Obviously the only way to go is cancelling voyages and hoarding crates. My question is, do you use those crates to catch every animal you see, or only the gold ones? Ive been doing only gold ones and wonder if ive been wasting time.
Also im incredibly surprised rep requirements per level increase, but rep gains stay the same. And there is no reward for completing the full voyage.
My friend and I suspect that it is just as easy to catch the white/red that goes along with the Golden on the manifest.
We seem to cycle through enough red/white only and pig/chix hybrids to stock pile the coops we need.
We once had nine empty coops on our deck and I don't think we were ever going to fill those with just Golden.
I think a few black chix on deck might give an option if your destination outpost is occupied by a Galleon that you don't want to challenge.
Overall, I see no reason for more than four empty coops on deck - so I would fill with whatever and stay around that number.
Animals sell for MUCH less when you're not on a voyage for that specific animal. Hard to pin down the exact amount due to the RNG, but it's somewhere around 75% less.
What you gotta do, is collect the crates from voyage cancellation, go collect animals, then buy MORE merchant voyages to increase the value of your animals. Start a voyage, sail to the delivery spot, deliver what animals you have, cancel the voyage, buy a new one, rinse, repeat. Or, if you don't feel like playing FedEx Simulator, you could try starting voyages & cancelling them until you need to deliver to the outpost you're already at.
TRY to not bother with chickens, since even the gold ones barely cover the cost of a high-level voyage. If you have to, ONLY get gold ones.
Kinda the same with pigs, but they're worth more than chickens overall, so going a step down is still alright. I forget which type that is at the moment... Black coated, I believe.
Grab all the snakes you can carry. Even the least expensive snake will fetch more than a golden chicken.
One final tip: hit up any inactive skull forts you pass for gunpowder barrels. They don't sell for a ton, but there's a ton of them.
@deliciouspack said in Which is the best Merchant Alliance leveling method?: One final tip: hit up any inactive skull forts you pass for gunpowder barrels. They don't sell for a ton, but there's a ton of them.
My advice is to not do this during a storm though. One stray lightning strike and KABOOM! You'd be saying goodbye to your ship and hello Ferry of the Damned.
@lostatcore Stash them in the crow's nest. You'll still lose them in a lightning strike, but they won't damage the ship (or the animals) from way up there.
@bcg-red-moose
Are you sure about the rep gained for completing a voyage. Lastnight i did a quick merchant voyage before the liverpool v man city game so had an hour. get one pig and one barrel(nice and easy). Did that, and a shipwreck so i had 3 skulls, 1 chest, 1 barrel and 2 pigs(found a crate on island so got a golden sow). I handed the pigs in first so they didn't die and rep moved from 1o'clock to about 2. I handed the skulls and chest next and then up the crow's nest for the barrel and handed that in and rep went to about 6 o'clock. Check where your at before handing the last item overand after the voyage complete comes up have a look. Also double check a little later incase rep hasn't update yet.
I think i'm rep 27 with merchant.
What im seeing here is people seem to be in agreement, just go for the gold like ive been doing. A couple of suggestions other than that came up, such as picking up black animals, picking up every snake, and getting gunpowder from empty forts.
Some of these suggestions are for gold, but gold is irrelevant on this topic. You'll get more than enough just turning in the gold animals, what you want to focus on for the Merchant Alliance is rep, and all the not gold animals are worth the same rep, next to nothing. Same goes for if you happen to find a banana or cannonball crate, friggin worthless. I even turned one in for a message in a bottle quest, still worthless. Maybe it would be worth more if it actually came from a voyage.
Gunpowder barrels are the only exception. Off voyage, worthless. But as part of a voyage, their rep gain is small, about the same as a non gold animal for a voyage, so my rule of thumb is to only bother with them if a) i already have them and there is also a gold animal on this voyage or b) if the voyage asks for 3 or more. Since they are so easy to find and get, 3 will make you about as much as a gold animal and wont take hardly any time. But if its less than 3, i don't even bother sailing to the fort to grab them.
Also i thought this was a given but, NEVER sell ANYTHING that isn't part of a voyage. EVER. The rep gains for it are worthless. Don't worry about gold, gold is everywhere you will get gold naturally just focus on rep. Currently im 27 and it seems like it takes 8 gold animals from voyages per level, which is already a b**** and a half, i shudder to think of what is required for 30+
I'm having no problem leveling merchants guild rep. I'm just doing the quests, as they come, without cancelling any of them. I just do the quests. I'm up to level 27 no problem. I have charted where to find animals and I get everything else, bananas,cannon balls, etc. at one of the many forts around. Seems the easiest best grind is to just grind it out. I do merchants voyages in a two man sloop and we just go to work and get it done as quickly as possible.
