Tips and Tricks
by Lim Kheng Chye
source from gamefaq
Introduction for Lil Pirates, v1.0
===================================
This guide is meant for beginners or players whom have a life. If you are
looking towards power levelling, glitches, using real money to purchase in
game currency to level then this guide is not for you. If you are looking
towards catching up to your friends whom have started earlier, there are
some strategies found within that might be useful. Above all, dedication
is the only sole criteria to advance and stay with the game. With that,
lets proceed to the basics. This piece of work are information shared by
some of the more advanced players in the game and by no means my own work
alone.
Understanding the nature of the game
=====================================
The game is a time management game, much alike the successful "Farmville"
or "We rule", but unlike those games, there is no management of estates,
only resources. There are no farms to harvest from or shops to build. The
game is based solely on completing jobs/quests which returns silver (the
currency used in game, which is free), exp (FP or fame points) or treasure
(to be sold). Jobs never give gold (doubloons, which is the currency bought
with real money).
Virtually everything essential for levelling can be bought using in-game
currency (silver) and not using real currency (gold), using Euro, USD, SGD
or whatever kind of currency your country trades in. The best things in life
are free does apply to this game.
Secondly, the game is fairly generous with how a player can accumulate gold,
all without spending a single cent, which will be explained later.
Thirdly, the experience curve increases steeply at around level 20+, the
same strategies used involving gold may not work at higher levels unless you
are willing to pay real money for, or have a few hundred of friends.
Lastly, you are better off sending your hard earned cash to me. Bank account
to be provided later. However i urge anyone to spend real money simply to
support the company developing this game, as it has done a good job.
Mechanics of the game
======================
Most of the mechanics are explained in the tutorials. Most of the stuff you
would need to know are explained by the "i" in the upper right corner or
the help button.
Map, Overview :
The game is broken up into different areas, which opens up as you level. On
the overview, you would see 12 sectors which only one is avaliable to you.
As you level up and send more crew to different areas, a number on the lower
right would appear to signify how many crew members are assigned to that area.
Map, Home view :
By tapping on any square, you enter to what i term the home view. You would
see either a lock to signify the particular job is not avaliable until you
reach the same level, or a number, expressed in seconds, minutes or days
(s/m/d).
On the upper Left corner are your objectives. The treasure view is located on
the bottom left corner. Tapping the bottom right corner goes to ship view.
Occasionaly a floating head will appear at FIXED spots in the homeview. Tap
it, help out and gain exp/silver at no cost.
Ship view :
Here is where you can access your gifts, crew whom have returned from their
jobs, shop, adding of friends and crew. You will be spending a lot of time
here.
Jobs :
Jobs should be your main source of exp initially. Exp differs as the
time-to-Completion (TTC) ratio is different. Each job has its own TTC and
these are all based on real time, thus choosing a job that has a TTC of 3d
means you are able to collect your spoils 3 days later.
Jobs are also the main source of silver. As each jobs varies in terms of
silver and exp, you would have to consider 2 factors before attempting any
jobs.
1) TTC. If you are going on a holiday, choose a longer job. If you are
working, choose a job that has a TTC that will fit into you next free period
(lunch). Always choose a TTC that suits your own lifestyle above everything
else. It not only relive yourself the burden of waking up at wee hours of the
night to get your spoils, it also save yourself time. As once the TTC is
reached, any extra time is wasted as your crew is not doing anything else.
2) Common demominator. By comparing a job that takes 1h versus a 3h job, is
the spoils better or worst off? What are you after? exp or silver? By
multiplying the 1h job by a factor of 3, you would be able to see if the
difference is worth it. Usually shorter jobs have better spoils, offset by
longer time spent in managing your crew and on the game obviously. Always
perform the job that gives the best mix of silver/exp comparing to other jobs
avaliable at your level. As you level, other jobs with varying mix of TTC or
even similiar TTC with better spoils are made avaliable to you, again compare
before sending your crew to jobs.
Crew :
Crew are people you hired to perform jobs. Each crew has a specific type of
job he/she prefers. Hiring crew using facebook account (give them a name that
matches your facebook friends), letting the computer assign a generic name or
using a captain (your in game friends) makes no differnce to the abilities of
the crew.
Each job has a specific nature, be it defending or plundering. They are
represented in the upper left corner whenever you tap on a job.Tapping a crew
sends that crew to the job, which changes the logo of the crew to a raft. By
matching the nature of the job with a crew with the same interest (same logo),
one would get a nominal bonus when the crew returns from his assigned job.
Downtime :
Each crew, upon returning from his assigned job, will be in downtime status.
This status cannot be removed with the passing of time. Only a successful win
of a mini-game or using beer would remove downtime to allow reassignment of
jobs.
Gifts :
The major part of the time spent would be here. There are three types of
gifts. Free gifts, which you are allowed to send to all your friends, at a 8h
interval. You cannot chose what type of gift to send, nor exclude any
particular friend. Always remember to send gifts and not be stingy. These type
of gifts can be expired upon X hours, lets say 24 if not collected, otherwise
it always result in the gift being claimed and it goes to your treasure list.
A loss of connection at any point in time while claiming it will automatically
result in an expired message. Job surpluses are gifts that are shared by your
friends when their crew returns from jobs. These are VERY limited in nature,
say 10 crew allows you only 1 chance to share the extra loot, and the extra
loot are also VERY limited. Lets say Friend A decide to share his loot, at no
cost to him, a gift will appear on every of his friend list, this gift cannot
be chosen by Friend A as it is determined by the mission and he can only choose
to share or not share it. A fixed number of this item is allocated at the
central server, say 3. Upon the third person claiming the gift, anyone else
trying to claim it will result in a "already claimed" message. This has been
the bane of many players but it has been somewhat fixed recently. However its
not a compete fix, but the update has been substantial. The third and most
imporant gifts are level bonus chests, which should always be sent to everyone
on your friend list upon your level up. It WILL be your
main source of gaining experience by opening these chests. Pick the left most
(smallest chest) for a better chance to claim gold, the other two chests are
somewhat skewed towards silver and exp.
Treasure view :
Click the "I" button for a very detailed view of how the burying of treasure
works. The only highlight is that your accumulated treasures, are found by
tapping the lower left corner. All treasures from from jobs, gifts, loot
claims, digging up other's loot or own loot is found here. Currently do NOT
attempt to sell items using the "sell all" function, you will sell the whole
stack of items which will give you the silver of only ONE item, i.e it does
not work. You might want to hold on until the function is fixed at the next
update.
Strategy :
==========
Early game :
Perform as many 2m jobs as you can until the 2h jobs opens up. Play mini
gamesuntil you get a bucketload of beer as reserve. While you are at it,
gather as many email address from forums that has a buddy adding thread for
this game and invite those players. Spread your email in these forums to make
people add you instead of spending time adding them. Complete as many short
terms objectives as possible, they give substantial amount of exp/silver at
this point in time. Add as many LOW level people as possible, as it is harder
to level at higher levels thus lesser bonus chests from these higher level
players.
Mid game :
You would have reached level 10 by now. Your main source of exp would be
spending silver. In order to get lots of silver, you would need to utilize
all the methods discussed in the faq to earn free silver, but ultimately it
should come from level up chests from your friends. CONTINUE adding friends
like no tomorrow. Each x amount of silver spend usually gives x/5 amount of
exp in return. Use your silver to boost your levels, just remember to boost
your ship size and max out your cannons as fighting battles are a steady and
sure source of good exp/silver every 2h. At this point in time, you would have
realized that levelling up via jobs is a very slow way to gain experience.
The majority of your exp gains should come from bonuses chests and having 500
friends will give you around 200+ bonus chests every day. I still advise
picking the smallest chest for gold.
Late game :
You are now in your 20s. This is the twilight levels. From here henceforth
to level 50, the exp requirements are visibly higher and you won't be leveling
up at the usual pace. Be the number here is your age or level (a 20 year old or
a level 20 guy), its time to alter the way things are working till now and get
a life. Remember all the gold saved? Its time to spend the gold on quick finish
of jobs. Remember higher level jobs might open up and these have the same TTC as
previous jobs? By leveling fast through this method you might just unlock
another
job with the same TTC as your current favourite job which gives better returns.
By now you should be winning most of your ship battles. However the level 28
battle is one of which has a slight challenge factor. Most players think that
having more cannons results in an automatic win and it has worked that way in
the
past. From now onwards, having even the maximum sized ship might not gurantee
winning. Usage of smokescreens and repair kits are advised. Upgrade your ship to
the 3rd last upgrade, a "Nao" if i am not wrong. The 2nd last upgrade don't add
any cannons, the last upgrade adds only 2 cannons, which is of insignificant use
at the cost of 60 gold. Better off spending it elsewhere. Do not even consider
buying them using silver, as the cost of buying it using silver is too high. You
should be getting around 40 gold daily with the hundreds of friends you have so
feel free to spend them as you deem fit. I always keep at least
100 gold in view of new themes, items that i want. CONTINUE adding friends. This
is also the period where leveling is so slow and many players are exhausted and
give up playing the game.
Tips & tricks
==============
1) Hire and fire
Its very important to have a favourite job that fits your lifestyle. You will
be forced to decide on the newly opened up 30m mission as opposed to your
comfortable 6h job. If you decided on 6h, make sure all your crew preferred job
(as indicated by the logo when you are about to send them off) matches the job.
This will result in additional silver in the range of a hundred or so, it will
add up over time. It cost nothing to fire a crew and rehire one, so keep at it
until you get an entire crew having the same preferred job.
2) Helping out
There are several ways to help friends. Not digging up their treasure is one
but i don't recommend it. If you don't dig someone else would. Scurbbing their
deck uses up time, doesn't benefit them and the returns is small. Always help a
floating head in the home view. It will accumulate silver for the person you
have helped and returns a token sum of silver/exp to you. How it works is
whenever your crew returns from a job, notice that sometimes a statement "X
helped you on the job and you get 100-10000 silver". The amount varies because
everyone whom helped you after Friend X adds a token sum to the bonus, but the
system only tracks the first person whom helped you. On a 6h job, my additional
silver easily range from 10k to 17k, beating all the bonuses, titles, and every
crew member combined.
3) Assignment of titles and adding new friends
Always add new friends ASAP. Sometimes these are new players and they might
very well give you a title which give bonuses as long as you hold the title.
Each bonus DOES NOT stack but can be repeated. Example, you have been given
a title that adds exp on every job mission. Having one friend giving you the
title might result in the bonus activating once out of your 10 crew member.
Having 10 friends giving you the same title allows you the chance of activating
it for every crew member, it does not mean you have a chance of receiving 10
times the bonus for every crew however.
4) Calculate silver w.r.t gold on returns
Some silver are better spent buying items which returns you FP. Silver, is a
bad choice to use when buying ship upgrades at large ship upgrades. Always
calculate do you get more from using gold on a quick job or buying a particular
item. The market rate of gold to silver exchange is 2000 silver for 1 gold.
Use it as the bench mark for all your calculation.
5) use a simple account for others to add!
Having a cool email address such as mine allows people to add you easily.
Having a cool (to you) email address such as coolnakedboi_73614@coldmail.com,
or chautaeu_foramosa_demon@cc.com may turn off alot of potential players but
it might attract a few outcasts.
6) treasure retrieval and digging - sync timing
Always bury the SAME level of treasure. There are 4 initial levels to bury
and the last level cannot be buried. By burying a level 3 treasure and a
level 4 treasure, your TTC for these treasure is different, thus allowing more
potential of losing them. By burying the same level of treasure no matter the
kind, you can sync the dig up timing with the dig up timing of your friends.
Everyone has a fixed dig up timing, that they can steal from their friends.
By not allowing the timing on your account to slip too many hours, leaving
only lousy treasures, always choose to dig at the earliest moment the "X"
appears on your island to gurantee almost 3 top grade treasures.
7) Filling up ships with barrels
Wonder why some ships are full of barrels and boxes? By limiting the area your
crew can stand, it limits how far you need to travel to talk to your crew and
also capture those pesky mices.
8) Sync all timings.
Battles reset every 2h. Gifts reset every 8h. By taking a job of the that is
a multiple of 2, you can sync your timing so you only need to check back
every 2 hours. By syncing it further to the treasure TTC timing, most of the
day "tasks" can be completed at 1 go, especially in the mornings.
9) Cleaning Ships.
By visiting ships, you can offer to help clean them. There is a limit how many
ships you can visit and clean but i may be wrong as it takes a call to the
server for every ship you visit, takes an awful lot of time. For the desperate,
this is another source of "income" that resets every 24h.
10) Saving beer
Been removes downtime. Perform short jobs on weekends or whenever you are free.
Then play minigames and get the beer reserves up. I always have around 500
beer in stock just in case. By having a huge reserve, it allows removal of
downtime at tight periods (middle of meeting, a talk to all crew, removal of
all downtime, reassigning jobs can all be done during a humane excuse to vist
the restroom, <i am so going to get fired>).
11) Special Mention
There are three things of note. First i won't be updating this faq often
unless there is a big update and changes gameplay and strategy totally.
Secondly i will not add anyone with the name "ryu" or "Klauze".
Thirdly a special mention is allocated for a special player. His/Her/Their
name is odynn in toucharcade forum or Odin in-game. This player has referred
newer players whom has all helped him as noobs, doesn't share anything of
value on the forum and is obviously ungrateful to people whom have taken
the trouble to help him/her/them get to their current status. Its your choice
to add him but i would rather keep my pride than adding someone whom takes
you for a fool. Also note he is at the level cap, meaning he does not give
you any bonus chest, while laughing at every chest we "noobs" are contributing
to him.
Copyright 2010, Lim Kheng Chye (Fellcor).
This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal,
private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed
publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other
web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a
violation of copyright.
Do Credit me if any of my work is used.
Add me @ fellcor@gmail.com.
[QUOTE=Odynn;1428832]Congrats on 50 ozz :)
you should let some tips out to help the lower level noobs :) hahahahah
Peashooter - This is the most basic plant in your arsenal, and the backbone of any strong defense throughout the early stages of the game.
Sunflower - Plant these to increase the amount of sun you will get. Sun is vital to plants and to your survival! Two columns of these should be built in each stage.
Cherry Bomb* - Plant these to get an explosive reaction from the zombies nearby. Great for taking out groups of enemies, works in a 3x3 grid centered around where you place it.
Wall-Nut - a great defensive plant, that will hold the zombie hoards at bay while your other plants pick them off.
Potato Mine* - Great for taking out strong enemies in lanes where you don't have a wall-nut up yet, or to take care of pole vaulting zombies that make it over your wall-nut. SPUDOW!
Snow Pea - Snow Peas will freeze zombies and make them walk and eat slower. Great for holding back strong units while your stronger plants take them out. If a snow pea bullet passes through a Torchwood it will melt the ice turning it into a regular pea, losing the freezing effect.
Chomper - Chompers work great in combination with your wall-nuts and tall-nuts. They will devour most zombies in one bite, but it takes some time for them to swallow.
Repeater - These are a great addition to your arsenal. They cost twice as much as a peashooter, but do twice as much damage, and still only take up one space.
Puff-shroom - These are a staple for any night time level, they may be weak, but they can still take out a zombie. What's even better is they're free!
Sun-shroom - These little guys cost half as much as a sunflower, but only give you 15 sun to start with. After a while they will grow to full size and give you 25 sun. I still prefer sunflowers over these, even in night levels.
Fume-shroom - These work great on the early night levels, and their attacks pass right through the screen door zombies!
Grave Buster* - These plants will eat the graves you see in the night levels, and will even pop out a coin when you they are done!
Hypno-shroom* - These will turn any zombie that tries to eat them into a zombie that works for you. Great against football zombies! The zombie will fight backwards until it walks right off your lawn.
Scaredy-shroom - these long-range plants are cheap, but they will hide if a zombie gets too close. Not very effective alone.
Ice-Shroom* - This mushroom will freeze every zombie on screen and do a little bit of damage to each of them.
Doom-shroom* - These bad boys will blow up a huge area on your lawn and destroy all zombies within range, however the tile you planted them on will need some time to recover before it can be used again.
Lily pad - Not much to say about these other than they allow you to build on the water.
Squash* - These guys will crush enemies that get too close. if there are multiple zombies in a small area it will crush all of them.
Threepeater - Threepeaters will fire across 3 lanes, each pea is slightly stronger than a peashooters. Great for the three center lanes but there is no point in putting them on out outer lanes.
Tangle Kelp* These work like potato mines, but are to be placed in the water.
Jalapeno* - These guys are just bursting to get into the action. Placing one of these will destroy all the zombies in the lane they are in.
Spikeweed - The spikeweed will attack any zombie that walks over it, as well as popping tires on zombonies and Catapult zombies. Popping a tire will destroy the spikeweed and you'll need to plant a new one.
Torchwood - Placing these in front of plants that shoot peas will set the peas on fire and do triple damage! Snow peas will melt and lose their freezing effect though. Also drives away fog for a few tiles around itself.
Tall-Nut - Harder, better, taller, stronger than the wall-nut. The tall-nut will keep enemies at bay for a long time, as well as preventing pole vaulting or dolphin riding zombies from jumping over them.
Sea-shroom These water based fungi work much like the puff-shrooms only they can be placed in water, however their recharge rate is quite slow.
Plantern - Plant these in the fog to drive it back, so you can see whats happening on your lawn. They are pretty weak and don't do any damage though, so put a Tall-Nut in front of one so it doesn't get demolished.
Cactus - The cactus will pop balloons, as well as attacking zombies on the ground.
Blover* - Blover will blow away any air zombies, and temporarily blow away all the fog. Decent substitute for planterns and cacti, while only taking up one seed slot.
Split Pea - Split peas will shoot forward and backwards, however they shoot twice as fast backwards and they do forwards. Good for tunneling zombies, and not much more expensive than peashooters.
Starfruit - Starfruit shoot in 5 directions. None of them are forward. Works well in groups, though.
Pumpkin - Pumpkins surround another plant protecting them from zombies. Even works on Tall-nuts adding a much stronger layer to your defensive lines.
Magnet-shroom - This mushroom will steal metal objects from zombies, such as buckets, helmets, ladders, and pickaxes. Great to have a few of these behind Tall-nuts, even during the day, although you'll have to wake one up using the Coffee bean.
Cabbage-pult - Plant these on the roof to lob cabbages at the zombies, where peashooters can't reach due to the roofs incline.
Flower Pot - This plant lets you plant plants on your roof! Sounds crazy but it works! Just like a lily pad but for your roof.
Kernel-pult - These guys will lob corn, and occasionally butter at the zombies. The corn is a bit weaker than cabbage, but the butter is just as strong as cabbage and will also stop zombies in their tracks.
Coffee Bean* - Plant this on your mushrooms during the day to wake them up!
Garlic - These guys smell bad, but work great! Zombie will take one bit of these and move into another lane!
Umbrella Leaf - Umbrella Leafs will protect nearby plants from bungee zombies, and from catapult zombies.
Marigold - While she won't attack, the marigold will spit out cash for you to collect. A few of these with the Gold magnet-shroom will do wonders for your bank account.
Melon-pult. - The Melon-pult lob watermelons at zombies doing large amounts of damage to groups of zombies! Great addition to your lineup.
Gatling Pea - Upgrade for the Repeater, shoots 4 peas instead of two for a relentless, fierce attack. Add a Torchwood into the mix for a Zombie barbecue.
Twin Sunflower - Upgraded version of the sunflower, producing two sun each time. Great for long levels, survival mode, and for maximizing spots available for offensive plants.
Cattail - Upgraded Lily Pad. The Cattail can attack on any lane, and it also pops balloon zombies. Having at least one of these in longer pool levels instead of cacti is a great way to save space and money.
Winter Melon - Upgrade of the Melon-Pult. Adds a freezing attack to the Melon-Pult, but fires at a slower speed. Adding one or two of these is a great way to slow down zombies when you are using Spikerocks. Frozen zombies will thaw if hit with a flaming pea.
Gold Magnet-shroom - Inexpensive upgrade to the Magnet-shroom. Removes the magnet ability but it will collect coins and diamonds for you. Great if you have a lot of marigolds, but not really essential.
Spiderock - This upgrade to the Spikeweed can pop multiple tires before giving out and does more damage to zombies walking over it.
Cob Cannon - This is the strongest plant you can get. You must build it over two Kernel Pults, and click it to activate its massive attack.
Regular Zombie - The most basic zombie out there. Very easy to dispatch, but watch out if there are a lot of them!
Flag Zombie - Just because he has a flag doesn't mean he doesn't want your brains! Leads every "Huge wave of zombies".
Conehead Zombie - Regular Zombie with a traffic cone that helps with defense. Takes about twice as much damage as a Regular Zombie.
Pole Vaulting Zombie - He moves fast until he meets the first plant, which he will vault over (unless it's a Tall-Nut), and then he moves slow.
Buckethead Zombie - Takes about 5x as much damage as a regular zombie, but a magnet-shroom will steal his bucket.
Newspaper zombie - This zombie will charge at you once you destroy his newspaper.
Screen Door Zombie - This zombie protects himself with his screen door, however fume-shrooms will pass right through the screen and attack him directly.
Football Zombie - This zombie is extra protected with a helmet and padding, so it will take a bit more to bring him down. His helmet has metal on it that reacts to Magnet-shrooms.
Dancing zombie - Will summon a backup dancer in four directions. A real thriller!
Backup Dancer - This zombie is really weak but will get in your way if there are too many of them.
Ducky Tube Zombie - This zombie is really weak, and only appears in the pool lanes.
Snorkel Zombie - This zombie stays underwater until he attacks. Place lily pads near the from of the pool to draw him out. Kelp works too.
Zomboni - The Zomboni crushes plants and leaves a trail of ice behind him. You can't build on the ice and bobsled zombies will appear if there is ice. Use Spikeweeds to pop his tires.
Zombie Bobsled Team - These guys will ride in on ice, and go fast until they run out of ice. They are pretty weak but there are four of them.
Dolphin Rider Zombie - Similar to the Pole Vaulting Zombie only in water. Tall-Nuts will be effective against him. The dolphin is also a zombie.
Jack-in-the-Box Zombie - This zombie moves pretty fast and will randomly explode. Magnet-shrooms will take his toy away and prevent him from exploding.
Balloon Zombie - This zombie will float over all your defenses unless you pop his balloon. Other than that he is very weak.
Digger Zombie - This zombie will dig under your plants and attack from the back. Use magnet-shrooms or split-peas to take care of him.
Pogo Zombie - this guy will hop over all your plants until you have a magnet-shroom to take his pogo away.
Zombie Yeti - This zombie rarely appears, and will run away after a short time. Only appears at night.
Bungee Zombie - He will drop down from the sky and either steal a plant, or drop a zombie down on your roof/lawn.
Ladder zombie - This zombie will place a ladder down on the first plant he meets allowing zombies to simple climb over that plant. Bad if he puts one on a Tall-nut. Magnet-shrooms will take his ladder away, and cherry bombs will dislodge ladders that he managed to place.
Catapult Zombie - This zombie will sit at the back of your roof or lawn and launch basketballs at your plants. Use spikeweeds to pop his tires, and get rid of him easily.
Gargantuar - This giant will crush your plants, and extremely strong. Try to take him out using bombs, jalapeños, Squashes or anything you can before he destroys your plants. He will lob the imp zombie when he is low on health.
Imp zombie - Although he is very weak often times he will be launched past your plants and right to your sunflowers, or your lawnmowers or roof/pool cleaners.
Dr. Zomboss - Here he is. The leader of the zombies. Use Ice-shrooms to freeze him when he is down, and let your other plants attack him. Keep an ice-shroom and a jalapeño for when he throws a fire ball or ice ball at you.
