Season 2 comes with some new features and Quality of Life (QoL) changes, which disrupt the thinking and approaches learned from Season 1.

Economic Changes

TL;DR – You will produce fewer coins and pay more money compared to Season 1. 

The most notable change is around a 30-40% reduction in Pieces of Eight (Po8) generation compared to mid-Season 1.

A significant number of factories now fall under the 90 Po8 production value (this is 50 hours of funding to fill a 4500 capacity Level 10). Ultimately, meaning you will have to fund your factories more often to fill them compared to Season 1. 

To make up for this reduction, almost every late game event rewards Po8. It is entirely possible to reach the end of Season target without touching the Helm Empire at all. 

Fast Travel with non-wagered Coins

You can now fast travel with Pieces of Eight (Po8) from any Outpost. This can be combined with the new Event fast travel system and minimises Collection time, should you wish to do so. 

The Introduction of Fleet Management

You can automate collection of Po8 through the use of unused ships in your inventory. These ships will collect coins from one factory on a 10-20 minute cycle, carrying up to 610 coins for each run. 

You can have a maximum of 39 ships assigned to collect for you, but would restrict you to sailing just one ship. 

The highest production rate on the map is 148/hr, meaning that most assigned ships at best will deliver 610 coins every 4+ hours unless you are boosting the factories. 

This can mean needing only 1 ship for every 4 factories to maximum delivery uptime, or 19 assigned Ships in total if you want to micromanage for maximum gain. 

For the most efficient Ship Build for Fleet Ships, visit our guide here.

Removing the Competitive Reward from the Leaderboard

This season’s reward, a Sovereign ship plate, is awarded to any player who earns 300’000 Po8 over the course of the Season. This isn’t specifically tied to Helm Empire generation. 

Ship Upgrades and Helm Lease

End of Season awards will also include Ship upgrades and Helm Lease meaining that regardless of the Strategy you pick for generating Pieces of Eight, it is advisable to capture all factories on the map and leave undesirable ones unfunded and/or not upgraded. 

Promoting Good Types over Locations

The value of every factory has been changed this Season. 

Black Opium Factories outproduce every other type of good this season, regardless of Trade Routes and Territory bonuses. 

Standardising Prices at 4 Tiers of Cost

Prices to fund factories have been standardised to 4 tiers of cost. From cheapest to most expensive at Level 10 with upgrades applied.

  • Tier 1  – Black Opium – 27720 silver (554.4 silver/hour)
  • Tier 2 – Blue Opium and White Skull Rum – 29400 (588 silver/hour)
  • Tier 3 – White Skull Gin, Gold Skull Rum, Black Snuff – 35280 silver (705.6 silver/hour)
  • Tier 4 – Gold Skull Gin and Silver Snuff – 38220 silver (764.4 silver/hour)

These Tiers apply to almost every tier of Factory, e.g. this would be the same order for Level 4 factories etc. There are a few exceptions as you level up your factories.

Strategies

Strategy 1 – Focus on One or Two Regions

Select one region and building tall in Red Isle and/or Coast Of Africa; or the East Indies (or any other combination). 

East Indies is the better bet given its better distribution of Tier 1 and Tier 2 factories, with only a marginal drop in Po8/hr production compared to Red Isle & Africa combined.  It is also approximately 40% cheaper to run overall. 

Given the lower number of factories, it does also mean a smaller commitment in Fleet Management requirements; but East Indies is the only region with Risk 14 factories, so plan accordingly. 

Strategy 2 – Tier 1 Factory / Key Factory only

There are 20 Black Opium factories on the map with 3 in Red Isle, 3 in Africa and 14 in the East Indies. 

Focussing exclusively on the highest producing, most silver factories and using Fleet Management assets seems to be an efficient way to ensure passive coin generation with a 25% lower income than East Indies, but for approximately a third (34%) of the cost.  

As the factories are distributed across all 3 regions – this approach is well suited to players who wanted to passively earn a good rate of coin, and use their remaining time to engagement with world events, etc and not having to focus too much on silver accumulation. 

Strategy 3 – Build Wide

It will cost 2.4 million silver, or 48000 silver per hour, to fund and maintain a fully running 76 Factory empire at Level 10. 

Whilst it is achievable, and will obviously generate the most wealth; it also represents an enormous undertaking and will likely need the help of friends and other players. 

Aspects of the build wide strategy incorporate using Fleet Management to potentially automate East Indies (with 34 Factories), allowing you to focus on the collection and Africa and Red Isle. This is made all the more simple with the introduction of Fast Travel with Coins, giving you an option to collect all of Africa, FT to Sainte-Anne, and then collect Red Isle, or however you prefer.