Quests

Quests

There are two ways to get make a discovery. The first one is to take a quest from an adventure mediator and the second is to obtain an archive map from the town scholar by reading books.

Adventure mediators can be found at any mayor city, including your starting city.

Below you can see an adventure mediator in the square of London, talk to him by double clicking on him and then select the upper left button (the one with a scroll and a red ribbon around it). A screen will pop up with several quest options.

In this case the quest ‘Crusade of the people’ has been selected. The requirements of this quest are to have rank 1 in search and archaeology. The quest information also mentions the Dutch language as a requirement, however, if you do not have the Dutch language skill you can still accept and complete this quest.

Language requirements are in most cases not necessary to complete the quest, and are never required to accept a quest. However, some quests will not show or rarely show if you have do not have all the requirements already fulfilled.

Usually, a quest is actually a request to investigate something. So you start by gathering the requested information.

In this quest you are sent to investigate one of the crusades.

In the quest details it says that you should start asking around in Bordeaux. If you scroll down, then it says Bordeaux tavern. Sail to Bordeaux and enter the tavern. There are several NPC’s inside the tavern and you can either talk to each of them separately or go directly to the barkeep.

In this case the barkeep is really the person you had to talk to, therefore he will give you some quest information. This information can always be reviewed by looking at the quest screen (press q). If you are unsure on how to proceed you can also speak to the barkeep who will provide you with information on how to proceed.

As you can see the barkeep tells you to go ask the city official of Bordeaux. Go to him and the official will tell you that the priest in the church of Amsterdam has more information for you. Yes, NPC’s will send you all over the place. You make the journey back to the North Sea and dock in Amsterdam.

Inside the church you talk to the various NPC’s present and the Vicar will give you the information you need. He tells you the crusade was a disaster and that the archives have some materials that you can study. Go to the archives of Amsterdam and browse the Archaeology shelf, after all it is an archaeology quest.

Body language does not work to read books; you need to either have the Dutch language skill learned or use a translation note, which can be bought from the Interpreter. In Amsterdam the Interpreter can be found in the square, and in most cities he is close to the market keeper. Reading once is enough, no need to browse, to give you your last piece of information. When you have your last piece of information, you are ready to make the discovery!

You will get a final summary of your quest and a description of the discovery location. Go the indicated location and use your observe skill (or an item with the same effect). It produces a pillar of light on the location of the discovery. Inside the Calais church, this is easy to find (use observe multiple times if necessary).

Walk to the pillar of light until you are standing in front of it and then use your search skill (In this case you need search, in other quests you might need another discovery skill, e.g. recognition in geography quests).

You can review your discoveries by going to Record -> Discoveries. All the discoveries you make are shown here, each with a small description. The only thing that is left is to report the quest and collect the rewards.

Remember how you took this quest from the mediator in London? This means that you can only report this quest to the mediator in London. That sounds like a hassle, right? After all, sailing from Amsterdam to London is not so far, but imagine taking a quest from Lisbon to Southeast Asia. This is where taverns come in.

Perhaps you have noticed that there is always a girl or guy standing next to the barkeep. He or she has her own name, like Johanna, Angela or Rosario. Every city that has quest mediators also has someone like this at the tavern or rest area.

Talk to him or her, have a drink together and they will send someone to report for you, which gives you the rewards instantly. However, your friendship needs to be high enough. You can increase your friendship by giving them gifts or telling them stories. You need to drink with them once before these options become available.

Gifts are clothes and accessories, the nicer/more expensive the higher the increase in friendship. A higher friendship allows you to report higher difficulty quests (more stars). Telling stories is only possible if you have the Persuasion skill. You use a discovery card to increase your friendship (better cards give a higher increase in friendship).

Once your friendship is high enough, you can always report every quest you have.

It is important to remember that –

• some quests have a hidden fame requirement. Normally this is adventure fame related.
• some quests require you to do one or more pre-quests before you can find the quest you are seeking. In this way one quest yields a discovery which opens up the next quest, which opens up the discovery needed for another quest, and so on. This is called a quest chain. They can be short, for example the discovery of The Staff of Peter the Hermit is necessary to do the quest Crusade Tragedy from Seville, this is a more difficult theology quests and rewards Etienne’s staff, a +1 theology hand item. There are quest chains of close to 100 quests long!
• you can refresh the quests at the quest mediator using a Quest Mediation Permit (QMP), a consumable item. They are really helpful when you are looking for a specific quest or if there are not interesting quests showing. QMP’s are rewarded for most adventure quests and can also be obtained from rewarding a map discovery to a famous person (more on that later). Another version is the special QMP (SQMP), an Astro consumable item that refreshes the quest list with rarer, higher difficulty quests. Leaving a port and returning refreshes quests as well, but you need to go to another town and back (or at least sail out at sea until the city cannot be seen anymore before returning).
• quests that are not part of a quest chain can be repeated and their rewards can be obtained again as well. Quests in a quest chain can only be redone if in some way you lose that discovery card. Their rewards cannot be obtained (or there is a very low chance, I have not tested this).
• using the skill Surveying you create a map of your surroundings. On sea that creates a square map that shows a greater area then the mini-map in the bottom right of your screen. Also cities that you already discovered are shown as white points and hovering over such a point shows the city name. In a land area the whole area is shown while using surveying. Both the entrance to the area, and the exit to a second land area are indicated with a flag icon. Walking close by a landmark also marks the landmark on the map with a flag icon. Some maps or quests indicate the area around a landmark to make a discovery and some quest information is actually gathered by clicking a landmark. You can change the transparency by going to System > Settings > Change in-game display settings.
• there is another advantage of creating a map using Surveying. If you are close enough to your discovery location and use observe, then a yellow star will appear on the map. This happens both in sea and land areas. This can save you some time finding the exact location, when you don’t see the pillar of light yet.
• it is possible to share your quest among a fleet. It does not matter if you are already in a fleet or not when you get the quest. If one person finds and accepts the quest from the mediator, then you can make him or her admiral of your fleet. Everyone in the fleet, only if they did the prequests in case of a quest chain, can then accept the quest by talking to the same mediator. I think the admiral must be near the mediator for this to happen. The admiral can see in their quest menu the amount of remaining invitations left. When this reaches 0, then no one else can accept the quest in this way. Finding and accepting a quest in this way, will not allow you to share the quest again. Therefore one quest cannot be shared infinitely.

Repeating quests and maps

It is possible to do quests and maps again. However, this depends on the quest or map. In the case of quests, there are repeatable quests and non-repeatable quests. The ones that are not repeatable are always part of a quest chain.

There is an exception, if you lose your discovery card, then the quest or map for that card will always be available again. You can lose a discovery card by doing academy debates, using the card to make an ornament at a sculptor. See the list for making ornaments here.

Archive maps can only be done again once you have reported the discovery from that map. In your Discovery menu in the top right you will always see No. Discovered and No. Unreported. Normal discoveries are written in white, while the unreported discovery names are in blue. You can report your discovery to a famous person, found in most big towns.

Each of them has a special preference, e.g. discoveries of Treasure to Cardinal Tabera in the Seville palace. Reporting to the right person gives you a Quest Mediation Permit, and the list of famous people and their preference can be found here. Once you have reported such a discovery, then you can go back to the archive where you found it and browse for the map again. Treasure maps can always be acquired again, unless you already have own the map.

Doing a quest or map for a second or third time gives adventure experience again. There are three types of experience that you get: (1) you always get the experience for making the discovery again, (2) if you do not have the discovery card, then you get that experience again as well, and (3) after having 300 discoveries you will get some bonus experience for doing the discovery again.

This last experience becomes a great percentage the more discoveries you have. In your text box this message will appear “As a result of making many discoveries, you can now examine your discoveries more closely”.

Lastly, some items that are rewarded can be gained again. Treasure maps always reward the same items again and standalone quests also give the reward again for redoing that quest. Discovery maps and quests in a quest chain do not give you the reward again, so for example it is possible to lose the Excalibur discovery card or do the quest again in a fleet.

Then you can do the Excalibur quest again, but you will not get the sword as a reward a second time.