This is just a short quick start guide to help with character creation. The game gives four options for what it calls your character's background story, but really it's so much more, the option you choose defines your starting Attributes, Skills, Weapon Proficiencies as well as the ship, items and army you start with. The game is so ambiguous at the start of character creation, so this guide is to help make what turns out to be a rather important decision.

From this point on, I will refer to the four background stories as character classes:
Enterprising Merchant
Retired Lieutenant
Escaped Convict
Dastardly Pirate

As a first note, I will mention that the Escaped Convict is the toughest class to choose, and doing so will make your game much more difficult at the beginning, so that's why I tend to leave the convict class's information to the end of each section.

This guide is currently a work in progress.

Each class starts with different attributes pre-set, as shown in this table:


Along with the preset attributes, each class starts with four spare attribute points for you to distribute as you wish.

Note that the Merchant class starts with 17 INT, whereas the rest all start with 5. This means that the merchant will start with 16 skill points to use, but the others will only start with 4, so it may be a good suggestion to use the 4 spare attribute points they start with on INT if you want to add more skills to your character.

Each class starts with different skills preset:

Merchant

• Seafaring: 3
  
• Leadership: 2
  
• Trade: 4

Lieutenant

• Weapon Master: 3
  
• Riding: 3
  
• Leadership: 3

Pirate

• Seafaring: 3
  
• Weapon Master: 3
  
• Leadership: 2

Convict

• Ironflesh: 2

As stated above, each class starts with 4 additional skill points to spend, with the exception of the Merchant, due to its high INT attribute, it has 16 points to spend.

The default starting rating for each weapon proficiency is 40, so if it isn't mentioned below, then assume all other profiencies for that class are just 40.

Merchant

• Firearms: 130

Lieutenant

• One Handed Weapons: 160
  
• Artillery: 130
  
• Firearms: 140

Pirate

• One Handed Weapons: 160
  
• Firearms: 130

Convict
Poor convict class is not proficient in any weapon to start with. Sadface.

Along with these preset proficiency points, each class has 10 spare points to distribute, however, the higher the proficiency, the more points it takes to upgrade that profiency:
e.g.The Lieutenant's One Handed Weapons is at 160. To improve to 161, it would take 6 points.

Each class starts with at least one ship in its fleet:

Merchant
The merchant is the only class to have 2 boats in its fleet to start with:
Large Fluyt
Small Fluyt

As you might imagine, the merchant's ships aren't the quickest or do the most damage, however, they do have a good balance of cargo space and durability.


Lieutenant
6th Rate Frigate

This ship has a high amount of damage and durability, at the cost of maneuverability and cargo space.


Pirate
War Brigantine

Not the strongest or toughest ship, but has good speed and maneuverability, with a little cargo hold.


Convict
Armed Boat

Yet again, the convict is dealt a tough hand with this ship. Tiny crew, weak hull, little damage output, miniscule cargo space, and slow to boot. You'd be better off with a pedalo or canoe.


All of the above information is rather general, the terms used are all in comparison to the other classes' starting ships, and there are much better ships to be found later on in the game. I may come back to this section and give more detailed statistics should the demand be there, let me know in the comments.

Each class starts with a different size of army accompanying it. The number beside the name is the size of the army including the player character:

Merchant (21)

Lieutenant (41)

Pirate (16)

Convict (4)
Once again the convict is handicapped, starting with only 3 chums, some Irregular English Cavalrymen, which doesn't exactly sound too promising.

Merchant
The merchant is the richest class to start with, having 40,000 piastres... (whatever they are!).
The merchant also starts with a musket and a cutlass, a good mix of ranged and melee.


Lieutenant
The Lt. starts with 20,000 pastries.
Despite having the most weapon proficiencies, the only weapon he starts with is a cutlass. At least he's pretty badass with it.


Pirate
The dastardly pirate starts with 10,000 pies.
He also has a cutlass and a pistol, short ranged weapons ideal for boarding enemy ships.


Convict
Another sign that crime doesn't pay, the convict starts with only a measly 1,000 monies.
His weapons are fairly poor as well, a pistol and a dagger. Good thing he has that ironflesh to let him take more damage whilst he chips away at the enemy with these weapons.

Special thanks to Raptor Jesus for suggesting the addition of this section.

Originally posted by Snowbird Games:

You rise in rank as you improve your martial fame and business reputation. New military ranks are reached by increasing your renown, which rises as you complete tasks and achieve victories on the field of battle. The larger and harder are your fights, the shorter is your path to glory. As for your business acumen, it is judged best by the jingle of coins: your status increases with your cash reserves, with the amount of trade goods in your warehouses, with the manufactories and plantations you own, and with the cargo capacity of your fleet.

As you rise in status, so do your opportunities. New military ranks allow you to hire better soldiers and purchase more powerful warships. An increase in business reputation opens access to larger trade vessels and allows to build more manufactories. Famous warriors and influential traders are permitted to outfit their fleets with heavier naval artillery, can purchase letters of marquee and eventually can be invited to join one of the European powers - or the Brethren of the Coast.

This information comes from the Ranks and Rep forum thread found here: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/293010/discussions/0/612823460276249028/

Each Class starts with a different Military Rank and Business Reputation:



Sailor is the lowest rank of both Military and Business, and basically means your character:

Can hire civilian combatants (colonists, hunters, irregular cavalry).
Can purchase boat-sized vessels.

The information below also comes from the forum thread mentioned above, I have highlighted the relevent information convcerning starting ranks for each class:

Originally posted by Snowbird Games:

Military ranks:

Midshipman:

Can hire colonial soldiers.
Can purchase light ships.

Lieutenant:

Can purchase medium ships, up to rank 2.
Can have 1 letter of marquee.
Can purchase 12-pounder naval artillery.
Can upgrade vessels.
Can join a faction.

Captain Lieutenant:

Can hire regular soldiers.
Can purchase warships, up to rank 2.
Can purchase 16-pounder naval artillery.
Can attack and plunder cities.

Captain:

Can purchase field guns.
Can purchase warships, up to rank 3.
Can have up to 2 letters of marquee.
Can purchase 24-pounder naval artillery.
Can conquer cities for his faction.

Commodore:

Can hire elite soldiers.
Can purchase warships, up to rank 4.
Can have up to 3 letters of marquee.
Can purchase 32-pounder naval artillery.
Can be granted governorship over a city by his faction.

Admiral:

Can purchase warships of any rank.
Can have up to 4 letters of marquee.
Can purchase 42-pounder naval artillery.

---

Business reputation:

Shopkeeper:

Can build mines and plantations.
Can own 1 enterprise per town, up to 5 total.
Can purchase light ships.

Trader:

Can hire colonial soldiers.
Can own up to 2 enterprises per town, up to 10 total.
Can purchase medium ships, up to rank 2.
Can upgrade vessels.
Can join a faction.

Merchant:

Can build manufactories.
Can own up to 3 enterprises per town, up to 15 total.
Can have 1 letter of marquee.
Can purchase trade ships, up to rank 2.
Can purchase 12-pounder naval artillery.

Patrician:

Can hire regular soldiers.
Can own up to 4 enterprises per town, up to 20 total.
Can purchase trade ships, up to rank 3.
Can purchase 16-pounder naval artillery.
Fewer taxes and harbor fees in the cities of his faction.

Councilor:

Can purchase field guns.
Can own up to 5 enterprises per town, up to 25 total.
Can purchase trade ships, up to rank 4.
Can have up to 2 letters of marquee.
Can purchase 24-pounder naval artillery.
Can be granted governorship over a city by his faction.
Fewer taxes and harbor fees in the cities of his faction.

Chairman:

Can hire elite soldiers.
Can own up to 10 enterprises per town, up to 100 total.
Can purchase trade ships of any rank.
Can purchase 32- and 42-pounder naval artillery.
Can have up to 4 letters of marquee.
Fewer taxes and harbor fees in the cities of his faction.

TL;DR This guide is based on this video I made, which along with the information stated above, has a short clip or two of naval combat:

I am a huge fan of Mount & Blade: Warband, 115 hours played, according to Steam. However, I'm not the biggest fan of Mount & Blade: With Fire And Sword, which unfortunately for me, Caribbean looks like it will play more similarly to it than Warband.

As mentioned before this guide is a work in progress, and currently is fairly light on information, though I hope you find it at least a little useful when beginning your game. This is the first guide I've written, so any feedback would be welcomed.

This guide has quite a narrow scope, intended for use only when initially creating your characters. There are other guides that cover a much broader range of subjects than my own, such as Spring Miku's Basic Guide to Caribbean!