Naval Activities

POW Locations

East of Glace Bay

East of Chameau

Northwest of Pearl Island

East of Port Meinier

Northeast of Harbour Deep

South of Fogo

A special type of convoy triggers this task. You find a larger vessel with two smaller escorts. Your goal is to destroy the escorts by any means, and then board the POW ship and take it by force. Avoid firing on the main ship so that none of the POWs are killed. Fight the escorts away from the POW ship, and fire at angles that won’t cause errant shots to hit the wrong target.

The escorts aren’t much of a problem normally, but the main ship offers a tough fight when you move to board it. You need to bring down its crew and its captain. To do this, you should soften the enemy deck with ranged attacks first, and especially focus on the captain (they always wear nice hats). Hit them and their allies with Berserk Darts or pistol fire while the ships are being tied together. This makes it easier to seize the enemy ship without losing many crew members during the fighting.

Locations for Abandoned Ships

Southwest of Sept-Îles

Northwest of Perce

Southwest of Nerepis

Southeast of Glace Bay

West of Pearl Island

Southwest of Lewisporte

North of HMS Miranda

Northwest of Glace Bay

Watch the map for these random events to pop up. Abandoned ships can be looted for goods, but you only have a few minutes to get everything you need out of them (because the ships are already damaged and going down). Hurry to get aboard them and scan your minimap for any lootable items. Get these and get off the ship as quickly as you can.

Naval Clash Locations

Southeast of Halifax

North of Perce

East of Glace Bay

West of Pearl Island

West of Gros Morne

North of Lewis Porte

Small fleet battles occur in the North Atlantic. If you run into one, join in and help the defenders to destroy the other vessels. All of the participants are heavy hitters, so don’t take these encounters lightly. Boarding gets you a massive bonus to salvage, but you might consider repairs instead (because you’re going to need more health to survive the extended fleet attack). Of course, you can always keep the last ship that you board or just sink some of the vessels to keep the battle’s momentum in your favor.

While in the Boarding Victory screen, look at the health of the Morrigan to help make your decision. If you’re worried about survival, err on the side of repairs.

Common Convoy Areas

South of Anticosti

Southeast of Sept-Îles

Northeast of Grande-Entrée

South of Port aux Basques

South of Fort St. Louis

South of St. John’s

Royal Convoy Areas

South of Fort Baie-Rouge

North of HMS Miranda

North of Sapphire

Northwest of Lewisporte

South of Sapphire

Defeat a small convoy of ships that are escorting a treasure transport back to Europe. For a short fight, you get a huge amount of money and fairly good salvage as well!

When you’re looking for fights, there are important things to consider ahead of time. Make sure that you have a full supply of heavy shot and mortar ammunition. Repair your ship beforehand. And buy any new upgrades that are available and affordable.

When you engage a convoy, attack smaller ships in the convoy first. Board them and repair the Morrigan to keep the ship at full strength throughout the early encounter as you pare down the number of enemy ships. When the biggest vessel is all that remains, go in for the kill. Cripple it, board the ship, and take what you’ve earned.

Expect a decent Wanted level as a result of your activities, and be ready to either flee or continue fighting as privateers sail into the area.

The best event of this type is the Royal Convoy. These events have incredible piles of money attached to them, if you survive the conflict. Look for this convoy’s shaded icon and go in with your best weapons blazing. Spend all of your ammo to bring down the escorts quickly. You earn enough money to more than pay for your repairs and supplies, so spare no expense.

There are four Legendary Battles that you can choose to fight in the Morrigan. All of these are quite difficult and require you to have most or even all of the Morrigan’s possible upgrades. Improved armour, cannon counts, shot damage, and ammo capacity are all important for your success.

Pirates of a Lost Age

This battle is triggered when you sail to the northwestern side of the North Atlantic. It features a fleet battle between you, several allies, a pathetic enemy fleet, and two awesome legendary ships: the Cauldron and the Pilgrim.

Common sense dictates that you destroy one of the legendary ships as quickly as possible, but that’s not the easiest way to win this fight. These sister vessels are paired together, and the loss of one will drive the captain of the other ship to greater heights.

Destroy the peripheral ships in the enemy fleet to keep the sea clear and to take their damage output out of the fight early. This is a long battle, and taking pot shots from lesser vessels will eventually add up. When they’re gone, start to focus on the legendaries.

Play this carefully and bring both ships down to almost no health, and then finish off each one. This gives less time for the sister ship to come after you. Your mortar does much of the heavy lifting; use every shot so that you can stack free damage against both legendary ships. Master your firing rotation so that you’re not losing any opportunities for broadside cannon and mortar attacks. If either one of these weapon systems isn’t reloading, you should be firing it as soon as possible!

The Battle of Labrador

Stay calm and use only basic attacks to destroy the French ships at the beginning of this battle. Things are easy at first, and that’s a warning that it’s going to get worse. Save your heavy shot and mortar attacks until the second wave of the battle, when the Couronne and its escorts arrive.

Now you can unleash every mortar attack you have. Try to strike this fleet while it’s still grouped closely together. You might get damage against multiple foes with each mortar shot, and that’s a nice perk.

Once you’ve laid the enemy fleet low, put everything into your battle against the Couronne. This is probably the easiest of the four Legendary Battles, because the Couronne doesn’t have many big advantages. Fire toward the back of the ship when you can, use heavy shot if you get within spitting distance of the ship, and expend your mortar shots as soon as possible. As long as you have some decent upgrades for the Morrigan, this should be quite doable.

The Battle of Quiberon Bay

Things start to heat up with this battle. You’re going to face another tough legendary ship, but this one has a better supporting fleet. The small fireships obscure your vision and deal damage to the Morrigan if you let them. Use your cannons and Puckle gun to kill off the smaller vessels when they approach; your minimap will help you keep an eye on their movements so that you never get surprised.

In between, use your mortar to deal the main damage against the appropriately named Formidable. Luckily it doesn’t have as much armour as some of the other legendary ships. Watch out for its guns, however. Don’t go broadside and fight toe-to-toe against it. Range, speed, and your mortar are the advantages to press. Direct firepower works against you!

As long as you keep the fireships at bay and use all of your resources, you should be victorious!

The Storm Fortress

Save this battle for last; it’s easily the toughest of the lot. There are three legendary ships to defeat, and even the first by itself is enough to waste any ship that isn’t well upgraded and properly captained.

This isn’t a war by the numbers. The Storm Fortress is a better ship than the Morrigan. Period. It has more guns, more armour, a good mortar with a skilled crew to man it, and two allied ships that appear when the battle starts to turn. You, on the other hand, have a few allies that aren’t going to last much beyond the first minute of the engagement.

The Storm Fortress has so much side armour that it’s never worth going broadside against it. Ever. You take stun damage and deal almost nothing in return. Position yourself at the back of the enemy ship, and stay mobile. It’s more important to avoid damage than to deal it out.

There are three major hurdles in this fight. The first is the Storm Fortress’s mortar. It leaves flaming wake in the water and does agonizing direct damage if the Morrigan takes a hit. Don’t even wait for the circles on the water to appear; to avoid these attacks, watch the Storm Fortress constantly. When the mortar shots go up, immediately stop your ship to increase maneuverability, turn hard toward the Storm Fortress, and bypass the mortar blast area.

The second threat is the ship’s guns, which you’re about to sail into. As soon as you’re safe from the mortar damage, turn hard away from the Storm Fortress and use ramming speed to escape the other ship’s guns before they get a solid firing angle on the Morrigan. This is a reliable maneuver, but it’s challenging and takes practice.

Once you’re outside of the Storm Fortress’s firing arc, you get to land fast damage against the rear of the ship. Use everything you have, including heavy shot if you get too close; be ready to give up that favorable angle as soon as the Storm Fortress starts to pull around for a heavy attack. It’s never worth overstaying against this ship. Take a few volleys and be ready to duck out of range and start the process over.

The third danger comes when the Storm Fortress reaches low health. The Argonaut and the Sceptre come to join the fray. They’re weak ships in comparison to the Storm Fortress, but you’re going to be almost out of heavy shot and mortar ammo by then. You’ll have to finish off the Storm Fortress and then destroy the newcomers with the dregs of your battle capabilities.

Stay at range (both ships are fairly weak about responding to ranged attacks). Use your carronades more and avoid broadside attacks as much as possible. Your ship’s armour should be pretty low now unless you’re the king/queen of the sea, so prioritize safety and settle in for a slow, cheap fight where you use every advantage against your enemies. Hurry away from them, turn, use the carronades for easy damage, and stay mobile.