Merchant of the Skies

This is for accumulating 15,000 gold. You must have it all at once, this is NOT cumulative. This will be listed in your quest log and is your first primary game goal. This is actually a trivial amount of money but, counterintuitively it’s easier to get there by spending a good chunk of your cash early on.

You start with a very small ship that can’t hold very much. You should be able to make a enough to buy the first new ship upgrade by buying and selling wood and dye between the first two islands.

Don’t ever spend too far down (unless you’re trying to bankrupt for the achievement) as payday comes at the end of the week and your ship doesn’t have too much energy so it’s easy to run out and need a tow (which costs). Bankrupting more than once supposedly ends your campaign so try not to do it unplanned

Always fill up on energy, even at expensive islands. It only ever charges you the number of units to top it off so always do a full charge.

The game prompts you early to buy and build a sand pit on an island. DON’T do this first. Wood is much more valuable and you need a ton to improve buildings anyway so when you have about two times the cost of a nearby wood island, buy it and build storage then a wood collection building. You must staff most buildings with parts of your crew so always hire the max at Houses on the islands that have them, they also make your ship go faster if you have enough so they’re always worth their salaries.

The early mail quests and tours with named NPCs will drag you to a good selection of islands, decide on your trade route, focus on higher value items once you have the cash. At around 10,000 gold buy the airship with the perfectly spherical ballon (whatever it’s called), it’s around 6,000 which sounds painful but it has a massive battery and really big cargo hold. Hire the max number of crew or it’ll sail at a snail’s pace. Not all Shipwrights sell the same ships so you may need to check one or two for this one, it’s the only ship in that price range though.

Now you’re down to 3,000 gold or so but you have a truly useful ship that can actually get around the map. Plot out a new, bigger, and more lucrative route. Snag a stone quarry as soon as you can as you need an epic ton of that to win the game but otherwise don’t go buy crazy. Always keep 1,000 gold in reserve in case you forget to recharge and need a tow.

Once you have this get your 15,000g all in your pocket at once, this achievement will pop and you’ll have the basics of the game well in hand.