Uncharted Waters New Horizons

I've been looking at the mates loyalty in the snes version and I have learned a few things about the loyalty. First, loyalty is affected by the main character's stats or levels. I already knew this to a degree, but since I started watching I can confirm that those definitely have an effect on a mate's loyalty.

The big thing that I learned from watching the mate's loyalty is that it can drop to zero, but if it drops enough to go negative it will actually become 100 loyalty instead.

So far I haven't found anything that drops a mate's loyalty once it is 100. In other words, even not having money to pay their wages at the end of the month didn't seem to have any effect if their loyalty was 100. Running out of food and water also did not cause their loyalty to drop. I haven't tested if not having the money to pay their wages for several months has any effect, but it doesn't affect their loyalty the first month.

Giving them a raise doesn't really help. First, it only raises their loyalty a little (often by 1). Second, it doesn't change whether or not their loyalty increases or decreases. The way to avoid their asking for a raise is to only stop at supply ports or to give them a ship before leaving a port.

Any mate that you hire in a cafe can be hired at 100 loyalty. If you treat a mate in the cafe and he says, "...it seems that we will get along fine" on the first treat that means that his loyalty is increasing by 18. If you treat a mate in the cafe and he says, "...it seems that we will get along fine," AND then he says "I hate to brag but I have a knack for..." after only one treat then his loyalty is increasing by 36.

Hiring a mate increases their loyalty by 10. If you can tell that a mate's loyalty increased by 18 because you had to treat him twice before he said, "I hate to brag..." then treat him a total of 5 times before hiring him and his loyalty will be at 100. (5 times 18 = 90 plus the 10 for hiring). If he said that after only one treat then 3 treats will put him over 100 and the extra for hiring him won't even matter.

There are two other potential situations if they don't like the main character that much their loyalty may only increase by 6 or 12. You can tell this because if you treat them three times before they say, "I hate to brag..." then their loyalty is increasing by 12 and you will need to treat them at least 8 times before you can hire them at 100 loyalty. (8 times 12 = 96 plus 10 for hiring). If you have to treat them 6 times before they say, "I hate to brag..." then their loyalty is increasing by 6 each time you treat them and you will need to treat them 15 times before hiring them if you want them to have 100 loyalty. (15 times 6 = 90 plus 10 for hiring = 100).

So far I haven't found anything that drops their loyalty once they are at 100 loyalty.

Mates that you find in the lodge are different because you can't treat them. They will start at 10 loyalty (the hiring bonus) and if your stats are sufficiently higher then their loyalty should increase on the first day of each month...if you can keep them from asking for a raise by assigning them to a ship or by stopping only at supply ports. I don't have any numbers for how much their loyalty will increase or decrease (if your stats aren't better than theirs) yet, but once their loyalty goes over 30 they are not as likely to ask for a raise. Still it is faster to get them to 100 if those mates are dropping because it is faster to get below zero than it is if their loyalty is increasing and you have to go from 10 to 100. I also don't know how high their loyalty has to be before they will stay in a battle with you yet, but you really only have to worry about that if you have recently hired someone at the lodge.

NEVER give them a raise, at least not one that increases their wages by 10 because so far that seems to only add 1 point to their loyalty and if their loyalty is below 30 and you aren't taking the precautions of assigning them to a ship before entering the harbor or by stopping only at supply ports then they are still going to ask again very soon.

I'm still in the middle of checking all the numbers, but the cafe is a good place to hire loyal mates by paying attention to how many times you treat them before they say, "I hate to brag...". There is one caveat to that statement. If a mate doesn't have a stat of at least 76 in either leadership, seamanship, knowledge, intuition, or courage they will not say I hate to brag. There are only a few mates that don't have at least one of those five stats at or above 76. It doesn't matter what their swordsmanship stat is because they won't use that stat.

That sounds like he is one of the pirates with a fleet in Algiers, and I've never seen a mate be hired if they already have a fleet.

There seems to be a correlation between the total of the levels, sailing plus battle levels, which is why you can't hire some of the better mates until you have increased your levels. For instance, Pilly Reis needs a total of 101 before he will consider joining you. I used a level 2 sailing level with a level 99 battle level to hire him for 200 a month, but 51 sailing and 50 battle or any combination that totals 101 seems to be enough to hire Pilly. I haven't checked every main character when hiring Pilly, but it seems to apply to all of the higher level mates that you can hire.

I believe he can have a 10 Venetian Galeass fleet, but I usually try to avoid him getting a fleet. If you only battle Khayr and Idin then the replacement will eventually be him and the fleet will be 10 Venetian Galeass.

Who did you recruit Pilly with with those levels?

That must be a Genesis thing because you can't hire Pilly with levels that low in the SNES version or the PC version. I haven't tried all the characters in the PC version, but I have hired him with all the characters in the SNES version and you cannot hire him at those levels.

I have never tried the Genesis version, but for the most part I thought it was supposed to be a lot like the SNES version. I've always heard that the only difference was the duels, but if you can hire Pilly with levels in the 30s then that would be pretty big too.