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Here my first thoughts about a CI jobber guide as most CI guides base mostly on tips for the nav. Needs some tuning though but as we do a ci tonight and perhaps have people with us who never were to a ci, i thought it's worth posting.
Feel free to criticize:
A Cursed Isles-Tour is definetly different from a pillage, a flotilla or the „big“ sea monster hunts.
As most Cis are done on a sloop the personal performance of each jobber is more important. So you should have one duty puzzle (not gunning or dnav) in which you usually score excellents or incredibles. Given that anyone is good in at least one puzzle at sea the crucial part of a CI is not the usual puzzling but to make reliably thrall tokens (those flower looking things unique to ci).
As there are many good token videos out there just look for them on youtube.
Most CI-Navers only job renowned(sometimes master) and better and also look for at least a seal of trophy. Sometimes they even want a frenetic foraging trophy, too, but that's a trophy you only get at a CI, so if ye weren't on CIs yet, there's no chance to have it and the navers usually know that. As well it is expected from you that you use a sword and a bludgeon, if you don't have one, ask for it before you set sail. Most regular CI-navers have plenty of old bludgeons to give to their jobbers.
So you have been jobbed and are on your way to the CI entry point. You should not leave your station at the entry point, cause if you do you lose your sparkle and have to puzzle some time till you are able to token.
The CI itself:
Once you leave the safezone, you are getting to token. Most important for CI are the thrall tokens. Do as much as you can of those and try to do some other as well. Mostly appreciated are the + (move 2) and the diamonds (turn on the spot), the balls are neglectable and the X (floatsome) are sometimes nice. If you want to concentrate on one token though, take the thralls.
As well you are boarded from rafts. It is crucial for a ci, that you dismiss the challenges as your naver wants to turn the boarders into thralls. As only zombies can be turned into thralls and your naver can't walk the ship each time there's a new boarder, tell him if you were challenged by an EO (Enlightened One) or a Z (zombie with several adjectives). To do so, just press ESC, write the one or two letters and press ESC again to continue puzzling.
If you are boarded by 7 zombies you automatically start a rumbling fray with some lines of damage to both sides. It is important for you to defend your thrall if he is attacked. To defend your thrall just click on his rumble field next to his portrait. If your thrall is not attacked, concentrate your attacks on the enlightened ones first, then on the zombies as all zombies have the same attack pattern and are easily beaten after the eos are down.
If you are knocked out in this fray tell the others to defend your thrall if he is under attack or just to watch him if he isn't. Then leave the fray and continue puzzling.
Sometimes the naver wants people dismiss the fray at the beginning to continue puzzling, so watch the chat if there is a fray.
At the end of a fray dismiss it quickly and enter the forage puzzle manually to get some extra seconds of foraging time.
After reaching the island there is a cycle of rumble-forage-swordfight-forage …
In the first rumble you fight against the number of players zombies and all boarders you still had aboard when reaching the island. In the usual CI that is 7 (full sloop) + x number of boarders.
Each following fray will have one more opponent to fight.
In this fray defend your thrall if it is attacked and watch him regulary, if he isn't attacked from the beginning. If you are not defending then the killing order is EOs first then zombies. As above tell the others to watch or defend your thrall if you are eliminated. Leave when only one or two zombies are alive to get a good head start on foraging. You should never lose a thrall in rumble!
Foraging
Foraging on CIs is not rated the same as it is while foraging fruits or on a treasure dig expedition.
It's only based on time. So your goal is to forage as many chests you can in the time given and not to look for combos. Combos slow you down and don't give any bonus. Your foraging stat is completely unaffected from CI foraging.
Also it is important to be good at this puzzle but all booty of a CI run comes from the boxes you foraged.
To do this it's useful to know what is the fastest way to clear those boxes.
For 1x1 sized boxes it is fastest to use 3 clears of 3 tiles each.
For 2x2 sized boxes it is fastest to use 2 clears of 4 or a clear of 5 and a clear of 3 per column.
For 3x2 sized boxes it is fastest to use 2 clears of 4 or a clear of 5 and a clear of 3 per column.
It is also important to not get stuck, though it is not always possible if chests spawn in ceartain ways.
To prevent getting stuck, look first in which column the chest spawned. If it is on the sides of the puzzle clear it from the outside in. If a 3x2 chest spawned in the middle of the board, clear the middle column first and then the outside column.
If you do get stuck, clear all boxes you can clear as fast as possible and then dismiss the puzzle and reenter it. You will lose too much time if you wait for a quake or a monkey, spade or machete in the necessary column. No naver likes you to score asleep all the time just because you waited for the quake to score your cursed chest. A brisk is always possible even if ye got stuck once or twice.
Swordfight
In Swordfight you fight against cultists and sometimes homunculi (random in 2nd and following SFs. Cultists are good fighters with different colored spears, so it's not predictable where which color will land on your board. As in every swordfighting fray be it on pillages, skellies or atlantis it is crucial to team well. As your thralls only wear sticks it is adviced to team with them (red dots) to add some color variation to their attacks. But most important of course is to team in two and threes, not to solo or build large teams of 4, 5 or even more! As well you need to stall if attacked by three or more opponents.
To the homunculi there are three strategies: Kill them first or kill them last or kill some first and leave one till the end.
They send lots of strikes and sprinkles, but as they are fighting with trees they only send one color to the enemy. This is great if ye get lots of breakers in that color, but bad if they target thralls as they are mostly crushed under the mass of the attacks. You should always kill them if there is a thrall on them as they get more ammunition from him but he won't be able to kill the homunculus by himself.
Usually the commander of the trip tells you how to handle them.
The way out
As the way out only takes about half an segment and you start with black sails/pumps/hammers, you are not needed to token, but to generate your best puzzle output. Your naver needs nothing but moves and sometimes commands one from the other stations to sail, but don't switch stations unless commanded to.
On sails don't go for the big combos right from the start, build a triple or bingo before starting vegases, so you produce moves from the beginning.
In port thank the naver for the sail and wish good luck to the other people aboard for the divy.
Feel free to criticize:
A Cursed Isles-Tour is definetly different from a pillage, a flotilla or the „big“ sea monster hunts.
As most Cis are done on a sloop the personal performance of each jobber is more important. So you should have one duty puzzle (not gunning or dnav) in which you usually score excellents or incredibles. Given that anyone is good in at least one puzzle at sea the crucial part of a CI is not the usual puzzling but to make reliably thrall tokens (those flower looking things unique to ci).
As there are many good token videos out there just look for them on youtube.
Most CI-Navers only job renowned(sometimes master) and better and also look for at least a seal of
So you have been jobbed and are on your way to the CI entry point. You should not leave your station at the entry point, cause if you do you lose your sparkle and have to puzzle some time till you are able to token.
The CI itself:
Once you leave the safezone, you are getting to token. Most important for CI are the thrall tokens. Do as much as you can of those and try to do some other as well. Mostly appreciated are the + (move 2) and the diamonds (turn on the spot), the balls are neglectable and the X (floatsome) are sometimes nice. If you want to concentrate on one token though, take the thralls.
As well you are boarded from rafts. It is crucial for a ci, that you dismiss the challenges as your naver wants to turn the boarders into thralls. As only zombies can be turned into thralls and your naver can't walk the ship each time there's a new boarder, tell him if you were challenged by an EO (Enlightened One) or a Z (zombie with several adjectives). To do so, just press ESC, write the one or two letters and press ESC again to continue puzzling.
If you are boarded by 7 zombies you automatically start a rumbling fray with some lines of damage to both sides. It is important for you to defend your thrall if he is attacked. To defend your thrall just click on his rumble field next to his portrait. If your thrall is not attacked, concentrate your attacks on the enlightened ones first, then on the zombies as all zombies have the same attack pattern and are easily beaten after the eos are down.
If you are knocked out in this fray tell the others to defend your thrall if he is under attack or just to watch him if he isn't. Then leave the fray and continue puzzling.
Sometimes the naver wants people dismiss the fray at the beginning to continue puzzling, so watch the chat if there is a fray.
At the end of a fray dismiss it quickly and enter the forage puzzle manually to get some extra seconds of foraging time.
After reaching the island there is a cycle of rumble-forage-swordfight-forage …
In the first rumble you fight against the number of players zombies and all boarders you still had aboard when reaching the island. In the usual CI that is 7 (full sloop) + x number of boarders.
Each following fray will have one more opponent to fight.
In this fray defend your thrall if it is attacked and watch him regulary, if he isn't attacked from the beginning. If you are not defending then the killing order is EOs first then zombies. As above tell the others to watch or defend your thrall if you are eliminated. Leave when only one or two zombies are alive to get a good head start on foraging. You should never lose a thrall in rumble!
Foraging
Foraging on CIs is not rated the same as it is while foraging fruits or on a treasure dig expedition.
It's only based on time. So your goal is to forage as many chests you can in the time given and not to look for combos. Combos slow you down and don't give any bonus. Your foraging stat is completely unaffected from CI foraging.
Also it is important to be good at this puzzle but all booty of a CI run comes from the boxes you foraged.
To do this it's useful to know what is the fastest way to clear those boxes.
For 1x1 sized boxes it is fastest to use 3 clears of 3 tiles each.
For 2x2 sized boxes it is fastest to use 2 clears of 4 or a clear of 5 and a clear of 3 per column.
For 3x2 sized boxes it is fastest to use 2 clears of 4 or a clear of 5 and a clear of 3 per column.
It is also important to not get stuck, though it is not always possible if chests spawn in ceartain ways.
To prevent getting stuck, look first in which column the chest spawned. If it is on the sides of the puzzle clear it from the outside in. If a 3x2 chest spawned in the middle of the board, clear the middle column first and then the outside column.
If you do get stuck, clear all boxes you can clear as fast as possible and then dismiss the puzzle and reenter it. You will lose too much time if you wait for a quake or a monkey, spade or machete in the necessary column. No naver likes you to score asleep all the time just because you waited for the quake to score your cursed chest. A brisk is always possible even if ye got stuck once or twice.
Swordfight
In Swordfight you fight against cultists and sometimes homunculi (random in 2nd and following SFs. Cultists are good fighters with different colored spears, so it's not predictable where which color will land on your board. As in every swordfighting fray be it on pillages, skellies or atlantis it is crucial to team well. As your thralls only wear sticks it is adviced to team with them (red dots) to add some color variation to their attacks. But most important of course is to team in two and threes, not to solo or build large teams of 4, 5 or even more! As well you need to stall if attacked by three or more opponents.
To the homunculi there are three strategies: Kill them first or kill them last or kill some first and leave one till the end.
They send lots of strikes and sprinkles, but as they are fighting with trees they only send one color to the enemy. This is great if ye get lots of breakers in that color, but bad if they target thralls as they are mostly crushed under the mass of the attacks. You should always kill them if there is a thrall on them as they get more ammunition from him but he won't be able to kill the homunculus by himself.
Usually the commander of the trip tells you how to handle them.
The way out
As the way out only takes about half an segment and you start with black sails/pumps/hammers, you are not needed to token, but to generate your best puzzle output. Your naver needs nothing but moves and sometimes commands one from the other stations to sail, but don't switch stations unless commanded to.
On sails don't go for the big combos right from the start, build a triple or bingo before starting vegases, so you produce moves from the beginning.
In port thank the naver for the sail and wish good luck to the other people aboard for the divy.
Last edited by Locu on Sat Jun 18, 2011 5:56 pm; edited 1 time in total
