I am fairly new to the game, and I understand that you get companion points by leveling up, and by buying them, to level up the many companions you get throughout the game.

I was wondering though, is there a limited amount of these points? Will there be enough points so that I can level all of my companions up to the highest level? Since I am at a low level now, I want to refrain from spending these precious points on companions I will not use later.

Gamer4234 on Jan 15, 2014 wrote:

I am fairly new to the game, and I understand that you get companion points by leveling up, and by buying them, to level up the many companions you get throughout the game.

I was wondering though, is there a limited amount of these points? Will there be enough points so that I can level all of my companions up to the highest level? Since I am at a low level now, I want to refrain from spending these precious points on companions I will not use later.

Welcome to the message board family Gamer 4234 . You can buy up to 10 at one time but if you earn them and already have your 10 the level will build higher than that.
The price for the points goes up every time you level so I always try to have my 10 bought before I level. At the lower levels it is fairly easy to keep all your companions at your level but as you get into the high teens and 20 or so it just gets too expensive.
Here is what I do: I always keep my first mate at my level even though I know it will cost 3 or 4 tomes to do it. Then my strongest fighters (The ones with the most epics) I level them when they are far enough behind that one tome will bring them up one level. You will discover that the further behind you a companion is the bigger a boost one tome will give them. The companions that are weaker (only one or two epics), I level them when they are able to get at least 2 levels per tome. Even at this rate you will sometimes have to stop and farm to get the gold to keep them at a reasonable level. Until you can put some to sleep, (this happens at higher levels, you will earn sleep tokens and will gradually earn up to 3 of them, at this point in the level cap) It is a good idea to keep all that are active reasonably trained as those 1% ones have a surprising way of slipping into your battles more than you would expect them to.

Yes training is really expensive at higher levels but the game developers have promised us that they are working on something to make this easier for us. We just need to be a bit patient as those improvements happen one step at a time.

As long as the companion isn't asleep no training is wasted since they can show up in battle at any time. I show a bit of favoritism with the strong ones and my favorites so they are always ready when a boss fight comes up and I have a good strong roster to chose from when I get to chose who fights.

Trust me you don't want to get caught in a fight with some strong baddies and have a companion show up that is 25 levels below you. (Yes some players do this) Then they are calling for help and whining that the bosses are 'too hard'. If you do the work bit by bit and stop once in a while to beef up your crew and your nautical xp so you can have good strong ships that can be equipped, your game play will be oh so much more enjoyable and fun.

Gamer4234 on Jan 15, 2014 wrote:

I am fairly new to the game, and I understand that you get companion points by leveling up, and by buying them, to level up the many companions you get throughout the game.

I was wondering though, is there a limited amount of these points? Will there be enough points so that I can level all of my companions up to the highest level? Since I am at a low level now, I want to refrain from spending these precious points on companions I will not use later.

With one of my characters I have over 50 companion points. So you can at least get that many if there is a limit. On a separate character where I level companions (all of them) as I level, they are all nearly level 65, just requires a significant amount of gold to purchase companion points.

witchdoctor daruis on Jan 16, 2014 wrote:

There is through leveling up but doing side quests that give you tomes and buying them from the professors in taverns means you will be able to but beware the more tomes you buy the higher the cost to buy another one mine is at 2355gold at the start its 300 gold so you can get a few when you um don't want to ruin story for you ok that's enough before I tell you the whole game

Just to clarify your great tip. The price doesn't go up based on the amount of tomes you have. It goes up every time you level.

On at least one of my pirates, I made sure they were all trained up as of level 8 (ie Presidio), and then only trained them when my pirate was 9 or more levels ahead of them.

This did make some of the battles quite a bit more difficult, but having been playing through closed beta, I was up for the challenge. Thanks to a friend here and there, that lent a hand when I was in trouble! ;)

Having done this however proved to be a fun challenge, and had a couple other outcomes...

1. Gold - I had all sorts of gold for gear, ships, etc. (since I was not spending it on purchasing training tomes)
2. Each tome I did have would train a companion (that is 9 levels below your pirate), 3 levels. This made tome usage quite a bit more efficient.

I did this until I hit the level cap, which at that time was level 50.
At that point I had well over 100 training tomes accumulated, and was able to train ALL of my companions except 3 up to my pirates level (level 50) (matter of fact I only had to buy 12 more tomes to make them ALL level 50).

b. Return on Book Investment.
Wait until your companion will advance two levels for each book before giving him a tome (5 levels behind you). Once you have a large crew you may want to wait until a less desirable companion will get three levels for a book (9 levels behind you). There is a table in the companions section, but he gets two levels when you give a book to a companion who is five levels behind you, and three levels when he is nine levels behind. Waiting longer than that will net a higher return, but occasionally these companions will show up in a fight and you may lose that fight because he is so useless. Once you bench a companion, he will never show up in combat again, unless you select him in an Epic Battle so you don't have to give him any more training tomes. Bear in mind that some of the "worst" crew can train Witch Hunter epic talent. These are the ones I train up and bench until special circumstances arise, then I give them the top spots on my crew roster.

d. Bank Your Book Quests
Skip side quests that reward you with books until you are one less than maximum level and have at least 10 books saved up. The books are worth 8000 gold at 65th level, so this allows you to buy them cheaper once you run out (somwhere in Aquila for me).
3. Ships
Ships are necessary to quickly finish ship quests.
They are also a good place to put your money before you can buy more books. When I get close to the gold cap, 200,000 gold, I buy the next ship I will need, before I can use it, so that I keep getting paid on the quests I am doing. Besides, You cannot pass ships through the shared bank, so you will eventually want to buy them anyway. Don't buy every ship, but I typically buy every galleon except maybe the pirate origin galleon.
You get four free ships in the game, and they are barely adequate for completing ship quests without boarding when you get them.
Sinking the enemy with ship's weapons instead of hand to hand will gain you ship parts that are better than any you can buy at the dock, so fight the ship bosses and turrets to get the best parts when you are sinking ships to raise your nautical level.
4. Farming
I never farm just for gold. I farm for gear and ship parts, and the gold comes with them. Friar Sand at the Temple of the East Wind, in MooShu, is currently the best boss to gold farm, and he drops some nice 45th level gear. The game is currently easy enough to beat, even with your crew 4 levels behind you, and you get a lot of great gear that you can pass through the shared bank, so farming is really the most reasonable, for members, after you max out your 5 pirates.