WORLD DOMINATION
What is World Domination? Simply put, it is the military, economic and political subjugation of as many ordinary folks as possible. Since the highest social rank you or I could achieve in Uncharted Waters: New Horizons is the level of Duke, for us to truly dominate the world we must sadly let our monarch take all the credit while we become the real power behind the throne, an Uberduke, the Kingmaker.
World Domination is possible through two methods: The Easy Way and The Hard Way. And even the Easy Way is still pretty hard. Because I’m a pirate, I’ll tell you the Hard Way here, and I’ll tell you The Easy Way if you send me five bucks. Just Kidding….
As mentioned on my main page, these results were achieved on the Sega Genesis machine, without using any cheats, except for the trick where you take your very first 1,000 gold pieces to the Round Earthers and give 10% of your cash away ten times. They say that this increases your luck, but I’m not sure if it’s not just another superstition. Just in case, I do it anyway.
This method to world domination works best with Ernst the Cartographer, or Ali the Trader as your character. The other scenarios all chase you around and hound you until you finish the game. How would you like someone to tell you how to get to Atlantis? Sounds cool, but what if they told you three thousand times? Not so cool anymore.
Otto will work with this method as well, but as Otto, you have the serious disadvantage of not being able to go to your own capital in the later stages of the game (doing so would end the scenario). If you choose Ali, money is the name of the game. You must earn and invest large amounts of money to rise to the rank of Duke, and this also speeds up your quest. The drawback to dominating the world with Ali is that to get the AI to stop nagging you about your mission you must go to the banker in Venice and ask about buying the orphanage. The banker will ask for 5 to 10 million more than you have, whether you have 1 million g.p. in cash or 100 million g.p. From then on, though, you must keep your cash on hand lower than the asking price for the orphanage, or else the AI begins the nagging again.
Also, when playing Ali, you run the risk of not being able to go to your home in Istanbul if you hit the wrong button late in the game. With not a single doubtful plank in my fleet, I recommend playing Ernst the Cartographer if you want to dominate the Earth and have fun doing it. While all the characters start out with different stats, suited to their scenarios, Ernst starts the game as generally good at everything, and he’s a fast learner. His scenario is easy to complete, the tasks Ernst must perform to become a Duke are going to help his stats in just the way you need, and once he has completed a World Map, his scenario leaves him alone, provided Ernst never goes to Chang-An in the Far East (and thus wins the game). Chang-An is a good place to be able to visit, so that is a drawback to playing as Ernst. Not a crippling drawback, though.
Near the beginning of the game, when you have 600 gp to spare, go to a guildhall and ask for information about the incomes of the six European empires. The important number is at the top left, the empire’s monthly income. This info is free from the various Kings themselves, but things may change before you can visit all 6 capitals, and of course, some Kings may not like you very much as the game progresses. The monthly income is an indicator of how many of the world’s 100 cities are allied with that empire, and the economic strength of those cities. But it is much more than that…
The six Kings, contrary to their appearances, don’t just sit on their thrones all day sipping wine and pestering the dancing girls. They give their fortunes away to merchant fleets and send them around the world to invest, adding cities to their empire and strengthening the ones they already own. In short, you gotta spend the cash to raise your income. The income rating of an empire is the key to how much their merchant fleets can invest in a port, how large the fleets themselves are, and what kind of ships they contain. The size of an empire’s monthly income also determines how far from home their merchants will travel, and how strong their battle fleets will be.
After you complete Ernst’s scenario (without going to Chang-An), the game’s AI will leave you alone to wreak havoc on a global scale, and remember that the measure of domination can be gauged by your country’s income, compared to that of your rivals. If you succeed, your empire –ahem, your King’s empire— will have more than a hundred-to-one ratio over the other five empires combined.
The other drawback to playing as Ernst is that Ernst must wait to discover Japan, by the storyline of his scenario, which prevents him from using the Six Month Money Machine until later on. Also, you cannot get your hands on the Tekkhousens they sell in Japan until late in your scenario, so you’ll be better off relying on La Reales to complete your quests. Luckily, the large and incredibly swift La Reale is the perfect boat for Ernst (besides the Tekkhousen, which is the perfect boat, period.) It is faster than a goat through a suet-soaked phone book and it converts easily between warship and trading ship. Ernst and four good mateys should be able to acquire 5 La Reales by investing in Bordeaux, Nantes or any Baltic Sea port.
I do not recommend hiring more than 4 mateys before the scenario tells you where Chang-An is. You can only have a staff of 30 mateys, and the longer you play, the better the vagabond sailors you meet will become. I suspect that the game uses Simon Sekeira and others like him to gauge the level of mateys who are offered to you for hire in Europe. Besides, the captains of the fleets you conquer can often be found for hire, and you want to hire them if you can, for the navigators employed by your rival empires are often skillful and lucky.
When you can buy Tekkhousens, do so. Outfit them for 200 crew and 100 guns, and equip them with Carronades, available with luck in 1000-level ports. Buy your Teks new, and as strong as you can get them. Five well-equipped Tekkhousens can kick any booty on the sea. With this mighty war fleet, you must now attack any vessel you see, except those of your chosen empire. It may be useful at this point for Ernst to defect to a stronger nation than Holland – Portugal and Turkey are both easier to promote worldwide.
To find out which ships you should be attacking, cultivate the waitresses throughout the world. This is easy to sustain, because every fleet you kill off gives you an item that drives waitresses wild. I don’t know if it’s coincidence or a programmer’s trick, but the waitresses seem to respond better to a captured item than a store-bought one. I believe that every waitress in New Horizons has her price, but I confess that there are two whom I have never charmed.
Even though Ernst starts with such low courage and seamanship skills, don’t be afraid of combat because the Tek is almost unbeatable at sea. I once took out 8 Flemish Galleons with three Teks. Six months after discovering Nagasaki and Sakai (and investing them both up to 1000/1000), you should be a Duke with 10 Tekkhousens and pretty good luck from donations to the Round Earthers. The rest is a matter of work.
Your money worries will be gone forever, because 10 Teks can earn 10 million gold pieces a month. Ten Teks can win 100 sea battles for you (the key is to switch flagships every few months and buy one new boat every year). The nearest guildhall will tell you which empires are your main rivals, so attack their fleets first. Waitresses will rat them out to you, giving their strengths and destinations. Take care to sink the enemy’s flagship by Carronade fire rather than by dueling the captain. This way, your foe will show up for hire somewhere, where you should hire him immediately. Remember that former captains who become employable mates are often of higher quality than vagabonds, and hiring him will force his empire to build their next fleet with a less-experienced captain. When the empire builds a new fleet to replace the one you whacked, it will be smaller in size, with smaller boats. Every country tries to have 4 merchant fleets active, but most cannot afford that. If you keep hiring their best sailors, eventually, your rivals will have to scrape the bottom of the commodore barrel.
After a year of chasing down rival fleets, do the Mogadishu-Nagasaki (gold-silver) trade route to get the money you’ll need to take over the world. As you claim alliances by investing in cities, especially those in the Mediterranean and Europe, the economic power of your nation will grow, while the power of the other empires shrinks. The speed of the Tekkhousen allows you to invest and maintain your control over ports faster than your rivals can chip away at your cities. The power of the Tekkhousen allows you to speed up your conquest by violence. You should be able to get control over the cities of Europe in a few months, if you are fast and vicious.
This will dramatically alter the world economy. Not only will your empire’s income grow beyond a couple thousand, but also the actions of the other empires to slow you down will be pitiful. Remember that your nation also runs 4 merchant fleets, which are essentially working for you. They scurry around the world shoring up your investments, helping you to maintain your – err, your King’s - empire. Since your King will have many times the investing power of the other nations, your “henchman” merchant fleets will have more impact in the ports they visit. A city at 1000/1000 is far more difficult for an enemy fleet to invest away from you, and they will have less money to do it. This vicious cycle is the key to keeping the other European powers on their knees while you seal their fates. If you maintain control over Europe and the Mediterranean, your enemies' own merchant fleets will be concerned more with reclaiming Europe than with disrupting your efforts in Asia or America. This gives you more leisure time to make the roounds, investing ports to full strength.
Now it’s time to get medieval on their asses, economically speaking. Pour cash down the gullets of the developing economies of Africa, Asia and the New World. As always, hammer all enemy fleets, making every other nation hate you. But with 5 Tekkhousens, who cares? Bring 'em on! While investing, you should settle into a rhythm which has you in Europe every 18 months to renew your tax-free permit and shore up the cities you own. Spend the bulk of your time investing cities around the world up to 1000/1000, while taking side trips to wring the gold-silver markets in Europe, Africa and Asia for incredible profits. If you run low on gold, check out my patented Six Month Money Machine cycle on the Trade Routes page, which can net you 120,000,000 gold pieces a year.
It should take a few years to do, but you should end up with all of Africa and Asia invested up to 1000/1000, control of Europe, and a hundred million gold on hand. It would be wise to take every third or fourth six-month cycle to shore up investments in Europe and generally kick butt and keep things in hand. Once every couple years, take time out to go around the Americas to claim them for your King and bust up any trade rings your rivals may have set up there. Slowly, your empire’s monthly income will balloon to 40,000, while those of your rivals will shrink to around 200. Your 4 allied merchants will be as deadly as warships through sheer monetary clout, preventing the resurrection of any other empire. For fun, try knocking off one of your henchfleets. Your King will rebuild it lavishly, as much as a glory to himself as a tribute to your leadership. Eventually, in 6 to 8 years, you should own over 90 1000/1000 cities. I mean your King will own them. Remember him?
You can now retire to a sunny coastal town and direct the world’s traffic of goods and arms via whispers in your King’s ear. Every few years, take eight months to reinvest and kick some more butt, lest your subjects – ahem, your King’s subjects — don’t forget who you are. You may sleep your nights away in the Inn and gamble every day in the Café, quietly running a global empire from your villa outside town. That’s Domination.
The easy way to World Domination is simpler, almost cheating, but takes quite a bit more time in game years and in playing time (millions of button clicks).
Simply make money. Lots and lots of money. You can control over 685,000,000 gold pieces in assets. Do so.
Don’t bother with combat; it takes time away from trading. Finish Ernst’s scenario, without going to Chang-An, and get up to 10 Tekkhousens or Frigates. Full-Riggers are nice and big, but they’re slower and can’t keep up with the Six Month Money Machine. In the long run, the speed of a Frigate or Tek earns more than the bulk of a Full-Rigged. Go from Home to Mogadishu to Nagasaki to Mogadishu to Nagasaki to Mogadishu to Lubeck to Home. At this point, Home may still be Amsterdam, or you might have chosen to defect to Portugal or Turkey by this time. Both are easier to promote worldwide, because they both tend to send their maerchant fleets further afield, which helps you maintain the cities you need on the 6 Month Money Machine.
After a few years of steady cash hounding, when your personal fortune is in the hundreds of millions, check at a Guild Hall for the incomes of the various empires. Your empire’s monthly income will have shot up to an astounding half billion gold pieces, instead of tens of thousands, turning your King’s other 4 merchant fleets into hammers of prosperity. You can just sit back and let them do the work for you, although this will take decades, believe me. It seems that your vast personal fortune has become entwined with the well being of the world, ensuring that the other empires will mathematically need hundreds of thousands of years to break your stranglehold on the Earth. Le etat c’est moi.
That’s Domination, and it’s easier, but it’s monotonous. I suppose you could spend the lonely decades on a quest for every waitress in the world, or assembling an all-star crew and maxing out all their abilities. Still, it’s nice to know that you can take over the world with a combat level of 1/0000.
Game Domination is different from World Domination. To win a scenario in the manner you choose is one of UW:NH's best features, and makes it great to play over again. There are many different ways of winning the world, from scenario time-trials to economic domination, to dying of old age. But winning a game means finding its limits, and answering the what-if's. How much money are all 50 discoveries worth, and does that amount change with the distribution of villages in each new scenario? I've cashed over 40 discoveries in at once, but never all 50.
If you're pursuing some strange strategy, and have time on your hands, there are tons of questions that still remain about the game. You might wish to help the UW:NH community by trying to answer some of the mysteries that still abound.
For instance, when Ali asks the price of the orphanage, it is always more than he has.
What happens if Ali already has the maximum amount of GP when he asks?
Is the game broken at that point, so that Ali can have decades of nag-free gameplay?
Nobody knows.
Are there 99 separate villages, or 100?
I've gotten 50 in a single game, when everyone else says that you can only get 49, so are there 100?
There are 100 cities, so it would make sense if there were 100 villages.
Another enduring question is the SouthEast Asia Problem.
I have not been able to find a route that hits all 8 SE Asian cities in one month, though I've tried with the fastest boats and best crew money could buy.
Since all of those ports start out pitifully poor, it takes five investments to bring them up to 1000/1000 in Industry/Economy.
If you have to leave one out every month, then it takes 10 months to complete your control of the region, instead of five.
But since my best tries have come very close to hitting all 8 in one month, I can't help feeling that there has got to be a way to do it.
And what about the waitresses? Is there some easter egg hidden until you charm all of them? The ones that give me trouble are Titis in Banda, Rukia in Malacca, Salma in Mecca (who is the only waitress in the Middle east), Mathilde in Marseilles, and Francesca in Venice. Onatsu in Nagasaki is the only waitress in the Far East, and Shani in Sofala is the only one in East Africa. I have not been able to charm all of them at once, and I wonder if it is possible.
And a grand mystery of UW:NH is how many sailors does each empire have? I have played a game where I tried to concentrate on only hiring sailors from Spain. I had 26 Spaniards on my crew of 30, and Spain was still able to produce captains for their fleets. Of course, I was very rich by this time, and Spain could only afford to float three fleets. But the question has always bugged me: what is the limit of the number of sailors an empire can produce? I suspect that it's 30, because your staff can only be 30 mateys. Someday, I'll play a game where I strictly only hire one nation's sailors, then see if they can produce more than one new fleet when I own 29 of their captains. Someday.