A Challenging Challenge

Anyone who is looking for a more challenging experience in your game of Sunless Sea, lend me your ears. You have probably already tried the Dining Room Table challenge at this point (playing the whole game with the Steam Launch), and now I bring you another idea. There are but three requirements. First, you must have a completely discovered map on your current character. Secondly, when you are finished with your filled map character, take the Correspondent legacy to keep the fully filled map. Then, give your correspondent character the Zong of the Zee ambition. Now, my rationale is the fact that one would have to acquire 40+ secrets to write the Zong of the Zee and, if your map is already completely discovered, there is no way to gain fragments, and thus create secrets, by finding new areas. This means one would have to rely on quests, and buying secrets from Irem, in order to complete the ambition. Try it out, and if you actually complete this challenge, report back to me as to how long it took.

OK Challenge accepted - started a new captain today; took the map and, as I had a scion, also took half my money. That meant I could go buy a Merchant Cruiser and have enough money to equip and stock it. So maybe this won’t be as challenging as you might think but to make it more challenging I will not buy any secrets from Irem and just use those I get in game. I’ll report back as soon as I have my Zong of the Zee.

I just wrote my Zong of the Zee. I’m not ready to retire yet though, I’m only at Another Day 70 so haven’t got to a certain officer’s story.

I must admit to playing this game differently though with a lot of hanging around Ports waiting until I got the options and results I wanted rather than returning to London. There was also a fair amount of hunting Lorn Flukes (for secrets); Albino Moray (Hunting trophies and Stygian Ivory both of which could be swapped for stories); Lifebergs and other beastie hunting. I also got a lot of Foxfire Candles and took enough trips into the Wisp Ways to get the Searing Enigmas for the Dreadful Surmise, plus other useful items.

I doubt very much if I will speed through getting the Zong again as I prefer moving around the map more. There are a lot of places to get Fragments and secrets even if you do take the map and getting the components for the other things you need is relatively easy as long as you have money and know where to go to get everything you need. It would probably be more tricky if you didn’t have a scion and could only take the map.

Yes, but my original question remains: How long did it take you? How many hours? I need this because I’ve been running a lot of experiments and challenges in the game trying to figure out how to make it harder for me, because at this point I’ve played it way too much and it’s getting boring but I DON’T WANT THAT. I can’t hardly wait for the Zubmariner expansion, as well as that Foxman guy’s Unnecessary Overhaul mod.

Sorry I didn’t keep a record of how many hours I spent playing over the weekend but it was just over a year in game time - it was April 19th 1897 when I retired my previous captain and May 18th 1898 when I wrote the Zong. I think a day in Sunless Sea is around a minute in real life so around 7 or 8 (maybe 9) hours of playing as time passes only when you are at Zee and I spent some time in the Mangrove College exploring the Wisp Ways.