Uncharted Waters New Horizons

The best route to play a pirate is to make all your money from discoveries and then trade, BEFORE going out and trying to kill stuff. That is the only way you will have a fair deal, from what I've found.

No matter what character I play as, I always make my initial money with discoveries and then use that money to finance trade, and then use that massive amount of money to have fun as a pirate.

So when playing as Otto...just sell that stupid galleon as soon as you can and buy a little Caravel...travel the world and discover, then buy trading ships (I always use a hollowed out full rigged ships as my trading ships because they have super high capacity and can be later converted back to war ships)

Yes, I've found * rated weapons that are better than others. But its been so long now that I forget the name of my favorite sword...I do remember the Magic Muramasa was good. The Flamberge is good too.

Duels are hard to win no matter what your level and as a general rule I do not recommend them. Only do them if you recently saved and just want to have some fun. Don't do them seriously.

Defecting is where you give up your nationality and go pledge to another country. True piracy is when you have no nationality at all.

Actually:
Pernambuco is where you can find the Rune Blade at 2 AM ( this sword is my personal favorite)
and the crusader's sword is found at timbuktu, the crusader's armor is found at one of the italian ports( i cant remember which one, its on the boot south of genoa

My suggestions are, if you are just starting out, after you steal the galleon, haul over to copenhegen, there you can find some good armor, normally you should go for the plate mail, but if you feel zealous and have extra cash, wait until 2am and get the Errol's plate
whatever your decision is, dont foget to assign all you can fill on combat, you'll need it
leave around 8, so you dont get insstantly pwned by bernal, start it on your own terms

if you are already past that, the venetian is an ok ship, especially when hinting people with other venetians, but when going in for the strike, try to start over top of them or even just behind, that will give you an edge to run up and duel or go hand2hand

i really hate trading so the only time i'll ever do it is after knocking out some poor guy's merchant fleet with 2,000 rasin payload, then bum it off for 4 gold peices, but i have never gotten through weithout havng enough trade fame to go unrecognised

Duels get very easy when you are around level 30 combat with full courage and the gunery skill, a good thrusting sword helps too, as i can prove that most NPCs will start out with a lash/block

true piracy is hard to keep to in europe cnsidering all the people coming to get you,and half the time, if you are really good, you get blocked out of EVERY SINGLE PORT YOU GO TO

exploring's ok, especially if you go for the DoDo or the moai, they are the esiert * discoveries to get to
the sloth is a pain in the poop deck to find, it's in south america somewhere, it probably moves, i dont know
right now i'm trying to shape ernst a pirate, and i'll tell you, even with a tekkhousen, it's hard to start out