Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag New Game - No Upgrades / No Harbourmaster / No General Store (Challenge)

How I ended up after completing this mental challenge

In this playthrough of the gorgeous Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, I am doing a raw, insanely mental "classic mode" challenge gameplay without any upgrades for Edward or the Jackdaw. I am not buying any ammo either, and don't open any chests, except for when this is required for optional objectives (namely, in "Nothing Is True" and "Diving For Medicines"). For ammo, I loot bodies and also hunt animals so as to have bones available to craft darts. And I use only Edward's default inventory until the end. I do not buy anything either from the Harbourmasters or the General Stores, and strictly use the market the times that are obligatory by the plot itself, specifically:

-to buy the first pair of swords in "Lively Havana", which the game requires as part of the story
-to get the intermediate hull in "Prizes and Plunder" as the first obligatory upgrade
-to buy the intermediate cannons in "Raise The Black Flag" as the second and last obligatory upgrade
-to get the Diving Bell in "Diving For Medicines" which is required for the completion of the mission

I do not craft any upgrades for Edward, except the first two which are obligatory in "This Tyro Captain": the Health Upgrade I and the Pistol Holster II. As mentioned above, I only resort to crafting when I need to refill my darts pouch.

The game restores the ship's health at the start of every new sequence; additionally, just off Abaco Island where you find yourself with fast traveling, there are always two schooners that you can easily defeat and board to repair the Jackdaw if needed. Every time you get desynchronized during a naval battle, the ship's health is restored when you resurrect, which you can see happening during the naval battle in "Royal Misfortune". 

I complete all optional objectives except for those that cannot be achieved due to the lack of the required upgrades. The challenge covers only and strictly the main story; I did not go for any side-activities or side-missions. I did not include the Present Day segments in the episodes, as they are not affected by the lack of upgrades in the main story, and besides I wanted to keep the story flowing without distractions. 

This challenge was quite an experience, as it turned out to be much tougher than it was theoretically. Having no upgrades for Edward was not much of an issue; in fact it was not an issue at all - except for one very specific case near the end. But having no upgrades for the Jackdaw was really brutal; or better, "brutal" is just a pale understatement. Luckily, it turns out the game offers cleverly designed alternatives for the cases of tough naval battles where literally the game switches to Hardcore Survival Mode when you play without upgrades.  

EPISODE 1: SEQUENCES 1 & 2

By far the easiest part, as there is no difference with regular gameplay. You don't get any upgrades at that point anyway, and you don't have the ship yet until mission "The Treasure Fleet", but even then the Jackdaw is by default as is, so it is just the same. Piloting the ship through the unforgiving storm is the biggest and toughest challenge in this part, as well as an epic moment of the game, thanks also to the ingenious music piece that accompanies it.

Edward Kenway (Prologue): (100%)
Lively Havana (100%)
...And My Sugar? (100%)
Mister Walpole, I Presume? (100%)
The Man They Call The Sage (100%)
Claiming What's Due (100%)
The Treasure Fleet (100%) 

EPISODE 2: SEQUENCES 3 & 4

Again there is not much difference here in comparison with a regular gameplay, as technically you don't yet have the resources to make any big upgrades to the Jackdaw. Boarding ships with Ben in "Prizes and Plunder" and "Raise The Black Flag" is done the exact same way, as this is when you get the first obligatory upgrades, which are also the ones which I stick to for the rest of the game in this insane challenge.

In "Proper Defenses", you are supposed to buy the Heavy Shot upgrade for the ship, but as I am neither doing any upgrades nor using the market for any reason, I ignored that one too. This means that the one of the two optional objectives in this mission is not achieved.

This Tyro Captain (100%)
Now Hiring (100%)
Prizes and Plunder (100%)
Raise The Black Flag (100%)
Sugarcane and Its Yields (100%)
Proper Defenses (90%)
A Single Madman (100%) 
This Old Cove (100%)
Nothing Is True (100%)
The Sage's Buried Secret (100%)
Overrun and Outnumbered (100%)

EPISODE 3: SEQUENCES 5 & 6

Like in the previous part, here too you are consulted to buy the Mortar for the Jackdaw, but my raw gameplay did not need that either. I must say that of all the upgrades, this was the one that I desperately missed during certain naval combat sequences. Subsequently in "The Forts" memory I did not get the one of the two optional objectives. Fighting the Fort with just the slightly upgraded broadside cannons and the default shots and swivels was rather tight, but thankfully there is the patrolling ship which is cleverly placed there to serve as an indirect restoration strategy for the ship mid-battle: you can easily defeat it and board it, thus repairing the ship to go on with the main fight against the fort.

The remaining missions of Sequence 5 take place in Kingston, and there is nothing particularly difficult that has to do with the limited upgrades; maybe having very few darts and smoke bombs can get a bit tricky in "Unmanned", but like Edward says in another instance, there is always another way. Sequence 6 is very easy; it does not involve any naval combat with the Jackdaw, as in "Devil's Advocate" you thankfully throw yourself in battle with Blackbeard's ship.

The Forts (90%)
Traveling Salesman (100%)
Unmanned (100%)
Diving For Medicines (100%)
Devil's Advocate (100%)
The Siege Of Charles-Towne (100%)

EPISODE 4: SEQUENCES 7 & 8

Sequence 7 takes place almost entirely on dry land, as we are trapped on the island of Nassau for the full three of the four memories it consists of. The very limited darts here may seem like an issue, as there is the optional objective in "The Gunpowder Plot" which requires hitting 10 enemies with either sleep or berserk darts, but I took care to have hunted enough animals beforehand so as to be able to craft darts on the spot, and sometimes you can also find a few with looting bodies. I usually abuse the darts in this game, so from this aspect this challenge was a great chance to make me come up with different strategies. The naval mission that ends the sequence, "The Fireship", is rather easy, but again I was not able to get the one of the two optional objectives, as I did not have the Mortar upgrade.

Sequence 8 has some nasty surprises if you play like I do in this challenge, the first one being the battle with the Man O' War in "Do Not Go Gently...". This looks like a tough battle, but truth is you can defeat this specific ship with relative ease if you follow the right strategy. Just shoot it with broadsides and all available shots when it is sailing, and take care to drift away from its mortars when it attacks. It takes a bit of time, but it is feasible. I missed the optional objective of this part, though, as I did not have the Heavy Shot upgrade.

What I found was not feasible the standard way was the battle at the end of "Vainglorious Bastards" with that unassuming slaver frigate. As I did not go for any side activities either, all forts remained hostile including that of Cabo de Cruz which, if captured, can be of great aid during that mission. Because the fort was hostile, it fired at the Jackdaw and not the enemy ships; and the slaver ship turned out to be quite a nightmare as it is able to fire three consecutive full broadsides that can literally tear your ship apart. Defeating the accompanying ships to have them available for boarding if necessary could work, but there is so limited space to move, that you will most often than not find yourself desynchronized by the slaver ship's attacks as soon as you have restored the Jackdaw's health. At some point, I had nearly beaten it, but got desynchronized before I was able to shoot the final hit. After several unsuccessful attempts trying various strategies and manoeuvres that all failed majestically, I noticed that suspicious piece of land just in the middle of the canal leading to the open sea. I also noticed the the Royal African Pearl would never leave its scripted space and would keep moving in circles every time that the Jackdaw sailed away from it towards the narrow canal. When the enemy ships have that yellow circle around them, you can never get to them with swimming as they regularly fire their cannons and you end up dead before being able to get near them, which is also the case in this mission if you attempt to reach the slaver ship while swimming. However, I found a workaround. I moved the Jackdaw back to the canal, as close as I could to the main battle area but far enough to make the detection sign of the Royal African Pearl turn yellow. This meant I was no more in open conflict and thus was able to leave the wheel. I had Edward swim towards the piece of land, and apparently because open conflict was halted, there was no attack made neither from the fort or from the accompanying ships which I think also disappeared at that point. I reached the part of the land near to where the slaver ship was sailing in circles, to the closest point that I could get to it, and swam towards it. Because there was no active conflict, there was no yellow circle around the ship now, and although it did shoot a couple of times, the distance I had to cover was very brief so I managed to reach the ship and climb on it in one piece. I killed the crew, then back to the Jackdaw to shoot a final blow to the Royal African Pearl and initiate the boarding cutscene. It may look a bit clumsy and messy (you can hear the dialogues overlapping each other), but I found it was the only way to get past this point. And I suspect that the developers placed that piece of land there on purpose, as an ultimate survival strategy for the players who may have reached that part without having done any upgrades to the Jackdaw beforehand. In this mission, I did not get any of the optional objectives, as I did not have the Ram upgrade and additionally I could not have the hostile fort work on my side. 

The bottomline is, this part may not be completely impossible to do the standard way without upgrades (as mentioned above, I nearly had it in one retry) but chances are the Jackdaw will not be able to survive the battle 9,5 times out of 10. The most surreal part during this crazy sequence was Adewale yelling at me to not sink the slaver ship, while I was on board of it fighting the enemy crew on my own.

We Demand A Parlay (100%)
The Gunpowder Plot (100%)
Commodore Eighty-Sixed (100%)
The Fireship (90%)
Do Not Go Gently... (90%)
Vainglorious Bastards (80%)
Marooned (100%)  

EPISODE 5: SEQUENCES 9 & 10

The highlight of this episode was definitely reaching the coast of Principe in "Trust Is Earned". I did something similar with the fight in "Vainglorious Bastards", only in this mission there are no yellow circles around the enemy ships for some reason, and you can swim to the Man O' War safely, as it keeps shooting at the Jackdaw (which however does not lose health as it is immobile and not involved in open conflict) and defeat the crew, then shoot cannons enough times to sink the ship as easily as that. 

Chasing Ben without upgrades in "Murder and Mayhem" may look tough but it is easy in itself, as The Benjamin is an extremely fast schooner but not very strong; although I had to reload at the start of the chase because the much more powerful accompanying ship caused a nasty desynchronization. I usually fight Ben in the open sea, but this time due to the lack of upgrades, the battle took longer, and subsequently Ben moved The Benjamin towards Santanillas, which was quite realistic because that is where he indeed ends up in the last part of the mission. 

Imagine My Surprise (100%)
Trust Is Earned (100%)
Black Bart's Gambit (100%)
Murder and Mayhem (100%)
The Observatory (100%) 

EPISODE 6: SEQUENCES 11, 12 & 13

Sequence 11 is easy and straightforward with no surprises; then in Sequence 12 things go crazy. "Royal Misfortune" was very tough during the naval battle, but then I realized that as long as I kept a bit away from the hullabaloo around Roberts, the British ships would take care to relentlessly bombard the Royal Fortune, forcing Roberts to fight them and not the Jackdaw. He would occasionally attempt to throw mortars towards me, but I kept away from the battle area and he could not reach me, moreover since he was trapped among his other attackers. When his ship had lost enough health, I joined the fray and shot it enough times to make it available for boarding. It was quite intense, but it worked; and I suppose that having the British ships attacking at that point, apart from being a plot necessity, is also a device to help the players carry out the battle in case the Jackdaw is not strong enough by then.

"Tainted Blood" is in fact the only mission where the lack of upgrades for Edward really hits badly. As I used his default pistols without having upscaled them, the already tough fight with El Tiburon became a royal pain in the arse. You need to shoot him way more times, both because you don't have enough bullets and because the default pistols are very weak. Thankfully, ammo crates magically appear in several spots every time you are close to emptying your guns, but you need to be anonymous in order to open them, which means hiding from El Tiburon and the random guards that show up, which is rarely an easy thing to do.

In the last mission, "Ever A Splinter", there is this ominous Armada guarding the entrance to the Observatory. To get past it, I resorted to the well-known harpooning trick: I sailed towards the Great White Shark location without passing through the yellow circle, so that the ships would not spot me, and initiated the harpooning event. I immediately got back to the ship and then approached the beach slowly, as the two huge ships were starting to fight each other, so I was able to go on with the mission having skipped the tough battle (which I always carry out in regular gameplays).

To Suffer Without Dying (100%)
Delirium (100%)
Everything Is Permitted (100%)
A Governor No Longer (100%)
Royal Misfortune (100%)
Tainted Blood (100%)
Ever A Splinter (100%)
...The End (100%)
How Grand, Master Kenway! (100%)