tear through ships. BA ships can be easily torn apart. If the ship startsto follow you, broadside it untill it has reached right next to you.If it is not sunk by then, make a run for the nearest island.

Navy Flagships
Simply enough, you shoud just stay away from these. They are infested with lvl 15 and above officers and veterans, so you need a good crew to get the job done. Still, you should avoid them, they generaly have a 5-10 a crew, and that means about 2 enemies per crew member, and you really wont be getting any strong crew members if you are using your light ships.

EITC Flagships
These are actually alot easier to take down than their Navy counterparts. The ships are usually covered in lvl 9 or 10 grunts and thugs, which are a piece of cake by the time that you have enough courage to face Flagships. There is of course allways one lvl 15-18 EITC soldier waiting at the helm for all of your crew to die or untill his entire crew is dead. Bring all of the soldiers together in a group in the middle, as well as your whole crew, so that you can all use sweep at once to wipe them out.

French/Spanish Undead Flagships
These are actually the same as listed above. all French and Spanish Undead Ships are Flagships. But in this part I can describe what to do once onboard. Once onboard the ship, you should raise your pistol emidiatly, and instruct your crew to do so also. Since you have a 6 person crew on your light galleon, Have Four gunners and 2 Healers. Everyone on on the ship should be attuned to by atleast one healer. use take aim and snipe out all of those dead europeans.

Note--- The process of sinking a flagship is the same as as a normal war ship, just with grappling added at the end.