The following is a combination of tales, to avoid spamming this forum.
Tale #1: My strategy was foiled four times by resignation, happenstance, third-party interference (not the hacking kind), and the element of surprise.
After seeing on YouTube how pirates seemed to confidently infer the amount of supplies another ship had, based upon what said ship shot and did, I wondered if feigning a supply shortage with this same principals would work in a fight. I decided to test in with hourglass, and I had a very interesting experience. The first person I fought was a loss farmer who stopped his ship so I could sink it. I stopped my ship little ways from the loss farmer's, and fired upon it. However, the distance proved to be a little too far, and I ended up missing many of my shots. Said loss farmer even went on board my ship and started doing an emote that resembled eating popcorn. I finally sunk his ship (after about 30-40 cannonballs), and went onto my next match. the next person was considerably better at shooting, repairing, and sailing than I was, to the point where I had to put my ship into a spin so I would have time to both repair and fire. As I was about to put my strategy into action, my opponent sank. With my third opponent, I was boarded before I could even get very many shots off, and my the time I killed my opponent, my opponent's ship had sailed towards both a ghost fleet and an unfriendly pirate. Needless to say, my opponent sank. When I prepared to dive again, the war map said that there was still a battle in progress. It seemed that the end of my battle had not registered, and I proceeded to wait. As I went back up to the helm, I was boarded and attacked by a skelly curse player. As we fought, their crewmate sailed their ship right next to mine (this was not the same one that had sunk my opponent) and started blasting away. I had found an experienced crew that I could have implemented by strategy against, but the battle was already lost. After getting shot off the ship by the boarder, which put the final nail in the coffin, I said "gg," and logged off, deciding to implement my strategy another day. All in all, it was a pretty entertaining and fun experience, even if I never got a chance to implement my strategy. Moral of the story: Just when you think you are out of opportunities, the game tends to send one at you in an unexpected and ironic way.
Tale #2: My first partially complete heist of a skeleton fort, ashen winds event, and an attempted FOF heist.
I spawned in at an outpost that was right near an active skull fort. I would have gone and done it, except there was the small problem of a reaper galleon at the fort, and the fact that I was an Athena emissary. I started searching nearby islands for a rowboat, so I could row over and negotiate. As I finished searching one island, and was about to start digging up loot I had found from a skeleton captain's orders, the galleon started sailing towards me. I set sail against the wind, and decided to board them to find out what their intentions and crew were like. Two pirate legends shooting at me as I came up the boarding ladder gave me a pretty good idea of both, so I decided to flee. I managed to outpace and outmaneuver them, and they gave up the chase. I decided to collect gunpowder barrels from a nearby fort, and resume my business. I managed to find a stronghold gunpowder barrel from the skeleton's orders, but an examination of other nearby islands revealed no rowboats, and the galleon moved off to do another world event. I followed closely, and started searching islands near the new world event. While I did not find any rowboats, I did find some ashen keys and a ritual skull. After I loaded my loot onto my sloop, I found that the galleon had completed the ashen winds event, and was heading my way. After I made sail, I heard the tell tale sounds of a skeleton ship spawning. Fortunately for me, it was for the galleon, which worked to my advantage. I sailed around a sea rock near an island, which prompted the galleon to do the same, meaning that they were sailing behind me. I grabbed a gunpowder barrel, and ignited it before climbing halfway up their ladder, to ensure that I would damage both decks, with the added bonus that it kept their masts intact, which meant that they would not fall too far behind me if I wanted to repeat the process. When I respawned on my ship. I grabbed the stronghold gunpowder barrel, and repeated the process. Between the gunpowder barrels and the skeleton ship, they sank. I am not good enough at PvP to fend off up to 4 boarders, so I decided to head towards a FoF that had spawned, giving the impression that I was leaving the loot to sink. After a few minutes, I doubled back to collect the loot. It seemed that there had been pirates left behind after the galleon sank, since I did not find an ashen winds skull or an emissary flag. However, I was able to collect a fair amount of loot. I sold all but the ritual skull, the ashen keys, and a rag and bone crate. I decided to go to the FoF after selling, only to find that it was occupied by the galleon I had just sunk (unless a reaper galleon just happened to show up there). I figured I might as well go and find a rowboat, so I could row gunpowder barrels over to the galleon and sink it. As I was coming up to an island to search it, a Megaladon spawned, and I decided that the leveling up of my emissary flag wouldn't hurt before attacking the galleon. As I was fighting the meg, I saw that another sloop was rapidly approaching. Suddenly, the meg went on the offensive and closed in on my ship, I managed to defeat the meg about a second before it would have chomped my ship, allowing me to run from the nearby sloop. Fortunately, they were more interested in the fort than in me, and did not pursue. I decided to do a phantom fortress to pass the time, and rank up my emissary grade (little did I know that completing a fort does not affect a ship's emissary grade), and was caught by surprise by a passing sloop. Fortunately, they were not interested in sinking me. I went from island to island, looking for a rowboat, when suddenly, I found a cannon rowboat. The galleon was in a fight with a skeleton galleon and another sloop, so Decided to wait until the battle had concluded and the galleon returned to the fort. At first I thought I should row over to the fort, and sink the galleon when they finished, when I thought "why make a long play to sink a ship near an island where I may be discovered, when I can sink it in the open water." I decided to stop at an island between the reaper's hideout and the fort. My plan was to wait for the galleon to complete the fort, either row over to them while they were on their way to the reaper's hideout, or lure them with my emissary flag, and sink them the same way I had done before. The game seemed to know my plan, and sent out a skeleton sloop to delay me. I was able to sink said skeleton sloop, and proceeded to lay in wait. Unfortunately, the galleon had gone after a sloop, and had chased them to an outpost. I went over to the fort, hoping to complete it before they returned. However, I saw that there was no way I could complete the fort fast enough. Instead of waiting for the galleon to return and complete the fort, I decided to just sell the loot I had at the reaper's hideout, and log off. Another skeleton sloop spawned on my way to the reaper's hideout and almost sank me. However, I prevailed and managed to hand in my loot for some doubloons and gold. Ironically, the galleon finished the fort after I went to the hideout, but I still decided sinking them would be too much trouble. I gave my ship a proper send off using my gunpowder kegs, sold my emissary flag, not knowing that my own emissary flag would fetch only a coin, and left my logbook for another player to find. While I did not get the loot from the FoF, it was still a fun and worthwhile experience.
