AlgoSeas is a browser based play to earn idle game which revolves around the use of randomly generated “Pirate” NFTs that are sent out to earn the game’s currency, Doubloons (ASA ID: 689171215). There many goals players can accomplish while playing AlgoSeas: seek the title of Pirate King by plundering enough $DUB, join a strong guild and participate in missions, or build up a fleet of diversified, strong pirates.
In order to play, a player must mint a pirate which will have randomly generated physical attributes and stats. These pirates can then be sent out to sea to battle other players, plunder merchant ships, and seek to earn as much $DUB as they can to strengthen their crew.
The game’s basic mechanics are simple enough that anyone can play, but complex enough that it becomes really fun to strategize ways to improve your crew and earn more doubloons and get closer to becoming Pirate King. This article will serve as a comprehensive guide for all things AlgoSeas, so if you’re not brand new feel free to skip around using the table of contents.
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Note: Doubloons are an inflationary in-game currency. They are not suitable for investments.
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Table of Contents
AlgoSeas Gameplay Basics
AlgoSeas is a tick-based idle game, which means you set your pirate crew to an action every “tick,” which come 7.5 minutes apart. During each tick, your pirate crew can do one of multiple actions: plunder merchants, attack another player, defend against attack, or attempt to return home with your loot.
In order to play, you need a pirate. The most common way to obtain one is to mint a random one for 1,000,000 $DUB, or the equivalent of 10 Algo. Alternatively, you can purchase one on the game’s integrated secondary market, which is launching next week. To play at the most basic level, you only need 1 pirate, but the earn rate of just one pirate is quite slow. Crews of 3 of 4 do much better when it comes to pulling in $DUBs.
NFT Pirates
As mentioned earlier, Pirates have randomized attributes and skills generated during the minting process. Four skills range from 0 to 100 and follow a normal curve distribution, with values around 50 being common and values near 0 or 100 being rare. A pirate’s rarity is indicated by its grade.
Combat: A crucial skill for pirates, affecting victories in player-versus-player and Royal Navy/Corsair battles. Constitution: Affects a pirate’s survival chances after losing a battle. Higher constitution greatly reduces the likelihood of death, complementing high combat.
Plunder: Determines the amount of loot acquired from merchant ships and other players. Plunder rolls against an opponent’s luck stat to calculate the percentage stolen.
Luck: A versatile skill, particularly useful for defense. Luck rolls against plunder to determine loot saved during a defeat, and also aids in evading attackers, finding items, and saving dying pirates.
Note: Dead pirates can only be revived using an algoskull or witchdoctor ritual.
Idle Gameplay Mechanics
In order to play, you need at least one pirate. Crews can be outfitted with as much as four pirates. The amount of pirates you have dictate which sea you participate in. The four pirate sea has the highest earners and strongest crews.
Many actions rely on rolls. Combat rolls combine a pirate’s base combat with a random 1-100 roll and compare it to another pirate’s similar roll. While a low-combat pirate could defeat a high-combat pirate with extreme luck, the odds are unfavorable. Luck and Plunder rolls function similarly.
There are two mechanisms through which you can control what your crew will attempt to do each game tick, and these can be changed any time. They are the infamy threshold, and the doubloon ($DUB) threshold.
Infamy reflects your crew’s notoriety. As a ship leaves port with zero infamy and $DUB, plundering merchants and defeating players increases both. Higher infamy yields more loot and improves attack chances.
Infamy Threshold (min 7, max 1000): The infamy threshold dictates the minimum infamy a ship must have for your crew to attempt to attack them. An infamy threshold of 7 is maximally aggressive, while an infamy threshold of 1,000 is as passive as you can play. This is because with an infamy threshold of 7, you will attack all ships going home with 7+ infamy.
The fact that the minimum infamy threshold can be is 7 is important, because it allows for passive play with weaker pirates.
Doubloon Threshold: This is simply the number of doubloons your crew will accumulate before attempting to return home. Note that other players can only attack you when you are going home.
Both Infamy and Doubloon thresholds can be changed at anytime. If you set your doubloon threshold low enough to where you have 6 or less infamy, you will not be attacked on the way home. This is because 7 is the minimum infamy threshold another player can set.
The Royal Navy, Merchants, and Corsairs.
The Royal Navy, a significant deterrent for pirates, can attack at any tick. Attack odds increase by 0.1% with each infamy point; at 1000 infamy, they attack with 100% certainty. Comprising four strong 80 combat pirates, they cannot die.
Defeat by the Royal Navy results in significant infamy and doubloon losses, which go to their coffers. Players can attack the Royal Navy’s coffers, but beware—losing leads to a pirate’s death 100% of the time.
*Unless prevented by a ritual or title.
Merchants
Plundering merchants is the basic way to generate doubloons in AlgoSeas. If you do not attack another player, return home, or get attacked by the navy; you will loot merchants. The amount you take increases with your ship’s crewmembers, infamy, plunder, and luck. Through plundering merchants, it is possible to earn without risking your pirates.
Corsairs
Corsairs are weak NPC privateer ships that attack ships returning home. You will only be attacked by a corsair if you have not been hit by another player or the navy. Unlike the Navy, which always has four pirates, Corsairs will have the same number of pirates as your ship. They will always have all 40-stats.
Pirate Leveling
Pirate leveling is a core mechanic that increases the benefits of aggressive play. There are three stats that can be leveled: Combat, Constitution, and Plunder.
Combat is leveled by making a combat roll (fighting a battle) where you are the aggressor. Each roll, regardless of victory, leads to EXP. You gain 5 EXP per attacking combat roll, and 1 EXP per defending roll.
Constitution is leveled by making a death roll. Every time you survive, you gain EXP. You gain 5 EXP per attacking constitution roll, and 1 EXP per defending roll.
Plunder is leveled by making a plunder roll. Loot a player or merchant, and you gain 1 EXP. Reach 17x your current plunder level, and you level up. This is the only skill that can be trained without attacking a player.
Pirates can also be leveled up via guild rewards.
Pursuing the Pirate King
The title of Pirate King is awarded to the player who plunders the most doubloons each day. In addition to the notoriety of the title, the Pirate King is granted 25% of all algo generated by the AlgoSeas platform. This includes not only algo spent for doubloons, but also algo generated by the NFT marketplace and NFT launchpad. Typically, this reward has been between 100 and 300 Algos.
Winning Pirate King isn’t the only earning method. You can earn algo by selling pirates and algoseas items on the marketplace, as well as through guild competitions and giveaways.
Strategies for Profitable Gameplay
Having a strong crew is just half the battle, an intelligent strategy will get you even further. I will outline a couple basic strategies newer players should employ.
The No Loss Strategy: Playing AlgoSeas Without Pirate Death
Pros: No risk of pirate death. Optimal for weak pirates. Accumulates dubs at a decent rate in the 4 pirate sea. Gains plunder EXP at a high rate.
Cons: Lowest rate of Doubloon accumulation. Cannot win pirate king with this strategy. No EXP gain. Leads to restlessness debuff. Least fun.
With the passive strategy, you first set your infamy threshold to 1000 and your doubloon threshold at a number around ~3000-7000 in the 4 pirate sea.
You then go to the witchdoctor every 24 hours and activate the Defense Death Protection Ritual. This will prevent your pirates from dying while defending, so your pirates will not die as long as you remember to do this.
Medium Combat 3 Seas/4 Seas Aggression
Pros: Decent Doubloon returns, pirate leveling in Combat, Cons, and Plundering. Enjoyable gameplay for medium-strength pirates without restlessness.
Cons: Risk of pirate death.
For a medium aggression strategy, set your infamy threshold between 13-50 and your Doubloon threshold above 30,000. While attacks are less frequent, successful ones yield substantial Doubloons. As pirates survive, they level up and increase in value. Mint more pirates or use Doubloons to level up others. Employ this strategy with 3-4 pirates having 60+ combat and 60+ constitution.
Max Risk and Revenue 7 Infamy Strategy
Pros: Near highest return on Doubloons. Quickest leveling for Combat and Constitution. Chance at Pirate King. Most enjoyable. No restlessness.
Cons: Pirates die at the quickest rate. More susceptible to Royal Navy attacks due to high infamy. Requires strong pirates.
With a max aggression strategy, you set your infamy threshold to 7 and your doubloon threshold to 50,000+. Your crew will attempt to attack on every tick, and will hit very often at higher infamy levels. This will yield a high return on Doubloons, but depending on your crews combat and constitution levels it may also lead to semi frequent crew deaths.
The AlgoSeas Shop
The Witch Doctor/Shop is an important character in the AlgoSeas world. You can access her services under the “Witch Doctor” tab next to the game log. She’s exactly the kind of shopkeep that thrives in a pirate world: quality products with questionable morals.
Purchase Doubloons: Converts Algo to $DUB at a rate of 1:100K.
Purchase Rum: You can purchase a bottle of rum for 5K $DUB, which automatically activates upon your crew’s next battle. It increases your crew’s combat by 5 for one battle.
Extract Skull: Sacrifices a dead pirate and 100K $DUB to receive a basic skull, which currently can be used for pirate revival attempts.
Walk The Plank: A sadistic process which kills your pirate and rewards you with between 50K and 150K $DUB. You can still extract the dead pirate’s skull.
She offers multiple services, but is only kind enough to perform one per night at no cost. Any additional ones will cost 5M doubloons or 5 Algo. Here, you can do four major rituals as seen below:
Attack Navy Protection: Guarantees your pirate’s survival on your next navy attack.
Defense Death Protection: Ensures that pirates will not die while defending. They can also not gain XP while this is active.
Pirate Revival Ritual: Here you can attempt to revive a pirate once a day. The ritual costs 1 basic skull, can be done once a day, and has a 5% chance of succeeding. You can increase this by spending more skulls to increase revive odds or spending more dub to revive more often, but both are not cost-effective to do.
AlgoSkull Pirate Revival Ritual: You may sacrifice an AlgoSkull to revive your pirate. Revived pirates will be reborn with a 5% debuff to all stats, and your AlgoSkull will be sacrificed to the witchdoctor. It can be repurchased for Algo.
Idle Missions Refresh: Reset all inactive Idle Missions. Extremely useful for Guilds.
The Witch Doctor will also sometimes decide to raffle rarer items and NFTs for “bones.”
AlgoSeas Guilds
AlgoSeas guilds are one of the most rewarding and enjoyable parts of the game. You can join up to four other players in a guild and participate in idle missions that reward guild XP, accessories, stat boosts, rum, and more. Top guilds receive algo rewards, and completing missions is one of the best ways to create a strong crew of pirates.
You can read my complete guide to guilds here.
High Forge, AlgoSeas Marketplace and AlgoSkulls
High Forge
High Forge is a top-quality Algorand NFT launchpad built by the AlgoSeas team and part of the AlgoSeas Ecosystem. 25% of the profits earned by High Forge will be funneled into AlgoSeas, making it so the game and sustain off an external source of revenue, which is an incredible feat for a play to earn game to achieve.
On top of that, the High Forge product is just great and fills a long needed ecosystem hole. You can check it out to launch your own NFT project or participate in someone else’s!
AlgoSeas Marketplace
AlgoSeas has a built in marketplace where pirates and be bought and sold. It is a great way to purchase strong pirates and to offload ones that you are no longer using.
AlgoSkulls
AlgoSkulls is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that provide ingame benefits for AlgoSeas and minting benefits on High Forge.
Latest AlgoSeas Updates
Titles
Titles are special benefits that can be earned through completing the corresponding requirement. Once obtained, they can be activated and will contribute to your crew’s actions.
I wrote a Mini-Guide about what each Title does and how to achieve it here.
AlgoSeas Safety Check
Not all projects in the blockchain spaces are trustworthy, and unfortunately some turn out to be complete cashgrabs. While it is difficult to ascertain whether or not a project is safe, there are a couple key indicators worth looking at.
Dox Check: Undoxxed projects are far more likely to rug than doxxed ones. AlgoSeas is doxxed, and they were even willing to provide extra information to support their intent. All of their information is easy findable online. They have put in consistent, thorough effort into the project even in a bear market.
Aust’s Linkedin | Aust’s Github | Mitch’s LinkedIn | Mckay’s LinkedIn
Beyond the Doxxing, there are not any red flags I can find. The team is very active and transparent on discord, and I’ve had nothing but great interactions with them. Even more, the team recently received a grant from the Algorand Foundation, which makes it about as reputable as a game on Algorand can get. That said, this is the most important aspect of a project to do your own research for.
Important AlgoSeas Links & Supporting the Blog
Connecting to AlgoSeas: Pera Wallet works, but MyAlgo Wallet is seamless.
Play AlgoSeas
AlgoSeas Discord
AlgoSeas Rules & Mechanics
That’s all for now! If you enjoyed this piece and want to read more, consider following me on Twitter @algonautblog to stay updated on new posts.
If you like Algorand Gaming, I recommend reading about Alchemon and Cosmic Champs.You can also check out the AlgoGamingGuild.
If you’re interesting in Passive Income, read the Best Sources of Passive Income on the Algorand Blockchain.
Thanks for reading, and stay safe!