Assassin's Creed Black Flag How To Make Money

Ben has been a geek all of his life, so his expertise tends to fall into gaming and technology.

All images are from the game Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag from the game itself or the Ubisoft website.

At the beginning of the game, it can be a little difficult to actually get the money necessary to upgrade your weapons and your ship. Looting chests and hunting down hidden treasures with treasure maps are naturally all a part of the game, but they won't get everything you need in a speedy manner.

With a few small changes in behavior, you will never feel like you're always broke again.

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Saving Is Earning

Although it can be tempting to go spend a lot of money on swords and guns, the truth is they don't make a lot of difference, especially in the early game. They're not going to help you make money so you should only go with the most basic version of each and pump all of your money into the Jackdaw.

With the money you earn there, you can reinvest in getting your personal equipment later and be a lot better off with your progression.

This also rings true with your personal hideout. While the basic amenities are convenient and aren't all that expensive, the rest of it is only cosmetic. These are things that you should only look at getting when your ship is heavily upgraded and money isn't so much of an issue.

The excellent fast travel system makes none of these upgrades necessary with everything you need available at every port.

Tip: Pick up every Shanty you can find. Pirate radio can get a bit dull on the open sea if all you have are a few songs. Having a good selection makes sailing the seas quite enjoyable.

Enjoy the Ride

Although the fast travel system in this game is great for getting around, it can be just as enjoyable to enjoy the journey along the ocean. You can also pick up a lot of random bits of cargo and crew floating along the ocean.

Even though it won't earn you a great amount of cash, you can sail the seas to recruit more crew and see all the ships that are sailing about. It also plays well into the real money maker of this game.

Take Down Ships

The absolute best way to make money in this game is to live up to your original title and be a pirate. This means getting in your ship and taking down as many ships as possible as quickly as possible.

First, upgrade your Ram as quickly as possible to at least level 2. It's not the most exciting weapon in the game, but with an appropriately leveled Ram, you can smack into Schooners on the northern half of the map and immediately disable them for boarding. This will ensure little to no damage to your ship and let you build a beginning fleet rather quickly with minimum hassle.

Especially when attacking Schooners you will want to use your Swivel gun given their height compared to yours. Point it at the deck and you can take out multiple enemy sailors in one shot. And if you strategically fire at some of the gunpowder kegs sitting on deck when enemy soldiers are around you can get the fight over with before any of your crew manage to get on board. You can even take out the escort ships of a convoy before anyone is aware by using this method, leaving the ship with the gold quite vulnerable.

After laying waste to a sea full of schooners you're going to be ready to start taking on military vessels. While you can get Cloth and Wood from any ship, the metal you need is on the military ones.

At the beginning of the game, the easiest way to find one is to simply not lower your wanted level. You'll start to be attacked by pirate hunter ships soon enough and will start getting all the metal you can handle. Yes, this may be in the form of cannonballs, but if you've rammed enough of the smaller ships it won't be a big issue for the most part.

Take Advantage of the Weather

Are you sailing into a storm? Right now is the very best time to look around for some ships and the bigger the better. While you might be an amazing captain and able to sail around all of those nasty water spouts, enemy ships aren't always so lucky.

It can be a thing of beauty to watch a water spout rip through an entire fleet and leave a large number of them ripe for boarding. Yet another reason to not use fast travel in this game.

Online Activities

Although there are plenty of ways to get money without a connected console, you will make it a lot easier on yourself if you are connected to the outside world. Social

Challenges can offer a variety of rewards through several different activities and the 'Fleet' minigame will also allow you to earn cash a lot faster then what you could normally in game.

Tip

Pirate Hunter ships are not only max level, but they only sail when you do. If you stop your ship and let go of the wheel, they'll stop too. You can then swim over to them and kill every man on board. Swim back and attack them just once with any weapon to allow your crew to take the ship. You'll still need to blow some powder kegs and destroy their flag to make it official.

At the max wanted level, you can easily get all the ships you need even it's not very exciting doing it this way. Just be sure to play it safe and let go of the wheel before you get within 500m so those pirate hunters haven't picked a fight yet.

Fleet Missions

Let's delve a little deeper into the Fleet missions for a moment. Fleet missions can be pretty decent for getting money, but not until you've built up your fleet. The further you send your ships out the riskier it is for them, and thus requires a stronger ship to survive with your gold... or at least stronger ships to make the route safe. It's only after you get some solid military ships in your fleet that this option picks up steam for making money, but can be fun to play around with.

With a handful of level 60 Man-O-Wars, a lot of Frigates, and all of your docks unlocked you can log into your fleet and easily find daily hauls of 20-40k waiting for you.

Warehouses

Although not the best way to make money in the game warehouses contain a complete mix of resources for you to steal, including the all-important metal resource.

It can be quite a fun change of pace to do these kinds of missions, and when gold is less important than the resources you need for your upgrades this can be a guaranteed way of getting what you need rather than finding it on the open sea.

Assassination Contracts

For another change of pace, you can become a killer for hire. Each of these missions will give you 1000 Reals upon completion, with gold bonuses of up to 500 for staying out of combat. If you wait till you get the blowgun these become a lot easier, but still not bad if you're looking for some quick cash.

Harpooning

Although you need the skins for your own personal upgrades, the extra skins that you get will earn you several hundred gold each.

Of course, that assumes that this minigame doesn't make you feel too guilty about what you're doing.

Pick Pocketing

If you've played the series before and remember walking through crowds and basically vacuuming up cash by walking through you're going to be quite disappointed.

When you pickpocket now you're required to actually hold a button for a few moments to be successful at the act. Even if you're running down couriers and stealing their money it's not really worth it considering all of the other activities you can do.

Gambling

While you can gamble with your money you shouldn't even attempt it. The amount you can win is very low compared to the time invested in the game. Give it a try once or twice to see what it's all about, but don't waste your time thinking you'll get any kind of decent return on your money.

chris on April 03, 2020:

really great tips. thank you

Ced Yong from Asia on June 29, 2016:

Bought this cheap off Steam. Would be checking out your tips. :)

feelthebern on June 23, 2016:

i have found an easy way to obtain plenty of cash, takes a bit, but I've found that it really helps out. all you do is go to one warehouse, loot it, and usually another one somewhere around the map fills up. fast travel to that nice and ripe warehouse (fast travel just makes it somewhat faster) loot it, and again, another one should open up. you gotta look around the map to find a full one, but it really does help.

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on February 24, 2015:

I haven't noticed any issues myself, but it could have been an internet hiccup somewhere. Hopefully you still got all the information you needed to help you make lots of cash :)

Ainy on February 19, 2015:

I'm not sure why but this blog is loading exelemtry slow for me. Is anyone else having this issue or is it a problem on my end? I'll check back later and see if the problem still exists.

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on August 22, 2014:

Once you get your cash flow going, it can be really quite nice to not need to worry about scrambling for cash. Especially once you've gotten your fleet in full swing, it makes it easy to take your time and have fun with it all.

Samuel Franklin on August 22, 2014:

Like a few of the other comments here I also found managing money in the game abit of a struggle. I feel like I rushed through my first playthrough a little though so that's probably got something to do with it.

I did promise myself I'd try the hardest difficulty same day and just get immersed in the experience. I feel like these tips will probably be vital if I'm ever going to succeed.

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on May 21, 2014:

I wouldn't exactly call that easy, but it certainly can be fast if you can pull it off.

ravenous on May 21, 2014:

I have the end all way of getting money. Involves nothing more then killing a ship and dieing yourself..

Upper right of map locate the legendary ship. It consists of 2 man o war. Black and white.

1 pick target

2 kill target - aim all attacks at that target

3 pick up loot that guy drops - 10000 r

4 if not strong enough will die anyway.

5...... Do it again

I got 60k in 20 min and I was trying to beat it. You can loop this process on purpose. All you need is time. 100000 in 40 min then upgrade your ship to elite easily and dominate the seas.

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on March 22, 2014:

To be honest I don't remember. After getting my fleet up and running at full tilt I never had money issues, and when new upgrades were made available by the story I just purchased them without thinking about it.

DragonKing1120 on March 22, 2014:

Approximately how much do you spend upgrading the jackdaw to the highest you can without any elite plans

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on March 14, 2014:

If you follow my tip in the blue box above you can get the level 60 Man O' Wars without needing to intercept a moving ship while swimming. I found that out after trying to do exactly what you describe, but missing the ship a few times and needing to swim back to my own :)

Julián on March 14, 2014:

I've found this way:

You look for the biggest ships (not the superships), but those level 36 and +. The "Convoys" that are sometimes shown on the map. You reach the ship swimming (you must pass the ship first). Of course you can't swim faster than the ship. Then you climb to the ship's roof and kill all the "enemies". After that swim back to your ship. A single shot will destroy the ship that has no one live on it. That gives a lot of money (+3000), iron and other stuf. The most difficult is to reach the ship, the rest is quite easy.

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on March 04, 2014:

Glad you enjoyed my guide. After getting my fleet maxed out I was able to pull down a ton of cash every day. I was doing the mini game just for fun, but stopped somewhere after I had purchased everything and had half a million in the bank.

Sarah Forester from Australia on March 04, 2014:

Extremely in depth guide, thanks for putting it together. I must admit I struggled managing money on my first playthrough, might have to try a harder difficultly this time around with these tips.

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on January 27, 2014:

I guess we'll just have to wait and see where they take the series :)

Hulabalu on January 26, 2014:

Yeah i can't wait until they do it will be so exciting but i think it will be hard to do it. But i think if they did it would be the best one who doesn't want to play as a ninja assassin taking on contracts.

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on January 25, 2014:

I bet they've gotten so many requests for an Assassins Creed set in Japan that they're waiting till they can do it right... and I'll be buying that on day one.

Hulabalu on January 25, 2014:

there should be a ninja one

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on January 25, 2014:

If you're just looking for gold you should definitely be hunting for Sugar and Rum as those two are meant to only be sold and not used for anything else. Rum sells for a higher price however, so keep that in mind when picking targets.

K1ng of Lebanon on January 25, 2014:

If your low on money do what iv been doing destroying ships for rum/sugar i found sugar is the best selling 100 sugar is almost 2000 not much but helps

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on January 09, 2014:

This one is especially fun I think. I've put a great many hours into this one, and will continue to put quite a few more.

James Richton from USA on January 09, 2014:

I love the Assassin's games. i think that they are such a fun game to play and I could play for hours on end.