I think it makes the most sense to start here with quality of life tips,
tip 1: EXP in town, when you are in town sometimes you will notice a fortune teller it behooves you to talk to her each and every time you see her in a new port and ask for the fortune, if you give her 5000 peso's she will give you EXP in every category of your personal skills, you may also spam talk to her after that in an attempt to buy arsenic if you have trustworthy perk it works 100% of the time, arsenic is a useful amulet used to keep rats off your or your companion if you give it to them and in crafting recipes. There is also the homeless man who asks for money if you give him money (1000-10000 pesos) he will give you luck and leadership EXP depending on your monetary contributions.

tip 2: fast travel in town you can quickly jump to different buildings in town by using the number pad numbers the locations are as follows 1: port 2: store 3: ship yard 4: tavern 5: governor 6: bank 7: church 8: Brothel 9: port office 0: prison

tip 3: most stores open at 6 am street vendors open at 7 am and you can recruit from the tavern at 9 am most stores close at 9 pm street vendors close at 8 pm unless you are in the same instance and if you want to sneak into town the best time is 00:00 any time after midnight really but before 4 am

tip 4: hats! the Dutch hat is BY FAR the best hat in the game the trade deal you get is trivial however the national reputation gain you get in port is so substantial you do not even need to quest just go about trading and you will max out your reputation with each nation you frequent.
when you are looking for treasure it is best to swap off the Dutch hat for the lucky hat and when you are about to be engaged in heavy ship combat or heavy ship activity then you want to switch to the naval Tricon

tip 5: it appears to me the only way to get 48 and 36 pound cannons or 36 pound culverins (which use 48 pound slots) is by taking over forts which is easy enough to do if u save scum the gold fleet or port invasions before combat enough times to get a class 1 battleship with the capacity to hold said caliber guns. I will not cover anything related to forts in this guide as other guides have pretty much summed it up

tip 6: never never NEVER sell strategic goods IE ironwood, ship silk, resin or ropes. put them in a warehouse, you will need around 450 of a good to preform a ship upgrade you will also need 5-10 chests of gold doubloons when you get a ship upgrade it drastically upgrades your ships parameters and if you upgrade your whole ship you get a 5% speed bonus on the global map when you run a fleet like this you are truly a scourge of the sea! (I can straight up outrun bounty hunters and gentleman of fortune without map hopping. not kidding)

tip 7: killing the gold fleet for a class 1 ship (no loot) when you find the gold fleet on the map you can heard it to Blueweld Belize or port royal if you are fast enough. its best to save before u heard and after u get there but before combat. next up u want a fully loaded class 2 ship and 1 companion ship you are fine with losing and can take a hit (bait ship). next u want to volley grape shot at the class 1 ship until you think you can win the boarding fight. once the fight is over and u have your new class 1 ship I usually check to see if it can hold 48lb guns or I load the state before combat with the gold fleet which is why a hard save there is important then comes the hard part the get away! what you do is send your bait ship into combat use your old ship with a new captain and send it into combat and after that you sail the heck out of there and if it is done right they will buy you enough time to escape combat thus getting the achievement by stealing 1 big ship and running! (afterthought note) it is also important to take into consideration the wind direction before you go into battle!

tip 8: you always want navigation equipment on such as a boussole and a spyglass you also want your companions to have them it allows you to fast travel further distances.

tip 9: you want all your officers to be equipped with adder stones and amulets that help them with their craft you can do this by vanguard swapping them in your cabin

tip 10: always buy what the individual native has to sell its normally pearls silver and gold pieces all really good for crafting at good prices. you also want to pick the friendly option with any band of natives you encounter as the relationship builds over time and you will have a much easier time with them if your reputation is good. you can also avoid combat with most bands of natives my putting away your weapon and running away to the next screen to avoid reputational damage you have to kill the ones guarding treasure but that is fine if you are nice to the rest

tip 11: the power of the fire arm..... they kill almost everyone in a city siege with the right fire arm with the right ammunition's you hardly even need a crew. I will cover the firearms that truly level people in the treasure rewards section of my guide

Here I have enclosed pictures that contain the maximum sum that you can deposit for interest with each respective banker the highest being Willemstad at 11 million pesos and the lowest being Capsterville at 4 million pesos interest is maxed at 6% for pesos and 4% for doubloons. your reputation and leadership skill effect your interest rate so sometimes that monkeys fist amulet will help you to get that extra percentage point. I will update the pictures as I get ahold of a comprehensive doubloon list however I have yet to max out Willemstad yet so it will be some time lol

I will categorize the different junks you find in the game vendors and give a description on their usefulness and how often you should buy them

Purchased from the fortune teller merchant:

enchanted bone: always buy this is a super rare item used in a useful talisman ghoul

bat wing: very rare item buy in tandem with enchanted bone

tortoiseshell comb: super common not very useful stock about 100 and you will have all you need forever

jaguar claw: common again you only need a few hundred of these but they are used in arguably the best companion amulet in the game son of jaguar

Hercules beetle: common need about 30 lol used in a talisman can be totally ignored

tattoo dye: not sure of its use but it seems rare (I have yet to acquire all recipes)

Purchased from the Monk Merchant:
Candle: common super important for custom munitions such as nail shrapnel and grenade. it is good to stock hundreds of these

purchased from the Junk Merchant

Nail: common always buy used in nail shrapnel the single most devastating munition when attached to a riot shotgun

Whip: uncommon used in talisman to stop munity

Belt: rare always buy used in most useful vanguard talisman "iron belly"
deck of cards:

Deck of cards: rare used in joker talisman having a few never hurt no need to go overboard

boatswain pipe: used in a boatswain related talisman stocking some of these never hurt cannons are good

Copper ewer: common used in munitions such as grenade and flashbang petard you want to also stock hundreds of these if you enjoy the grenade launcher which seems pretty legit

Cord: uncommon always buy needed for grenade and other crafting recipes really the bottle neck for grenade production

Candle: already covered

Lute: Super rare used in 1 talisman minstrel does not hurt to have 2 or 3 of them in your ship storage

slave manacles: uncommon used in 1 talisman myrmidon does not hurt to have 20-30 or so in your storage

tobacco (vendor type not merchant): always buy used in talisman recipes and magna Rosa potions

old mug: uncommon used in talisman throat of cast iron you need like 3-4 for the story and never again

old shoe: used in talisman Strong man super useful collect them from floating barrels along with beetle and comb no need to buy

Purchased from the weapon vendor

Gunpowder: very common you want to stock about 10k always buy

lead ball: very common used in paper cartage nail shrapnel and grenades always buy u want as many as you can get always buy as this can be a very big bottle neck once you start producing superior ammunition seeing as a shrapnel needs 6 and a grenade needs 15

grape shot: very useful until you make the shrapnel upgrade I would stock about 2000 buy sometimes

slave manacle: already covered

harpoon: always buy used in best vanguard ammo in my opinion the arrow bolt fired from a blunderbuss it seems to level whoever is in front of it

ship compass: always buy you want to have like 10 boussole for you and your crew so you really only need 10 or so

astrolabe: same as compass

purchased from the potion lady

healing potion: very common you want a large stockpile of these for you and your vanguard and for elixir production I like to stock about 500

any herb sold: always buy always, enough said.

empty vial: common always buy used to turn HP potions into elixir used to make antidote and
mixtures along with other uses

ginger root: uncommon worth having a small stockpile
rum: rare used in some crafting recipes and can be resold at lighthouse for winning very early game profit

wine: rare used to craft, good restorative on its own seeing as it can heal 150 the same as an elixir

purchased from the banker (non street vendor):
you basically want every gem under the sun so you want to store them on your ship rather then sell them but i will identify the ones worth collecting here that you are unlikely to come across on your adventures i will not bother to mention the rest

Doubloon: very common always buy until you have 2000 coming to you on a interest basis seeing as you need 940ish for a 180 trade license and 700 to pull you out of the cooker with a nation

empty chest: always buy, filled chests are used as a currency to upgrade your ship (trust me you need a lot)

Blue amber: very rare most useful used in everything almost never sell always buy

meteorite: very rare always buy used in ghoul talisman

coral: rare buy if you like the talisman widowmaker which doubles boarding training speed

jacinth: rare always buy used in son of jaguar and myrmidon very useful talisman

jade: very rare always buy used in most useful vanguard talisman iron belly

chrysoprase: rare always buy used in overweight talisman strong man

fire opal: buy if u like son of fire talisman

In this section I will cover tips to treasure hunting and in the next section i will include screen shots of different unique gear I got strictly through treasure hunting and trading.
so to start you need a treasure map.... so how do we get one?
well what we do my friend is quick save out side a tavern with f6 why f6 and not f5 who knows but f6. once saved you want to proceed inside where you will look for the smuggler every now and then a second smuggler will spawn with a bubble above his head this is who you want, if you have not found him hit the f9 key to load rinse and repeat.
I have seen maps cost anywhere from 95-425 doubloons anyways you always want to buy it however before you purchase the map you want to equip your lucky hat and your turtle shell amulet for luck because the maps loot content is effected by how many treasure notes u have found and your luck skill and also if you have the accountant perk. with that out of the way we have now bought a map and are ready to treasure hunt follow the poorly written clues and off you go. if you get totally stumped by a map you can just reload and buy a different map however you can not have more then 1 maps at one time. once you have found enough treasures you will have collected 2 pieces of a treasure map again time to save! before you equip the piece of the map to combine it you want to hard save as you can save scum for a idea treasure location. congratulations you have just gotten your first tier 2 treasure assuming u did not get ultra lucky and get a t2 without the pieces. how you can identify if a regular treasure map is a t2 is by its description if a bloody pirate owned the treasure or beautiful sea monsters outline the boarder and clearly something valuable is there you are in, you have found a t2 treasure map without combining pieces. I find a combination of treasure hunting and trading between locations while treasure hunting to be the absolute most lucrative system in the game I will outline the trading part in the moneymaking section next up is a list of gear I acquired through treasure hunting I will enclose screen shots of some of the more notable gear I found while treasure hunting

below I will include screen shots of some of the more notable gear I found while opening treasure maps I did not know some of this stuff was even in the game until I found it in the good olé chest

I will start by showing some armor pieces













Next I will put in notable firearms anything better than your standard 2 shot pistol basically.
the Drum shotgun loaded with shrapnel seems to be the best firearm in the game bar none and I think that the 5 shot +1 authority pistol is the best personal firearm because it fires paper cartridge's rather than the revolver cartridge however for vanguards I appreciate the blunderbuss loaded with arrow bolts. the best firearm in the game if you do not have the Skirmisher perk is the abomination doing 5-350 dmg and giving +20 to the heavy weapon skill however it does weigh 30 lbs. lol...


and finally you get so many good weapons from treasure boxes I will only outline the unique ones you may receive I added the highland backsword because it can actually roll better than the vulture the unique heavy weapon

if you made it this far thank you, if you are here just for this I do not blame you,
okay so you start a brand new game now what? well now its time to make money!
the first thing you want to do is head on over to the trader you start in St Perrier so you should buy up that green coffee green is the color you want to buy items from and gold is ideally the color you sell to.
now that our hold is full of coffee we are going to head to our main port and central trade hub for most of the game Willemstad. Willemstad will buy almost all goods at very good prices so it is where you want to offload most of the time although port royal offers decant prices on most things so depending on where you are and where you are going it may act as a good substitute other notable ports include Havana which will buy ebony and mahogany at the best prices in the game and Tortuga which will buy wine and ale at the best prices in the game.

now that you have sold your load of coffee at Willemstad its time to head back to St Perrier to buy more coffee and might as well buy coffee from the pirate port there. this is the initial trade run you will do until you feel the store getting light on coffee than your next stop is St John to buy paprika do this basic run between Willemstad, St Perrier and Willemstad St john until you have enough money to buy some doubloons about 940 to buy a 180 day trading licenses from the Dutch at Willemstad's yellow big building. you also want to buy a companion ship that has a lot of dead weight. once you have done this just trade between the nearby Spanish ports and Willemstad it should take just over an hour IRL time to gain a few million and 100% trade skill now u can invest a few million in Willemstad (your real money maker) and start going treasure hunting picking up goods in the cities you need to go to and selling to Willemstad. just like that you are a tycoon of the Caribbean enjoy ;)