Crimson Tide Board

General Area => Tips & Tricks => Topic started by: Vistr on Aug 20, 2009, 11:17 AM

Title: CI -- The jobber's guide (first draft)
Post by: Vistr on Aug 20, 2009, 11:17 AM
The Jobber's guide to CI

A guide to what you, as a jobber, need to know about the Cursed Isles.

1) How the gameplay proceeds.

A trip to the Cursed Isles involves sailing a ship to a league point (usually 2-5 leagues from the nearest isle), then entering a special battle-board.

On this board, the goal is to avoid hazards to reach an island.  These hazards include boarders (that will challenge you, and limit your ouput if you ignore the challenge); enemy ships that try to sink you ; and the "noxious fog" that damages the ship and slows your puzzle output.

Some trips will seek "thralls" -- captured boarders that will help you fight on the island.  These are captured using a special movement token generated during puzzling

It is very important to pay attention to the officer in charge as to what they want on the voyage.

Most trips will want you to dismiss challenges, and briefly pause your puzzling to state in chat what challenged you [because you produce no puzzling output while the game is paused, it is better to abbreviate to 'z' (for zombie) or 'eo' (for enlightened one) than to type the full words out].

For puzzling priorities vary.  Thrall trips function best when you produce tokens on demand, which (particularly for carp and bilge) can hurt your puzzle scoring.  Direct trips may or may not ask for tokens (even direct trips sometimes try and pick up 1-2 thralls; whereas thralling trips try to have one per player).

At the island itself, you alternate between fighting the natives (and their zombie and other help), and foraging treasure.  The sequence is rumble--forage--swordfight--Forage, then repeating again with rumble, with successive fights becoming progressively harder.

When the leader of the expedition decides to flee, you will be placed back on board the ship.  Alternately, if you lose a fight, the natives will take back some boxes, and you'll be put back on the ship.

Once on board, you need to puzzle quickly to escape from the isle back to the league point.  At this point quick performance is more useful than building a large combo for extended scoring.

Once off the map board, the ship can head back to port and divide the treasure boxes.  Some ships will make multiple trips into the Isle before returning to port (commonly referred to as "double dipping").

2) As a jobber, what else do I need to know?

* Not all CI trips are for all people.  Because this is a sinking environment typically entered with small ships and thus small crews, there isn't a lot of room to "carry" new players.  Thralling trips (because production of special maneuvers takes production of tokens from all three stations) are even more demanding.  Because of how special tokens spawn (with more created if your current puzzle indicator is high, fewer to none if it is low) it is hard for some players to produce tokens quickly and effectively.  Trips with high end players tend to produce greater rewards in shorter periods of time.

People with slow and/or poor connections may have lag issues, which prevent them performing well (or in bad cases, at all).

If you see someone jobbing for a CI trip, and they don't take you, try not to be offended; it may just be that your skills don't fit what they need for that trip (this can happen to almost anyone; for example, if a thralling trip's only opening is for someone to produce bilge tokens, they might as well leave me ashore, because my skills at sails and carpentry aren't what they need).

3) I'm not an "elite jobber".   How do I get someone to take me?

Note that in Crimson Tide, there's an expectation that a trip (of any sort) that's advertised on flag officer chat will take anyone interested that wants to come [up to the point that the vessel fills]. 

That said, there are things you can do to help your case for trips outside of CT, or unadvertised CI trips by flag members looking to do more "elite" style runs.

* Develop your skills.  In particular, you want to be good at at least one duty puzzle, both SF and rumble brawling (including understanding teaming, how to send combo'd strikes, and how to protect someone else in rumble), and foraging.

CI-foraging is all about speed; keep that in mind when you practice (happily, you can practice foraging at any uninhabited isle without using your labor, since it has a practice setting).

* Be a "good jobber" -- someone that tries hard, shows an interest in improving, and is fun to be around (but knows when to chat and when to puzzle).  Someone with good but not elite skils that is pleasant to be around will be jobbed over an elite that's a jerk.

* Don't be afraid to ask for tips to improve.  This can be done in game, or here on the flag forums (which will give people more time to answer, and allow others that may want similar advice to see your question and the answer(s) generated).  There are a lot of people in the flag willing to answer your questions, and capable of giving good answers, but we're shockingly low on mind readers that can tell what you want to ask without you typing the words ;-)

* Obtain your own CI maps (purchased, or through pillaging or the Undead frays) and offer them to people willing to take you along.

*  Ask (nicely).  While "hardcore" CI isn't for everyone, there's certainly no reason why trips can't be arranged to give people a taste that might not normally get to go.  Place and tone matter here; an upbeat request on the flag forums for someone to arrange trips for people that otherwise may not get to go at all, or a polite request to your non-busy captain to arrange something, is very likely to get positive results. 

Title: Re: CI -- The jobber's guide (first draft)
Post by: Rome on Aug 20, 2009, 11:53 PM
If you are having problem getting jobbed and would like to go, if you can get a map, there people in flag who will provide you with a vessel and maybe even a driver to help you out, as Vistr said.

Namely me.  My crew has plenty of spare sloops that I would be happy to accompany you on or drive you out there.