Nan o’ War CH10: Wet Run

By Rutskarn Posted Wednesday May 17, 2017

Filed under: Lets Play 35 comments

Let’s recap.

I started out broke and rideless in the middle of Hispaniola. Since then I have impersonated a nun, defended a guy, beat that guy, defended him again, beat him again, sniped a parade of five people, mugged smugglers, blinged up, and generally written my memoirs in human blood in four different ports on three different islands. I have also mildly offended the Spanish.

Not bad for my first day!

Yeah, you can check it for yourself. My character’s career began on March 23rd, 1670. It is now March 24th, 1670. My indentured granny became a feared captain literally overnight.

The intro wasn’t kidding when it said the New World was a land of opportunity. If I’d started this game as a rich male merchant, I figure I’d be King of England right now.

But I’ve had my fill of mundane colonial thuggery. As tempting as the Suspicious Buffet may be, it’s time to grow as a violent person. Here’s my plan going forward:

  • Mess around with ship-to-ship combat until I’ve learned the basic things I’m supposed to do and a least a dozen the developers wish I wouldn’t.
  • Find a ship that I’m probably not supposed to have yet. Do the things. Acquire ship.
  • Celebrate my new sea digs with a trip to the horse races(?) that exist(?) in the 1670s(?) Caribbean(!).

That should be enough to worry about for Monday.

Hey, it’s a smuggler! What they lack in being a threat to any innocent merchants in the area, they also lack in being a threat to me. Hopefully.

See, I don’t like this screen very much. Something about the fact that there’s more pirates in that picture than I’ll apparently get to use today makes me think this isn’t going well.

Come on. Four men? There’s twenty-four guys in my crew! Are you really telling me that twenty guys have more important things to do than make sure we’re not chopped into monkey chow? I’m having a hard time thinking of any situation where I’d want twenty hands on deck that doesn’t involve a boarding action, and short of a birthday party or a rain of softshell crab I’m drawing a blank.

Not that the enemy’s put up much of a showing himself, but, hang on–how come he gets seven guys? We have the same size crew! Do they just want it more or something? Do I need to offer stock options?

Say what you want about my men, they’re go getters. They go and get those enemy swords in their necks real fast. By the time I’ve worked through my brace of pistols, I am quite alone. Excluding, as one must, the twenty men apparently napping on the fucking orlop. Once all’s said and done, those goldbrickers are going to need a doctor’s note or else they are going to need a doctor.

Honestly, I get lucky. I do my trick of backpedaling and timing my long slashes and I manage to mop up by myself, but a random shot from their crow’s nest or another glancing hatchet blow could have taken me out. We’ll put this in the “qualified success” column, but the fat ‘sploits remain elusive. How can I get more of my men into the fight? How can I get fewer of his? How do I keep them alive longer in these cramped quarters and what can I do to avoid being taken out quickly?

This game would be a lot easier if I understood nearly any of its mechanics.

NEXT WEEK: THE SUPER MARIO GAMBIT

 


From The Archives:
 

35 thoughts on “Nan o’ War CH10: Wet Run

  1. Rutskarn says:

    Sorry this one’s short. For the past two weeks, I’ve been working fourteen hour days between a few jobs and trying to move out of my apartment at the same time.

    Things are gonna get a LOT less crazy real soon, but until them, I’m doing my best.

    1. Dev Null says:

      That sounds like a terrible plan. Try a nun’s costume; I hear they help.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Take it easy. You arent living in the Caribbean(!) where you can do all the things in a single day

    3. Bubble181 says:

      I’m sorry, but slacking off will simply not be tolerated on this free blog where you work for no profit whatsoever. Any other activities you have that intervene with your ability to post here are completely irrelevant.
      Please choose your punishment between the following:
      -> 20 lashes with a whip
      -> 20 beatings with a stick
      -> 1 hour of uninterrupted bugfree gaming
      -> 1 cool drink in the shade on a hot summer’s day

      Be aware that non-compliance will result in the last of these being chosen by default. You have been warned.

    4. Genericide says:

      Sounds like a ridiculous amount of effort to pump out funnies on top of all that. It’s appreciated, but feel free to take your time. Also:

      This game would be a lot easier if I understood nearly any of its mechanics.

      Easier, yes. But isn’t this more entertaining?

      …well no, of course not for you. But it’s pretty great on our end.

    5. Christopher says:

      No worries, man. This is still top notch, anyway, and I liked the Las Vegas story too!

    6. Syal says:

      but until then, I'm doing my best.

      Well there’s your problem! If you were half-assing everything it would only be a seven-hour workday.

    7. Mistwraithe says:

      It might have been quite short but the laugh per sentence ratio was high. ;-)

  2. Asmodan says:

    I wish you the best of luck with Internet in your new Place.

  3. Eichengard says:

    Hey, any Skarn’s better than no Skarn!

    1. MichaelGC says:

      I still had to look up two of the words, so I’d say that’s a standard & entirely acceptable vocabulary-expansion ratio for a Rutskarn post.

    2. tzeneth says:

      As long as he doesn’t end up in a RUTskarn, we should be good.

      Remember to take a few minutes to relax if you can. We don’t want you over stressed.

  4. Disc says:

    The ship details show boarding crew of 3, so I’d hazard a guess that’s related to why you only got 3 crew + 1 Lackbeard for the boarding action. “Boarding Deployment” is a bit more mysterious though. Does that mean you get 10 people instead if you defend against boarding? Why in the fuck would there be two different values here anyway?

    The oher big questions here are “What the hell does the Fleetmaster skill do?”, “What on Earth are Captain’s Traits?” and “What sort of dreaded logic goes into this kind of game design?”

  5. Grudgeal says:

    So, any way to replenish your crew fast? Because at this rate the Caribbean will soon know the tales of “that crazy old granny that boards ships all on her own”.

  6. Somniorum says:

    It does say that you have four troops READY to battle – I’m assuming the rest were busy lacing up their pants, eating breakfast, sleeping in, or had misplaced their battle hat that day and you can bet they’re NOT going to go into battle without their lucky battle hat again, not after that last time with the bird incident!

    1. Echo Tango says:

      They all disguised themselves as janitors. Janitors are exempt from raid duty.

      1. Philadelphus says:

        Hey, we can’t all engage in the glorious battle action””some of us have to keep sailing the ship so we don’t hit a reef or crash into the other ship while you lot are gallivanting about up there screaming bloody murder. There’s no need to rub it in. >:(

  7. MichaelGC says:

    Full marks for attention to detail! March 24, 1670 was indeed a Monday:

    http://people.albion.edu/imacinnes/calendar/Day_of_the_Week.html

    1. Will says:

      Mmmmm. Maybe. At the time, you’d have difficulty getting people to agree on which day March 24th 1670 actually was. By the Gregorian calendar (in use by Rome and most Catholic countries, including Spain and its overseas territories since 1582), that day was indeed a Monday, but by the Julian calendar (still used by Great Britain and its colonies until 1752) it was the Thursday eleven days prior. Since the Caribbean islands were held by a number of different European colonizers, the official date could change when you went from one place to another.

      (Other than in the normal way, since as we’ve established, sailing back and forth across the entire Caribbean isn’t even a day trip.)

      1. sarachim says:

        Not to mention that the English New Year was March 25 at this point, so the game’s date could actually refer to what we’d now regard as 1671. If so, March 24 (Happy New Years’ Eve, Nan!) would be a Friday.

  8. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Suspicious Buffet

    Spishy bishy?

  9. 4th Dimension says:

    So is there any ship to ship action or are all battles basically land battles on decks and all ships magically end up in boarding action.

    1. Paul Spooner says:

      My completely un-educated guess is the outcome of the ship-to-ship engagement determines how many crew are available for the inevitable boarding action.

  10. Miguk says:

    “Charge the enemy.”

    It really bothers me that they didn’t even put in the effort to change that. You see it every single time you go into a battle.

  11. tmtvl says:

    generally written my memoirs in human blood in four different ports on three different islands.

    That’s not a very large scale conflict. I wouldn’t even call it microscopic, it’s more of a nano war.

    1. Nimrandir says:

      We’d need a pico’ the records to make a fair decision on this.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Do we really need to micromanage a pirates life like that?

        1. tzeneth says:

          I feel these puns decimate the competition!

          1. MichaelGC says:

            Sorry for the millitant attotude, but I reckon they’ve been pretty terable.

            1. Philadelphus says:

              Wow, that’s a whole yotta puns in this thread.

              1. Lachlan the Mad says:

                And yet I wouldn’t pay a centi for any of them.

              2. 4ier says:

                You might even say it’s a mega thread.

            2. Redingold says:

              They’re setting a really bad exa-mple.

  12. John says:

    This reminds me a little of the “storming the keep” phase of a siege in Mount & Blade. It doesn’t seem to matter how many men either side has left, the siege almost always comes down to a 5-vs-5 team death match in a locked room.

  13. Philadelphus says:

    mugged smugglers

    I was disappointed when this wasn’t followed by “smuggled muggers,” but I suppose you’re doing your best!

Thanks for joining the discussion. Be nice, don't post angry, and enjoy yourself. This is supposed to be fun. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked*

You can enclose spoilers in <strike> tags like so:
<strike>Darth Vader is Luke's father!</strike>

You can make things italics like this:
Can you imagine having Darth Vader as your <i>father</i>?

You can make things bold like this:
I'm <b>very</b> glad Darth Vader isn't my father.

You can make links like this:
I'm reading about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader">Darth Vader</a> on Wikipedia!

You can quote someone like this:
Darth Vader said <blockquote>Luke, I am your father.</blockquote>

Leave a Reply to Mistwraithe Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.