Uncharted Waters New Horizons

Pilly was the only character that I tested that required a certain stat. Based on the main characters that I tested, you need a total of 101 levels when adding sailing levels to battle levels. You also need most of your stats to be high (at 100, which shouldn't be a problem at those levels). I didn't get to Ali, but I'm pretty sure his level can be lower (I'm guessing by 10 levels total).

I tested by bringing each vagabond to my location and trying different values for the levels. That means that the only variable was their levels and did not include ranks, fame, or fortune. The only reason that I realized stats might count is that Pilly would not join even with 99 sailing level and 99 battle level. I tested various combinations for totals including sailing level of 2 and battle level of 99 (a highly unlikely combination) but the magic number was always 101 when your characters sailing stats were at 100. There were too many possible combinations for me to try to rule out every stat so I ran my tests with 100 stats in the four sailing categories.

That was from the SNES.

Pilly has 80 leadership, 100 seamanship, knowledge and intuition with a sailing level of 60. His battle level is 50 with stats of 68 courage and 52 swordsmanship.

Ulgu has 52 leadership, 79 seamanship, 62 knowledge, and 88 intuition with a sailing level of 21. His battle level is 28 with stats of 60 courage and 74 swordsmanship.

Mohommed has 87 leadership, 78 seamanship, 78 knowledge, and 66 intuition with a sailing level of 20. His battle level is 31 with courage of 85 and swordsmanship of 92.

Yeah, I'm manipulating the data using the emulator. I don't know enough about hex editors to use those for the PC version (or any other version for that matter). I still play using the cart and my original SNES unit.

Pilly's charm is 74 and he has all five skills. One of the reasons that I play Ali is because he is the only other character that can have all five skills without using a hex editor or manipulating the data on an emulator.

Ulgu's charm is 59 and Mohommad's charm is 76. They both have gunnery, cartography, and celestial navigation.

It wasn't until last year that I found out enough to use the emulator for testing. Before then everything I did was from playing the game (save, reload).

I still prefer the low level crew because their stats will be much higher by the time they reach the levels of the high-level vagabonds...and they will be MUCH cheaper. Pilly is normally the only exception to that and it is because he has all the skills AND his luck is 100.

Joao actually has two characters with 100 luck, but you can't get them in anyone else's game.

I usually try to get 3 with gunnery because I don't take everyone into battle. I usually go in with the flagship and 3 or 4 other ships. Since the First Mate almost always has gunnery, I add Gus Johnson, George Eggel, and Cizzaro Fedeliti.

I stay away from a number of those that you list because their stats are terrible and/or their luck is atrocious. Characters with luck below 50 are: Manuel Melgoza, Louis Fareiro, Omar Kashani, Carmine Ragussa, Henry Mancine, Ivan Soledad, Fernan Pinto, Sabino Balboa, and Anthony Morgan. The last three are at least close to 50, so they are better than the others.

I try to make sure all my mates have above 70 in swordsmanship. That actually helps when firing cannons, just not near as much as the gunnery skill. At the same time someone with the gunnery skill and below 60 in swordsmanship is pretty useless for firing cannons (especially if their levels are already close to 20). Ok, that may be a bit overstated, but if their swordsmanship is low then the enemy can attack their ship and cut down on the damage anyway by wiping out your crew.

I've had 40 crew assigned to navigation (I wasn't planning on them fighting) that wiped out the crew of a Galleon.

Based on some tests run by someone else, courage didn't seem to affect damage caused by a crew firing cannons. Their test involved lowering courage by 20 points per test to see if the damage changed. That takes some set-up and I haven't had the patience to do that kind of test. 😀

It looks like we turned this game into a science. 😀