Capturing Port Basics

Flying Lab Software, the developpers of Pirates of the Burning Sea, have designed the game with Player vs Player (PvP) in mind. PvE is very present in the game but it's not the main goal. Also, while solo PvP exists in the game, it's a bit scarce. The end-game's real focus is the competition between nations for supremacy over the Carribeans, which involves economic and Realm vs Realm warfare. This guide provides the basics on how you bring enemy ports into contention which allows for its capture.

The ultimate goal in the game PotBS is to conquer all of the ports, which makes you "win" the round and earn important rewards. To conquer the opponents' cities, you must partake in port conquest battles. These are exciting PvP fights where your nation's players engage an enemy nation in sea battle and, sometimes, swashbuckling combat.

How to capture ports

In the game, there is something called unrest. Each town starts with 0 unrest from all nations. When attacking ships in sea battle in a radius of 50 miles around a port, unrest is generated for that port. Every time you destroy an enemy, two things happen:

• The port's unrest increases for your country if the city is capturable
• You personally get points of contention

Unrest is important because you need to increase it to a certain number to send the city into conquest mode. There are 3 stages, which will be explained below. Each enemy you destroy is worth points. However, the number of points depends on a number of variables, most important of which are:

• Opponent's level and ship type (merchants are worth less than warships)
• Number of players in your party (more players equals more unrest)
• Your opponent's nation. Attacking Spain ships around a Spanish town has more effect than attacking France or Pirates

Those variables have a very significant effect. To put ports into contention quickly, you must use the proper strategy. The right strategy is to be in a full group of six, attack fleets whose nation is the same as the one you're working on, and you must target ships that are as high level as possible, 45+ warships preferably. In a full group, a single level 45 warship is worth approximately 100 unrest points. Meanwhile low 30s enemies are worth 25-30 points at most, when you're lucky. So now that you've been crushing the enemy's fleets, what happens?

Pirate PvP zone

Once unrest reaches 6000 (possibly 5000 since the devs have been tweaking it), the status of the area surrounding the attacked port changes to Pirate PvP. On the map, you can see a red circle. While in this area, players from the pirate nation can engage in PvP at their leasure. This can sometimes disrupt you from getting unrest. Some Privateers can also attack if they have the skill Sanctioned Piracy. You must continue increasing the unrest.

Full PvP

At 8000 unrest, the small red zones becomes very large and "full PvP", meaning that any player can attack any player from other nations. You have to be extremely cautious because these full PvP zones are nothing more than gank fest. Never go through one without a group unless your nation is in full control of the area. Players are stupid and like nothing more than think they're great by killing you 6 vs 1. If you're unlucky and get attacked and know you can't win, you can try to use the skill Surrender, saving some of your stuff.

The best advice that we can give is to be in a full group if you're fighting and getting unrest past 8k points. Stay close to the city and don't chase enemy players too far. Chances are that either they're trying to split your group and ambush you or they'll flee and you won't catch them. Keep attacking the high level fleets and the unrest will increase quickly.

10 000 unrest = port conquest battle

After you've done all this work, you still aren't done. With 10 000 unrest points, the port falls into contention and the conquest battle is scheduled 24 hours later. This is when the action really starts. The unrest counter is reset to 0 and your nation now earns conquest points. These points affect the game greatly because they give you advantages in the ensuing battle. The more points you have compared to your opponent, the better your advantages. These advantages range from favorable wind to a reduction in the fortress and NPC strength, easing the conquest for your nation.

Because conquest points are so important, it's crucial that your nation gets a lot of it, ideally 6-10k. You don't need it to win, but it certainly makes it easier. Again, we recommend going into the red zone only if you're in a solid group. At this point in the game, players from all nations (including pirates) will come to the pvp area for action, more often than not trying to gank loners. Once the port is in conquest mode, broadcast a message in nation chat, in the newbie areas, that you need help in getting points. Tell PvE people to come fight around the town instead of in the newbie zones. This has been proven to help as people do come. This accomplishes three things:

• Gets points for the conquest.
• Makes it harder for another nation to repel every attacker.
• Makes it safer for your nation, meaning more PvE players will come and raise points.

Being selected

You have to decide whether or not you want to participate in the conquest battle. Remember that your nation gets conquest points but you personally get contention points. These points are used to determine who's invited into the port battle. The more points you have, the more likely you are to receive an invitation. As of the end of beta, 500-1000 personal points (which you can view in the pvp tab of the local map) was more than enough to guarantee yourself a spot in the battle.

With all this in mind, you know everything needed to bring ports into conquest mode, a necessary step in capturing them. It's a vital part of the game. Next articles will specifically be port battle guides.

PotBS Matey -The #1 PotBS Fansite-