Uncharted Waters in an underrated and often over looked role playing game on the NES, SNES,
and Sega Genesis systems. The one I'm playing picture above.
The game is a bit light on story but heavy in exploration. It's a big open world on the high seas and you are free to do whatever you please right from the beginning. That's why I'm putting together this little beginners tutorial to get you started. I'll go over the basics and hopefully a couple of you will chose to play as well and give this great game a chance. So grab a barrel of ale, a bottle of rum, and meet me on the high seas!
     Your character is a 16 year old Portuguese kid with little sailing experience. Your father died in a storm on the sea. All your family fame and fortune is gone! So you set sail to make a name for yourself and bring glory back to your name. As well as make a living in the process of course.

Getting started is simple enough, name your hero, name your boat and you're ready to go.
You start out in the port of Lisbon with $1000 and a small amount of cargo. Find the marketplace and sell all cargo.
That should leave you with about $2000. Now it's time to establish a trade route and start bringing in some cash. Check out the town and chat in the bar if you choose to.

You have enough food and water for 18 days at sea, so load the ship up with sugar from the marketplace and depart.
Head north from port for 3 screens. (Until the music changes) Then head east 2 screens.
Sail around the shoreline to east side of the land mass. Be sure to stay close to shore so you will be close enough to see port when you get there. When you discover the port, debark and make a port call. This is London. The tea drinkers here pay a fine price for sugar.

Re-supply your ship with food and water before going to the marketplace. This way you dont forget to do so before you max out your cargo hold. Sell all of the sugar and buy as much porceain as you can. This is the one thing here you can take back to Lisbon with you. Sail back to Lisbon, sell goods, buy goods, talk to people in the bar.
You'll notice that information costs in this game. Gossip at the bar and tip the waitress for news and hints.

In the bar, I learned that someone is looking for me in Marsielle at N45 E5.
(The quests in Uncharted Waters seem to be random so your results will vary I'm sure)
Completing these random fetch quests will increase your fame, which will lead to bigger and better quests from more important people and ultimately lead you to your final goal of fame and fortune!
I'm not ready to do a quest yet so I chose not to go looking for this person. Instead I want to buy a sextant and a telescope and earn a little money on the trade route.

The building to the left of the bar is the guild. The guild master sells navigation equipment as well as swords, treasures and such. You want to buy a sextant here now if you can afford $800.
The sextant will allow you to note your location via longitude/latitude. Nobody should set sail without one.
Follow the trade route a couple more times until you have over $1000 disposable income. Stop by the London guild and purchase the telescope from the guild master for $1000.

Gossip at the bar and try to hire some mates if any are around. Mates are skilled sailors that can manage a crew and sail a ship. You can't get another boat if you don't have someone who can sail one.

When you're ready to set sail again, you can do a little exploring if you chose.

With your new telescope, you can see ports anywhere in the screen. No more searching the shoreline wasting precious resources! Antwerp is 1 screen S of London. 1 screen S of Antwerp is Bordeaux. East of London you will find both Oslo and Hamburg.

A few thousand dollars will get you another ship. I recommend you pick one up as soon as you have the cash and someone who can sail it. Negotiate with the shipyard owner on a smallish used vessel with a cargo hold of 100 or more. Dont forget to stop by the pub to find some crew. In most large ports, a thousand dollars will net around 25-50 men. Smallish boats only need 20 or so so  spend accordingly. 
Remember to re-supply with food and water. (feeding twice as many mouths now) and load the larger ship with cargo and leave port. Oh yeah, don't forget to fix your used ships in the shipyard.  They come damaged when they're used.

When in town, push select to save. When on the world map, bring up the menu first with A, then select.

LISBON N50 W10
BORDEAUX N55 E0
ANTWERP N60 E0
LONDON N70 W10
OSLO N65 E5
HAMBURG N65 E5
SEVILLE
TUNIS N40 E5
ALGIERS N35 E0
VALENCIA N40 W5
MARSIELLE N45 E5
GENOA N50 E10
PISA N45 E10
NAPLES N45 E10
MAJORCA N40 E10
ISANBUL N45 E20

Check out all the ports in the area. The Northern European ones as well as the ones in The Mediterrainean.
The next trade route you should pursue should be buying artwork in Istanbul and selling in whichever Mediterranean port town is a good price. If you get kicked out of Istanbul, or if you ruin the marketplace there, you can also get Artwork in Pisa..You should be able to maintain a profit of 200-300 dollars per crate of artwork, so the $$ will really start flowing. Keep on the lookout for skilled men. You need an extra if you plan to buy another boat. What else you gonna do with all that cash?

Complete any fetch quests you come across to increase your fame. Especially if it's for the king.
At this point, I like to get a full fleet of 5 used Carracks. The carrack is a nice large ship that is eaasy to handle for your young, inexperienced navigators. The Galleon is a beast and is hard to handle.
The carracks can handle a cargo load of about 420 each and up to 90 crew.  I usually put 50 or less crew on each and they can handle the boat just fine. If you plan on fighting though, be sure to add more.
If you still have cash to spare, buy a figurehead for each boat. (Protects from storms and disasters) And arm the ships with cannons.
When you're ready to explore some more, load up with Firearms and head for Santo Domingo in the New World.

Santo Domingo is a great place to get coral and gold. It also happens to be a great place to sell firearms.
Santo Domingo is a tough place to find unless you know where it is, but It's simple if you follow these directions.

From Lisbon head due South, past Seville. Keep heading south along the African coastline until you find the port of Verde. N10 W20. Verde is just a supply port. Nothing to do here but resupply for the juorney west.
From verde, head due west untill you see a chunk of land to the top of your screen. Here you will find
Santo Domingo N10 W75 and Jamaica N10 W80
Invest in the marketplace in Santo Domingo and Jamaica. Once you get the economic worth up around 225 or so, (which doesn't take much) gold will become available at a great price.

TIPS

SAVE OFTEN! On the open seas, anything can and probably will happen.

GET SEXTANT AND TELESCOPE ASAP
The telescope allows you to locate ports. You can also use it to examine other fleets from a distance.
For example: What flag the other fleet sails under, what type of ships, (tradeships, warships, or pirates)
Use the examine option to be sure the other fleet will be friendly before talking to them.

TALK TO THE OTHER TRADE SHIPS ON THE SEA. They always have useful information that you dont have to pay for. Information such as, which port pays the best for whichever cargo you're carrying,
or in which port you can find some skilled mates.

RESTOCK FOOD AND WATER BEFORE LOADING UP ON CARGO.
I dont know how many times I loaded up with cargo only to find out I didn't have enough food and water to get anywhere. When this happens you have to sell some cargo at a loss to buy some food.

WHEN ESTABLISHING TRADE ROUTES, try to sell goods in the same port you buy goods in and vice versa. If you only buy buy buy or sell sell sell, you will ruin the marketplace. (Supply and demand)

WATCH OUT FOR PIRATES! They'll kill you and take your goods if you aren't prepared to fight them. Best to avoid them all together until you have an entire fleet of armed ships.

KEEP A PEN AND PAPER HANDY AND DO YOUR HOMEWORK.
Write down the coordinates of every port you find as well as every port an NPC tells you about.
Write down your quests so you dont forget what you're doing, where you're headed and what type and quantity of cargo you're after.

CAP'N YOUR SAILING SKILL HAS IMPROVED!
Debark and make a port call in every port you find. This will level up your character.
You need experience and sailing skill to sail bigger boats. You don't want to end up lost at sea.

BATTLE SKILL
You gain levels in 2 ways in Uncharted Waters. Sailing skill and battle skill. Just because you're a high level badass sailor, doesn't mean you know how to weild a sword. As you get more fame, rival nations may become jealous of you and put out a bounty on your head. You'd better know how to defend yourself!

STUDY THE MARKETPLACES
You can make a living peddling sugar, but that will get boring pretty quick. The big bucks are in dealing in specialty items. Use the view market option in the marketplaces to see what they pay for each type of cargo in the game.

WHEN YOU'VE EARNED ENOUGH SCRATCH FOR ANOTHER RIDE,
never pay asking price on a uses vessel. These guys love to haggle.
Remember, you need an extra skilled sailor before you buy a boat.
Remember to leave enough money to hire crew and supplies for your new boat as well as to make repairs before you sail.

WHEN YOU GET ANOTHER BOAT
You can keep all the supplies for all of your ships on one boat and still feed the crew on the others.
This is what I do to make it as simple as possible:
Fleet of five ships. Name one food and fill it with just food. Same for water. Other 3 can carry cargo.

HOW TO CHANGE FLAGSHIP
I remember having a hell of a time figuring this out back in the day. The flagship is the ship you are navigating. Once you upgrade to a bigger ship, you want that one to be your flagship then right?
Bring up your menu while sailing the world map. select order. select personnel. Replace which navigator? Switch navigators. Now you have to click on "done" in order for the switch to take effect. You can't sell your flagship, so if you wanna sell your first boat, change your flagship first.

PORTUGUESE PIRATES
Pirates are pirates. Portuguese pirates will still attack you, even though you sail under a Portugese flag.

INCREASE YOUR MATES' LOYALTY
In the lodging room in towns, you can view you and your mates status. Loyalty is an important stat. If a navigator has low loyalty, he may steal your ship one day never to be seen again. especially if you end up fighting for your lives.
Loyalty can be increased by giving him a big fat bonus. To do this open the menu on the world map. Go to order, distribute, select which mate to distribute wealth to. It will show the mate's loyalty, and give you the option of how much to give. (1-999).

INVEST IN THE MARKETPLACES OF SANTO DOMINGO AND JAMAICA
Once you get the economic worth up around 225 or so, (which doesn't take much)
gold will become available at a great price.

INVESTING IN PORTS WILL GAIN THEIR LOYALTY TO PORTUGAL
Allies are good yes?

HEAVY GALLEON
The biggest and baddest vessel in the game. It can't be purchased anywhere without investing heavily in the shipyard somewhere to to max it's industrial worth.  A fleet of these heavily armed bad boys and you can take on anyone.

 

PORTS DISCOVERED SO FAR (*= supply port only, no town)

LISBON             N50 W10
BORDEAUX      N55 E0
ANTWERP        N60 E0
LONDON           N70 W10
OSLO                N65 E5
HAMBURG        N65 E5
SEVILLE            N40 W10
TUNIS               N40 E5
ALGIERS          N35 E0
VALENCIA        N40 W5
MARSIELLE      N45 E5
GENOA             N50 E10
PISA                  N45 E10
NAPLES            N45 E10
MAJORCA         N40 E10
ISANBUL           N45 E20
VERDE              N10 W20
ARGIN               S0   W10
LUANDA*          S20 E15
SAN JORGE      S0   E0
VIRGINIA*         N45 W75
JAMAICA          N10 W80
SANTO DOMINGO N10 W 75

THE MAP



THE CAPTAINS LOG



That should get you a feel for the game and get you well on your way sailing the seven seas.
That's it for now guys. more to come.....

 

Good thread. I have always been interested in this game, but haven't given it a shot yet. Do you have any insight into the difference between the versions?

Cool. I just got this game in the mail yesterday and have never played it before. This should prove quite useful!

I love this game and it's sequel, New horizons

Bookmark'd.

Cool game but most of these old Koei games go over my head. Feel like I need to take a course just to understand how to play.

True. I think one of the reasons I still love and play Uncharted Waters is because I played it so much back when I was a kid. 

I cant imagine playing it for the first time as an adult. It wouls be way to time consuming and frustrating

+1 to that.  I have almost all of the Koei games on NES and I keep swearing to my self that I will one day sit down and actually learn how to play them.  But then I just grab Castlevania and beat the hell out of Dracula instead.   Seriously, though, the manuals for these games are more like textbooks.  Bandit Kings of Ancient China and L'Empereur are both nearly 70 pages long.  Like you mentioned, that's not learning how to play a game, that's going to school.

Awesome thread, everytime I try to play this I always end of dying before I get too far. I also just picked up New Horizons over the weekend so this makes we makes me want to boot it up even more. Between this and Pirates! on Genesis, there are some amazing pirate simulators out there.

Sweet! I have been wanting to play through these for a while. Is it true that the NES, SNES, and Genesis versions of the first Uncharted Waters are all pretty much identical (minus Genesis' ass music)? I want to play through for the first time on the best version

Play both on the Snes

I could be wrong because I never have played them back to back or compared them side to side but I think The 8 bit and 16 bit versions are the same. The 16 bit version has an extra battle animation. That's all I've noticed besides controls. I haven't played the genny version in forever. I played through the NES a year and a half ago. Super way back 6 or 7 years ago and not sinced. I'm playing on super now again.

Unfortunately, playing Uncharted Waters will not teach you how to play other KOEI games. This ones diff'rent.

Added the map and the captains journal. The map only shows the well known ports. You need to explore to find the rest. Can you guys see that okay?

Excellent, an Uncharted Waters post.  One of these days, I am going to play through New Horizons again - it was such a fun experience.  When I played through New Horizons, I wrote up a journal about it (in case anyone wants to check out that play through, it's here):
New Horizons

Hopefully you'll play that one after you finish up your Uncharted Waters - I think you'd be very pleased with the upgrades they made for that game.