Uncharted Waters Basic Strategy Guide
=====================================
By Paul MacPherson (citanes26@yahoo.com)



Important Copyright Notice:
===========================
I don't know about you, but I'm getting sick and tired of these foolish
copyright notices on video game faqs. I especially love how they're usually
copyrighted to a nickname. If I didn't want this thing to be copied, printed,
distributed or whatever, I jolly well wouldn't have put it on the internet!
Having said that....

This FAQ/Walkthrough is copyrighted to absolutely NOBODY. If you want to use
any or all of this guide, for anything, go right ahead. Maybe just fire my name
in there with it or something.

Of course, Uncharted Waters is copyrighted to Koei, and all Nintendo products
listed are copyrighted to Nintendo, so don't mess with that.

This guide should work for any version of the game, be it NES, SNES, or an
emulated version of either. If you're going for the emulated style of play, I
would recommend the SNES version, due to it's superior graphics, especially
during battles. I am nither advocating or discouraging the use of emulators or
roms of copyrighted games. I own the NES version of the game, and wrote this
FAQ using it. I will help anybody via email with any problem they might have
with this game, but any email requests for locations of emulation or rom sites
will be ignored.

Without any doubt, the best thing you could have at your side while playing
this game is a globe. Although the game takes place five hundred years ago,
many of the port names are still on a modern globe. Of course, a good head for
geography is a plus. If you don't have a globe, a map of the world is just as
good. Even that school atlas everybody still has from grade seven geography
class might prove helpful.

The first time I played this game was during a weekend rental of the SNES
version. Of course, the instructions were long gone, but I had no trouble
figuring it out. The only real help I had was my grandfather's old globe
(Germany is shown as East and West) and my grade seven atlas.

I am going to assume that you have a basic understanding of how to play the
game. If I could figure it out, so can you.


Basic Strategies
================
1. Write down the latitude and longditude of ports when someone tells you them.
This will help later.

2. Whenever you find a waitress at a ye olde inn, write her name down next to
the port's name. This will help later on.

3. Try and find a telescope, sextant and speculum. You will look long and hard
for that last one, but it is essential later in the game.

4. Very often in the game, Portugal and Turkey go to war and you can't get into
Turkish ports. If the king orders you to take a letter to the Sultan of Turkey,
this may be your only chance to shop in Istanbul, which is a great place to buy
artwork.

5. Try and hire four mates at the very least. A few more couldn't hurt, but
you'll never need a full roster of them.

6. Try and keep your mates' loyalties at 100. Usually paying them 1000 golds
will do the trick. After that, they never complain, unless the ship they're
navigating gets smashed up in a storm. Don't bother paying ones that arren't
navigating ships, though.

7. Don't bother with Saker and Culverin guns. Go with Cannons every time,
they'll pay off in the long run.

8. Unless you're really rich, the Dragon figurehead will sufice for the 32,000
gold piece Neptune one.

9. Tip the waitresses at the ye olde inns that you frequent the most. This will
eventually pay off.

10. Don't bother trading normal commodities (like grain) unless a merchant
speficically asks you to bring some in. Only deal in specialty goods, like
Sugar, Porcelain, Silver, Gold, Coral, Artwork and Firearms. Pick up some other
stuff too, for variety's sake if you want.

11. Always use the telescope to "Inspect" another fleet at sea before talking
to them. If they're pirates, don't talk to them or you'll be attacked. Of
course, if you're having a good game of "Pirate Hunting", this may be the
desired effect.

12. Don't attack Spanish or Turkish trade ships. Starting a war with either of
these two nations is not a good thing. If you're out to be a pirate, however,
go right ahead.

13. Wait until you have five galleon caliber warships before attacking anybody.
Getting your ass handed to you in a battle at sea is often fatal one way or
another. Even if you survive the battle, your ships will be heavily damaged and
will not handle very well, making getting back to shore difficult.

14. STAY AWAY from the Arctic Ocean. If you try to go to, or come back from
Asia via the Arctic Ocean, you very well could get stuck by the insanely
powerful winds and currents. If you're feeling really brave, go for it, you
*will* save time by not sailing all the way down around the tip of Africa, but
you've been warned.

15. Don't bother trying to get to Asia by sailing through the Panama Canal. It
doesn't exist in the game.

16. Nither does the Northwest Passage.

17. You might as well not bother with Austraillia or New Zealand, there's
nothing on either of them.

18. South America is pretty useless too.

19. Never buy anything in Seville or Valencia. Doing so will help the Spanish
economy, and that will make Galleons more expensive later on.

20. You only need 20 men (maybe less) per ship. Doesn't matter how big the ship
is, or how may bunks there are. Of course, you'll want a lot more than that if
you're a pirate or looking to get into a fight.

21. Keep ALL the food and water on the flagship. This way, if one of your ships
"mysteriously dissapears" you won't lose rations.

22. Unless you really have the money to spare and enjoy getting Spain and
Turkey mad at you and your country, don't bother investing money in ports. I
beat the game at least three times before I even knew what investing did.

23. Since the game operates on a grid, remember that it takes exactly the same
amount of time to sail in long straight lines as it does to sail on "angles" to
get somewhere. Often this approach will get you there faster, too.


Something to Watch out For
==========================
I only ever had this happen once, but it is really annoying. If the marketplace
owner in Santo Domingo wants "to make a profit by trading Coral" DON'T ACCEPT.
Santo Domingo is the only place in the whole world where you can buy the stuff.
If you refuse his offer, your fame will go down, but it will plummet if you
take on the mission and then come back empty handed. Similarly, never go on a
quest for the following port's marketplace owners for the listed goods:

Lisbon - Sugar
Nagasaki - Silver
Santo Domingo - Coral

There are probably other ones, most likely in the Middle East or Asia, but I
don't go to those places often.


Walkthrough (of sorts)
======================
Since this is an adventure game with complete freedom to do whatever you want,
there's no real set path to follow to get to the end. Apparantly there's a time
limit of 20 years, but I wouldn't worry about it - You'll either beat the game
or be long bored of it before that happens. In any case, I've never reached the
limit. I think the year 1512 was the longest it ever took me to finish the game
- ten years. Basically what it boils down to is:

- Build a fleet
- Gain fame and fortune by trading goods between ports
- explore the far reaches of the known world
- Start doing favors for the king to gain rank
- start going to places really far from Europe
- Start doing more difficult tasks for guildmasters and merchants
- Start attacking pirate fleets
- Kill some Turkish warlord and save the princess


1. Starting Out.
================
First things first, take all the lumber off your ship (at the dock) and sell
all your cargo at the marketplace. Having done that, buy as much sugar as you
can at the marketplace and head to the ye olde inn in search of some mates. If
Marco is hanging around, try enlisting him. Jose also might join this early on.
 Every time you enter a town, check the ye olde inn for mates. Once you have
four to navigate your fleet, don't bother getting any more. Maybe find one you
like for a first mate so you don't have to look at that scraggly old sailor in
the lower left all the time.

2. The First Trade Route.
=========================
To start out, create a small 2-point trade route between Lisbon and Bordeaux.
Sell Lisbon's sugar to the French and stock up on porcelain. Take the porcelain
back to Seville (in Spain) and sell it. The goal here is to drive the Spanish
economy right into the ground. This way you can buy bigger ships later on for a
LOT less money. Go back to Portugal and fill the ship with sugar again. If the
marketplace owner in Lisbon starts being a jerk with his sugar prices (don't
pay more than 25 gold a barrel), unload your French porcelain on him to drop
his prices. Do the same thing if the guy in Seville starts being a cheapo with
the amount he'll pay you for porcelain. For variety's sake, haul some sugar up
to Antwerp instead of Bordreau, and take back some Belgian procelain instead.
Antwerp is also a good spot to buy the telescope, an item you *can* live
without, but makes the game immesurably easier. Do this until you gain a few
sailing levels, and have about 10,000 gold pieces. Try and find a sextant at
one of the ports too, you'll need it.

3. The Mediterranian Sea
========================
Trading with France and Belguim gets old after a while. It's time to do
something a little more exciting. With a ship full of sugar, sail into the
Mediterranian sea, heading for Italy. Don't even bother stopping at any of the
ports you might see on the way in (jot down their names, though) they're
useless. What you want to do here is set up a brief 2-point route between
Naples and Pisa. Sell all your sugar in Naples and buy wool. Haul the wool up
the coast to Pisa, selling it in exchange for artwork. Take said artwork back
down the coast to Naples, sell it, and fill up with wool again. If one of the
places starts getting jerky with their prices, grab as much artwork as you can
and head for home. Sell the artwork on the way out of the Mediterranian at one
of the ports. Try and get 500 gold pieces a barrel for it. Hopefully, you have
somewhere in the order of 50,000 gold pieces. Having accomplished all this,
head back to Portugal.

4. Time For a Bigger Boat
=========================
Having one stupid little latin will get you nowhere in this game. Load up on
sugar and head for Seville. Sell the sugar. Make sure that Spain's economy is
totally shot. Check their prices at the Lodge. If it's somewhere below 75%,
you're good to continue. Otherwise start importing everything you can find to
Seville, driving their market down. Having done this, (and assuming you have a
mate or five) take a spin into the shipyard and ask to Build a new ship. Pick
the galleon model, with a teak hull. Flimsy as hell, but you're still a long
way away from sea battles. Get 4-point sails (Seems to make the ship go faster
across the Atlantic, but apparantly 3-point sails are better for battles), get
zero gun placements and only 20 bunks for crew. You now basically have the best
cargo ship you can get. Give it a name and then head for the inn. Spend a grand
or so on a crew for the new ship, and then stock it with food and water. Head
for the seas. The very second you're on the sailing screen, change navigators
so that the main character is sailing the galleon. Marco or Jose or whatever
other mate volunteered to navigate the new ship will have the thing drifting
halfway across the Atlantic before they get the hang of it. Better to start
them out on the latin.

5. The New World
================
Now that you have a really big ship, you can start dealing in larger volumes of
cargo. By selling ton after ton of sugar, wool and artwork around Europe, you
can build up your cash fairly quickly. Once you have enough money for another
galleon (remember to keep Spain's economy in ruins to keep prices down) build
it the same as the first one. Now transfer your men from the latin over to it,
and sell that glorified bath toy for 300 gold or whatever you can get for it.
Now load one ship with about 120 food and 120 water (which will last 40 men
about 60 days), buy as many firearms as you can, (don't fill the ships too
much, you'll need the extra space) and head for the new world. This is
accomplished thusly: From Lisbon (not Seville) Sail straight west for a really
long time (seriously, this takes forever), until you bascially crash into New
England. Now sail straight South until you see a silly little piece of land to
the west. Head one screen west and tada! Here's Santo Domingo! Land the boat
and check your food and water stock. You NEED at least 25 days of food and
water to get home. That's about 60 of each. Better to fill that up now and then
head to the marketplace. Having done this, head to the marketplace, and make a
KILLING on firearms. If you have any luck at all, you will have bought them in
Spain for about 50 golds a piece, and be selling them here for almost 200 a
shot! Sell as much as you can, and then start buying Coral. You can sell Coral
just about anywhere for an insane amount of money. Once you get rid of as many
firearms as you can, you should be ready to head out with two ships jam packed
with Coral and maybe some firearms left over, and a full purse of gold. Head
for home. If the king of Portugal hasn't been asking you for favors yet, he
will now. Unload some of that gold into your account at the palace and start
getting rid of that coral. Any port in Europe will pay you grandly for it.
After several jaunts to the new world, you'll never want for gold again. Use it
to build up a fleet of five good trade ships.

6. Africa & Asia
================
Now that you've gone to the new world, you should feel confident to go just
about anywhere. With your ships jam packed with firearms and enough food for 90
days at sea, give this a try: Sail South from Lisbon, down the West coast of
Africa (there are lots of storms around here - be careful) around the
Southernmost tip (Cape Town), and then sail straight east until you bascially
crash into Australlia. Now sail North until you find land. Explore the
Phillipeans and Southern Asia, until you eventually find Japan. (Kind of
northeast of China) The port of Nagasaki, Japan is the only place in the entire
world that sells silver. Chinese ports offer a whole wack of hard to find
stuff, but none of it is really worth hauling all the way back to Europe or
anywhere else. Make sure to pick up a speculum in Zeiton, China, though. With
your ships filled with Silver and enough food for about 40 days at sea, sail
west along the Southern coastline of Asia, stopping in India and other places.
Explore the Middle East and Persian Gulf if you want (the only place you can
buy carpet), but you're mainly interested in finding the East coast of Africa,
specifically, a port that sells gold. For some reason, the Africans will pay
almost 300 golds for a barrell of silver, which you bought in Japan for
something almost ten times less. Through the process of buying and selling,
exchange all your silver for gold, but make sure you have about 60 days of food
and water on board. Don't worry so much about the water, you can replenish that
at any of the ports on the West coast of Africa. Take the gold back to Europe
and forget about ever having to work for money again.

7. Treasure Hunts
=================
For me, these were the funnest part of the game. Some guildmaster sends you to
the ends of the Earth in search of some legendary artifact, and then pays you a
rediculous amount of money for it. Listen at the ye olde inns for clues on
where to go to find somebody who might have information on the item's
whereabouts. Usually that person will refer you to somebody else, often a
waitress at a ye olde inn or a sailor. When you finally find the person you're
looking for (which usually involves a trip to East Africa or Asia somewhere
along the lines) they will offer to sell you a map for a certain amount of
money. Buy it. Now have the sailors at the ye olde inn study it. They might
know where it is. Usually the treasure is on some lonely island in the middle
of nowhere. Using a speculum will produce the same type of map as the treasure
map. When the two produce the same picture, you're there. Land where the "X" is
on the map and search for treasure. Now try and get back to the guildmaster
without any pirate entanglements. Once in a while, somebody will have the thing
you're looking for on their boat. Retreiving the object requires defeating his
fleet. Which leads me to the next chapter...

8. Battleships
==============
Sooner or later, somebody is going to ask you to kill somebody. To do this,
you're going to need warships. With a whole whack of sugar, or some other
commodity, head for Seville, drive the economy into the ground, and sell your
ships one by one, replacing them with the following model: Galleon, made of
Mahogany, three masts with four point sails on each, sixty gun placements,
armed with cannons, with bunks for 160 crew. Maybe you'll want to go with three
point sails for added maneuverability, but I've never had a problem with
4-point sails. Once you have four of these, it's time for the flagship. Make
this one the exact same, only with bunks for 200 crew. That added 40 sailors
will pay off in the end. Of course, with these ships fully loaded with crew,
your effective range will only be about 20 days out at best, so make sure you
know exactly where your target is at to avoid wasting rations.


That's it kids!

If you've been having trouble with the game, I hope this guide helps. If you'd
like help with something I didn't cover (and there's lots I didn't cover) just
email me!


Paul
