This guide discusses the classes available to play with their pros and cons as applied to the France campaign in Port Royal 4. From there it provides a detailed walk through of the tasks required to complete the France Campaign and some tips and tricks to make doing so easier.
About this guide
This guide will take you step by step through the France campaign in Port Royal 4. As you will have defeated the the first three campaigns to unlock and play this one I will take some liberties that you will know the basics on how to set up trade routes, buy ships, hire captains, take part in battles etc. If you need help with any of those things there are other guides available.
The France campaign begins on January 1, 1604 and continues through July, 1608. If you fail to complete any objectives by their due date you will lose the campaign and have to start over from the beginning or a save game.
France is trying to establish a foothold in the new world, the viceroy has tasked you with helping secure the future of the French colonies by developing our colonies in the new world. You will be tasked with building colonies, businesses and protecting the interests of France in the new world, thus begins your tasks in the campaign.
Character classes Pros & Cons
The Merchant class traits
During this campaign you will be required to almost exclusively trade or build businesses which make this the obvious choice for the France campaign.
For much of the campaign Spain will be at war with the France. Trading with a hostile nation does have disadvantages such as being attacked but not being able to trade with Spain due to war is a major disadvantage. Spain controls about half the map and you can still trade with them if you pick Merchant.
As a Merchant you won’t have to worry about trade licenses, every class can trade freely with the French colonies but they have just 6 ports to start the game other classes will have to pay to trade elsewhere.
During the campaign you will be required to break several sieges but they are minor amounts of combat. That said you can get a letter of marque or attack as a pirate if you wish. Pirate attacks will lower your fame making the campaign that much harder to complete.
The Buccaneer class traits
This is a good choice for class during this campaign, the bonus discount for “Letters of Marque” will only apply once as there is only one declaration of war during the France campaign.
Starting with a bonus of 5 fame does help early on in the campaign and will be a theme of the campaigns it is a huge and always useful bonus which makes Buccaneer a very strong class.
The penalty for piracy can be completely avoided by not attacking ships from nations your not at war with. If you want to be an active pirate just pick another class. You will be at war with Spain for most of the campaign just buy your discounted “Letters of Marque” and go hunt Spanish ships they own half the map and are easy to find.
The Pirate class traits
The obvious choice if you want to be an actual pirate but piracy won’t help you complete the campaign. You would be better off not being an active pirate but to each their own. Starting with a pirate Barque is nice to have a ship with guns but there is ample time to build up a military fleet though you will need one or two military fleets to complete the campaign. If you want to go pirate and micro manage your ship to avoid military you can do so. As a pirate you also start with a random captain though if they are any good is subject to luck you can start over again and again until you get a captain you like.
Crew cost 50% less is easily one of the best perks of being a pirate. If you plan to have lots of military vessels with lots of crew (not required for this campaign) this is a discount that keeps on giving on a large warship convoy you can save anywhere up to 7,000 gold or more per day that savings adds up quick.
In the France scenario there is a ton of trade and business building required tasks to complete the campaign. As a pirate you will pay a lot of extra gold to build businesses up for the campaign tasks.
The adventurer class traits
Gaining experience faster is a nice perk for your captains, you will have to break a couple sieges to finish the campaign so getting a little extra experience can be helpful..
Being able to order ships you have defeated in battle will present some interesting opportunities in the campaign such as being able to build Spanish warships that would otherwise be unavailable. It’s a neat perk that can be useful.
Having a 20% penalty for boarding is huge in my book, it is my preferred way to fight so a penalty here is not one I look for. It can be offset by captain skill but I would rather that skill just be a bonus rather than negate a penalty.
استنتاج
As with all the campaigns each class is a viable option with some having a bonus or penalty that will make them harder for the campaign but you should easily be able to complete the campaign with any of the classes.
Merchant The bonus to trade is always a welcome one and being able to trade with Spain even at war is very useful since they own half the map during this campaign you will be forced to trade with Spain and though you can receive a special captain who can do this for you while at war the merchant is able to make these trades anytime. You can make due with trade among the Netherlands and English colonies if you wish to avoid Spain.
Buccaneer One of the strongest starting classes due to the bonus fame points. You will only benefit once from the “Letters of Marque” bonus in this scenario and can easily avoid the piracy penalty.
Pirate The discount for crew is huge but being viewed as a pirate could be a problem especially if you actively engage in piracy against the countries other than Spain. Any pirate attack will result in loss of fame. The fame is required for the campaign so I see no reason to go full pirate here. Pick pirate, play as a privateer France is at war with Spain almost the whole campaign so get a discount on crew leave actual pirate attacks for free play sandbox mode. You will pay a huge penalty on building many businesses during the campaign.
Adventurer You will need either one or two campaigns during this campaign. Leveling captains is not required much during this campaign so that bonus has very little impact. Buying ships you have defeated gives access to some cool ships but the penalty to boarding makes capturing ships much harder.
موضوعي 1 tasks due by: أبريل 1604 – Aug 1604
The first set of tasks in the France campaign is to get your basic trade routes setup and start building your town. Once you start setting up trade routes most of these objectives will complete almost automatically. The task for satisfaction will complete simply by providing basic goods to your starting town.
To complete the inhabitants portion of these tasks you will have to create several businesses in your home port of St. جو, you will also have to add residential housing to your port as well as a small church in the town center. If you don’t build the small church you will not be able to pass 2,000 residence in your city.
You can complete all the other tasks here by setting up an automatic trade route that stops at each of the French colonies and just buy stuff that is produced there and sell it in the colonies that don’t produce the same commodities. You can just set each commodity to buy and sell automatically based on demand.
موضوعي 2 tasks due by: نوفمبر 1604 – أبريل 1605
Our next set of tasks will focus on building businesses in our ports. You are free to build these businesses anywhere you like as there is no requirement to put them anywhere specific. You will need to purchase building permits to place these businesses but there will be some ports that are better than others. As the resources for your game can be different than mine you should be able to look at the ports controlled by France to determine where to best build these businesses.
You will be in control of when to complete these tasks so feel free to take your time building up your trade routes so you can get some extra gold to build these businesses and prepare for the next ones.
Be sure not to wait for the last second to complete these tasks as there are many buildings that will require resources to build so make sure you don’t wait and get caught without enough resources to complete the tasks by the due dates.
نصيحة: The wood and bricks will have to go to a port that can produce those, as does the coal and metal. Be sure to combine the Metalware businesses with either coal or metal preferably both as you will need both commodities for this businesses. A business that requires specific resources is best to built in the towns that produce needed materials as many more businesses will need to be built during this campaign.
موضوعي 3 tasks due by: Jul 1605 – Dec 1605
These sets of tasks are preparation for the next step of the campaign. War with Spain is on the horizon so you will need a decent captain to helm your military fleet. It is my opinion that the best captain skill is carpenter as it makes a huge difference for your fleets durability. The second most important skill is the boarding combat skills, followed by the gun skills. These captain abilities help speed up manual battles which are the fastest way to progress the combat of the game without doing automatic battles.
نصيحة: You should not do automatic battles, no matter your advantage or disadvantage you will lose more ships using automatic than you will if you take the time to do manual battles.
Once you complete the first four tasks Spain will be declaring war so prepare for that and take advantage of the peace with your trade routes. Once war is declared it will last for the remainder of the campaign.
Spain will send several military fleets in an attempt to siege and annex the port of Galveston, you can break the attempt on your own but you can also consider holding back from the port a short distance as the AI will send fleets to break the blockade waiting for this will allow you to attack weakened Spanish fleets and you will not have to break the siege entirely on your own. To help you stop the invasion the Dutch have sent a few combat vessels to your home port and they can help you get a solid military fleet up and running. You will have to defeat multiple Spanish military fleets so if you plan to do this alone you may want more than one combat fleet. Otherwise use the help of the AI to accomplish this task.
موضوعي 4 tasks due by: مارس 1606 – Jun 1606
Your next task is to expand the French towns depending on how you have expanded prior to these tasks it is entirely possible to complete them instantly.
Completing these tasks are simple you just have to build in each of the French towns and have a total of 40 production buildings of any type.
ملحوظة: Be wary of what you are building and where it is very easy to create a huge production of a single good that makes it difficult to distribute. France only controls six ports in the campaign and you will now be at war with Spain for the remainder of the campaign so you can only safely trade with the Dutch and English limiting trade to half the map. I do not generally recommend trade with Spain after war is declared they just have too many combat fleets guarding towns you will lose a huge amount of goods to raids that will lead to heavy losses.
موضوعي 5 tasks due by: Aug 1606 – Jan 1607
Our next task is a major expansion of business in our colonies and to strengthen our trade partnerships with the Netherlands and England. To do this you will be producing clothing and cloth in our colonies and selling the finished clothing to our allies.
You will have to spend some commendations at the viceroy to unlock the trades of Cloth and Clothing if you have not already done so hopefully you saved some if not you can deliver a bunch of the colonial commodities to the viceroy or you can take your military fleet hunting for Spanish ships to gain fame.
نصيحة: You will need to sell 200 clothing to each the Netherlands and England ports to complete this task if you purchase any clothing in either of their ports this will make your numbers go negative. Be sure to edit your automatic trade routes so you are only selling clothing in their ports or you will have to manually trade the difference to their towns to complete these tasks.
At this point you should have access to John Hawkins as a captain and he comes with a small military fleet. Feel free to deck him out with a full fleet of military vessels as you will have access to him for almost the remainder of the campaign. I believe his stills are somewhat random but he will almost always be a useful captain to use, he has all eight command points and is generally well leveled usually level 8 or higher which likely makes him your best captain. My versions of John Hawkins were always missing the carpentry skill so he is not an unstoppable force but can be useful for breaking blockades and hunting Spanish fleets for fame.
Don’t forget to follow the riddle clues for the treasure hunt there are several objectives that keep you on track with completing pieces of the map and this is one of them you will have to complete three parts of the treasure map to move on. The treasure can be a little time consuming so I would suggest not to put these tasks off as you will have to sail all over for the clues and sometimes there is down time between clues and you can end up missing the deadline. For help with the treasure hunt see the clues and answers toward the end of this guide.
موضوعي 6 tasks due by: أبريل 1607 – Aug 1607
Our next step in the campaign is to build up the port of New Orleans, to do this you must be the administrator if you are not already then go to the viceroy and spend one concession to be made the administrator of New Orleans you will need to have businesses that employ 500 workers to do this.
When you open the building menu for New Orleans select the park option and build 5 where they are the most beneficial, you can generally put four of them where they are a bonus the fifth one will likely cover future expansion or a small part of the town this is fine but you will have to build five total parks.
You will have to raise the satisfaction in New Orleans to 90% this can be done by providing basic trade goods through your trade routes and the construction of the parks. You may also find a tavern you can place to help achieve this goal.
Finally you will have to produce 80 colonial commodities per day and deliver 1000 commodities to New Orleans. The commodity will depend on the port of New Orleans, mine was cotton, yours may be different. Just build extra businesses until you get to the point you are producing 80 per day if you get all the bonus you might reach this with four businesses but you may have to add another to reach the goal. Also note if you are buying colonial commodities in New Orleans your delivery numbers can go negative so watch that.
موضوعي 7 tasks due by: Sep 1607 – مارس 1608
Now begins the great expansion of the French colonies. You will need to be the administrator of four different towns followed later by five towns. You will also have to build up the population of a random port mine was Galveston which you were already likely building up to protect it from Spain.
To reach these goals you will have to be the administrator in five of the six French ports. To become the administrator you will need to pay a concession to the viceroy for each city as well as having 500 workers in each city. To become a town administrator visit the viceroy.
These tasks are going to have you building up quite the population which means lots of businesses. Try to be strategic about what business you open where if you can avoid having to transport goods to other cities to make products that will help you out greatly.
نصيحة: It is very easy at this point to create way too much of individual products. Anything you are making you will want to change your automatic trade routes to not buy any of that item in any other place. You can use a warehouse to store your goods and use the load/unload options in your trade routes to move items around or simply load to sell in either your own ports or those of your allies.
A warehouse can help keep you from flooding the market of an individual port and lowering the price. You will be creating lots of businesses though and sometimes a warehouse alone is not enough to handle the quantity of goods. Remember you can also buy larger markets in the towns you are administrator of though keep in mind while this will increase the number of goods a town can have on stock without impacting the prices it will also greatly increase the amount the town needs on hand before they are happy about the stock levels.
If you build too many of the same business or the same business in two different ports you can quickly find yourself with more stock then you are able to deliver to your ports and those of your allies leaving warehouses to fill and prices to plummet.
موضوعي 8 tasks due by: أبريل 1608 – Jul 1608
You have made it to the home stretch the final set of tasks for the campaign. Spain will continue to try to annex the port of Galveston and you will have to stop them. You can use the AI to help weaken the blockade and John Hawkins is still at your disposal if you need more than one captain to save the town.
Your other tasks will be straight forward enough and may even auto complete depending on what you have been doing so far with the game. نأخذ 6000 inhabitants in New Orleans is an easy task, make sure you have enough available residence and depending on when you took over the port you may have to upgrade churches or add businesses to increase the number of workers and jobs available.
Your final task is to complete the treasure hunt with John Hawkins.
ملحوظة: Once you complete the treasure hunt John Hawkins will leave your service and retire, he does not take any of the ships of the fleet or crew with him but it will leave his military fleet without a captain which makes them useless until you return to port and assign a new captain you will not be able to attack or use that fleet for anything. Hopefully you have another captain to assign to the fleet so you can use them to fight the Spanish as they try to annex your port.
Road To El Dorado clues
El Dorado treasure hunt riddle answers
The treasure you seek is the road to El Dorado and while the final treasure map can be in different locations the individual clues are the same locations on the map. Below are the eight locations for the clues given above. There are steps in the treasure hunt when you will be prompted to return to Tortuga before you can continue. This step is only for John Hawkins fleet you don’t need to send your fleets there.
For each of these locations you will need to send a fleet under your control, it does not need to be a captain and can be a simple unmanned schooner with the exception of the step that requires a fight. Here are the clue answers below.
Clue 1
Clue 2
Clue 3
Clue 4
Clue 5
Clue 6
Clue 7
Clue 8
My Treasure Location:
Tips to make the campaign easier
Get a good captain early
Be sure to use one of your early commendations to unlock captains. While you may not get a captain often you will need at minimum one captain to lead a combat fleet. If you can find a captain with the carpenter trait they are the best ones to have even if the other abilities are less than ideal. Look for captains with the following traits if possible.
- Carpenter
- Close Combat
- Gunner
- يتملص
The other skills can work or even be useful in situations but these four are the best for fighting manual battles which you should do if you don’t want tons of damage or ship losses.
Distribute goods you make
Any of the goods you have a business for you want to be sure you are not buying from anywhere else. Always distribute goods you make to the other ports of France and your allies and try to never buy those goods from anywhere else.
You will be building many businesses and it is very easy to produce large quantities of goods.
Diversify your goods when you get a chance
You will build many businesses during the campaign, if you have an extra fame commendations try to unlock some advance buildings to take advantage of all the goods you are producing. During the campaign you will be required to unlock cloth and clothing which pair well with the cotton plantations you are required to build. But this is not the only group of goods that work well together. If you can spare the commendations you can unlock beer, rum, and metal wares which all utilize ingredients that you will have businesses producing lots of goods in your ports.
Use warehouses wisely
A warehouse can help you keep the goods your businesses produce from overflowing a town and ruining your profit but it is easy to produce a large quantity of materials and you will need to keep a close eye on your warehouses to make sure they are not stuffed with extra bricks, cotton, metals, sugar or anything else.
Don’t be afraid to setup transportation trade routes
While the game advisor will tell you that you have a route losing money it is not a bad idea to have a trade route that picks up resources in one of your town only to drop them in a warehouse in another town. In my game I created a warehouse in the port of St. Joe and had long routes to all the Dutch and English towns. I loaded all the goods from my warehouse and then sold them to my allies.
Add more convoys to long routes
When you set up a long route understand it can take your convoy 20 or more days to hit all those ports, you can reduce the time it takes by adding additional convoys and checking the box to distribute convoys in the trade route window. If a route requires 20 days for your convoy to complete you can make your ships visit a port closer to every 10 days by putting a second distributed convoy on the same route. Three convoys and now one of your ships visits every 7 days etc.
Long Routes Bigger convoy fleets
If you do have long trade routes keep in mind you will need more goods to get to those ports. If you send a Brig on a 20-30 day trade route they will fill the hold of the ship but never be able to carry anywhere near enough goods to satisfy the port. Try stacking 3-4 ships together in the convoy to give you more space in your hold to carry the goods the ports need.
Speed difference is more than you think
The difference in speed of the ships is a huge jump from one to another. It may look like a ship is not much faster than another because they are only 1 knot difference in speed but the difference between 11 و 12 knots is quite large. Your ships will travel at the slowest speed in the convoy. Don’t match ships with 12 knot max speed with those that can only get 10 knots but carry more cargo as your fleet will then travel at the slower speed.
Use same type ships in fleets where possible
Each ship has different stats regulating their speed, cargo and draft. It is easier to keep the same ships together where you can to eliminate speed loss on trips. If you have a Brig keep it with other Brigs so you won’t be penalized for the ship draft or speed. At the very least try to keep the ships at the same max speed.
Don’t overproduce just to complete tasks
You will build lots of businesses during the campaign and there are plenty of checks for X number of workers or businesses along the way. If you produce too much of a good you will tank the prices and your profits. Try not to build duplicate businesses in different towns or you will be overwhelmed with what to do with the goods. For example if both New Orleans and St. Joe can grow vegetables in your game don’t drop four businesses in each town as having 8 businesses produce vegetables will create a huge stockpile of them you won’t be able to get rid of them fast enough. Just because you have a business that produces a good doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a cost. Each of your businesses pay the workers and so each good has a cost even if your business produces it.
Don’t neglect the treasure hunt with John Hawkins
There are several checks along the way to make sure you are doing the treasure hunt. Some of the steps can be time consuming to find the right spot then navigate there with both John Hawkins and a fleet under your control. Keep in mind many of the clues locations are going to be in Spanish waters and you will be at war with them almost the entire campaign so each clue can take a little longer than you think and you will need to be prepared to fight along the way.
