I know that it's a grind and I'm not trying to find some easy way out of that but between cargo runs and animal collection, what should I be doing to get more rep? On the one hand animals seem to give me much more, but on the other hand, they're drowned out by how many cargo run missions there are.
Best way to grind merchant alliance?
I hit 50 in Merchants before the Cargo Runs were added, but I could imagine the frustration behind rolling for a good voyage.
My suggestion would be to login and scavenge supplies, while you wait for the next day to cycle. You could then gather more supplies too, before setting off. Or, if you're impatient, Dagger Tooth and Galleon's Grave and close enough, you can quickly sail back and forth. Lol
Buy missions and cancel them but collect the cages before you cancel the voyage. Go collect around 10 chicken cages and 5 snake cages. Then go to the top islands and fill them up. If you happen to get a voyage with 3 gold chickens etc while getting you cages go do it.
To do this go to the island and get as many black and gold chickens and snakes as possible. Once you have all from that Island, kill yourself. When you come back from ferry the gold animals will have respawned and you can carry on collecting until cages are full.
Then go get missions :)
For my luck so far I get big rolls of all sorts of animals and gun powder barrels, mainly gold and black animals are key but voyages like those would be great to get all because it gives extra xp but the more commendations of merchant like sail this far or purchase 100 voyages will give extra xp in it, just hit 45 in merchant but i can see it done in a week or so to hit 50. Another thing is use doubloons for Merchant endorsement to give a full lvl up in it, the only reason why cargo runs are used is for the doubloons of selling 100 or 200 cargo in perfect condition. Overall, you just have to have a lot of free time and patient to complete it to 50
Do you have a dedicated crewmate? If so, you can server hop once or twice, filling both your voyage inventories with cargo runs. Vote for another every time you pickup the last. You can also row to a destination while your crew sails to a pickup point, so long as you have a shipment without cloth for the rowboat to carry.
Aside from that, I'm unsure whether cargo runs can beat collecting piles of gold/black animals.
Animals I'm sure are a much better choice than cargo. Being 50 in merchant, I can throw down a voyage that wants 8 chickens that are all gold or black and they give a lot of gold and rep. Just a couple days ago I had one that wanted 6 gold and two black and I made over 10k gold solo after stopping at one relatively small island and then the outpost. Easy money. Also I've had instances where I wasn't sank by other crews because they would benefit more forming an alliance with me simply because I was doing merchant missions.
Most of my strategy has already been stated here but I just want to vouch for its efficiency. Animal runs are usually what I do now that I'm athena 10. Great way to earn gold.
With cargo missions taking up spots in the merchant inventory, it's harder to do but still a good way to make money. Load up on all the missions you can buy and throw them down collecting as many chicken coops and snake baskets as you can. Do this first when you enter the server. After loading up the cages, you will be waiting for 6am for new missions. While you wait you can spend the time stocking your ship. Buy more missions and head out to collect animals.
Good islands to collect from are Cannon Cove, Crooked Masts, and Crooks Hollow. If you prefer a more secluded island, Marauders Arch, Smuggelers Bay, or Discovery Ridge are good choices. Collect all the black and gold chickens and snakes on the island and then everyone go to the ferry of the damned. Once the island is empty of players, the animals will reset. You can fill every crate before you leave that one island. That's what's great about animal runs, as long as you don't need all three types of animals, you can make one stop at one island to get everything.
After you fill all the cages, you will essentially be sailing a circle around the map delivering animals to the outposts. You don't need everything that the mission wants, just hope you get lucky and it wants gold over anything else. A gold animal is worth roughly twice as much as a black animal so I feel it's best to have a majority of your animals gold.
More crew to help will speed things up tremendously. That means more missions to throw down for the cages, more hands to collect the animals, and more to defend your animals if some pirates show up that just want to sink you for the fun in it.
The last time I did this on a galleon, we would even sometimes stop at islands between outposts if we were able to easily collect the remaining animals the voyage wanted.
Let's say you are at galleon's grave and your next voyage is taking you to daggertooth.
It wants 2 gold chickens, a gunpowder, a gold snake, a black snake, and a gold pig. Well chances are you have the chickens and snakes already. Sunken grove is right between you and your destination and you can easily and quickly stop to pick up a gold pig and even a gunpowder if you don't already have one. Something like that would definitely be worth taking the time to do because it will give you another thousand gold at least, and a voyage complete. You could even fill your two new snake baskets quickly if you have a larger crew.I don't bother loading up crates anymore. I just throw down voyages until I get a good one and do them one at a time. Sometimes they are easy like a gold snake and a gunpowder. Not really worth it for the gold or rep but it's a quick and easy solo voyage complete. Other times I'm collecting 8 chickens. Either way, unlike gold hoarders and order of souls, I know exactly what items I will be turning in when its over and roughly how much money I'll make so I can decide if it's a good voyage the minute I start it.
If you need someone to help out and sail with I'm more than happy to join. Like I said merchant is usually my go-to now since it can earn you lots of gold quickly.
@blakeinwpg sagte in Best way to grind merchant alliance?:
I know this post is old and I haven’t tried out this strategy yet but I think it could work. You get merchant alliance emissary (maybe level it up a bit before) and keep going to inactive skull forts and take all the gunpowder’s.
First: nekroing old post isn't allowed, just make a new thread
Second: gpb don't get your emissary rank up
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