Uncharted Waters is not exactly a typical MMO, and a non-typical MMO is not going to have a typical leveling path. This game is no different. The game offers three different paths, the one discussed here is the hardest to level up and potentially the most rewarding. So in this I’m just going to go through an appropriate path to level up your merchant.
Step 1: Do the full tutorial from start to finish
This is quite possibly the longest most brutal introduction to any game. However this introduction will give you an appropriate introduction to all the tasks you will be doing and at the end you’ll get a surge bonus of 1000 fame.
The tutorial comes in three sections, Beginner’s, Intermediate and Advanced. At the end of Advanced you will have to do ten quests in a row requiring you to go get a bunch of random materials. Once again, very lame but very worth it.
What you will be doing along the way is what you picked this character to do, trading. You purchase anything that is below 120% Market Index and sell it wherever it is profitable.
What opening skills do you want?
Food Trading -> Livestock Trading
Mineral Trading
Textile Trading
Crafts Trading
Sundries Trading
Cooking
With these skills you will slowly be bringing up your ability to trade larger and larger inventory. Cooking is especially good because if you pick up livestock or pork you can transform them into something 10x worth the value and get a lot of extra XP out of nowhere.
You will need this extra trading Dinari to pay for ships, fighting equipment (to defend yourself). You have to remember that new ships you buy will require some adventuring and fighting skills on top of your regular trading skill.
If you finish the tutorial that will get you to Level 20.
Step 2: Long specialty trading routes
Specialty trade routes grant you a lot of experience and grant a little bit of trade fame. It’s also going to be 100% profitable trading between trade regions. Specialties are commodities specific to that region. They are generally cheaper to purchase than most commodities of that type and are guaranteed to generate a profit once you leave that trading zone. The further away you are from that area the more valuable they are.
The only exception is alcohol and pork go for 0 in Muslim zones.
What you will be doing here is a specialty surge. The goal here is to get 50 of each specialty and move on to trade. If you have 50 of any you get a surge for that specialty. Every time you get another 50 within that same trade you get these massive surges.
My current biggest specialties trade is this:
Whisky (London)
Gin (Groningen/Amsterdam)
Dried Apples (Calais)
Apple Cider Vinegar (Calais)
Fruit Brandy (Nantes)
Lilac (Nantes)
This is sold at Marsaille for usually around 50-60k profit (which isn’t actually much).
After that I buy Prunes (Marsaille), Crossbows (Pisa), Glassworks (Naples/Venice), and Woad (Ragusa). I bring this stuff back to London and start over.
Anyone who is Dutch or English is 100% guaranteed to be best off doing this trade route.
If you are any other nationality you may want to look into Investing opportunities for your ports and what specialties they unlock.
Step 3: Investing
You invest at the Town Authority. Investing starts off being relatively cheap and slowly starts to scale up in value. At first you should be investing in various ports. After giving small investments (as little as investing twice) you will unlock more commodities for that zone.
You will need to unlock commodities so that you can make income quickly to purchase things like new ships, guns, and equipment.
One of the biggest things about investing is that many ports will be battle zone ports. If you can help flipping ports you will have to pay less and have more influence over trades on these ports.
Step 4: Level 40
This should get you to level 40 trade. After this point you will need to do the Spice Trade with some Company mates (protection). Most of the other territories in this game (Scandinavia, South America, East Africa, West Africa, and India) are all pretty volatile and without a fleet you will get ransacked by pirates remorselessly.
TheGameGuru.Me 