Sequence 02

As you arrive you meet a psychotic who wants to serve under you – actually I don't know that he is a psychotic, I just like saying that... Heh... If you hit the pause menu and then move the selection to DNA Tracker and hit the action button you can see how well you did on the first Sequence by zooming in (A again) and pushing down on the Left Joystick twice to see the Record for Journey to the New World. With any luck you did everything you were supposed to and you nailed it 100% – I hope so anyway!

You need to follow Charles Lee off of the docks, at which point you will temporarily part company while you seek out the General Store and he runs a chore... The store is ahead on the right, and when you arrive you meet Benjamin Franklin – who was robbed it seems.

As you chat with him he tells you about his Almanac, and then he asks you to help find his missing pages for a reward... If you want to look around you will notice a game marker on the map for Six Men's Morris, but hold off on this for a moment and head to the General Store first.

The basics of obtaining your supplies in a shop

Your objectives are to purchase a Sword and Pistol - go to the counter and purchase a Normal Sword and a Flintlock Pistol - then initiate trade again and purchase some extra bullets... You may need those, just saying...

Charles Lee is waiting for you with a horse, and you need to mount up and follow him through the town to the Green Dragon Tavern (that is actually a pretty famous place) where you will dismount and meet with a compatriot, William Johnson, inside. To do that have a chat with the Innkeeper then follow Charles upstairs for a CS with Johnson, and you learn that his research has been stolen – he gives you the details, so you can help him out.

Accessing the Rich Records System

You need to seek out Thomas Hickey in the compound – hit the Start Button to read the bio for Hickey, and while you are at it, you can read the other Bios you have unlocked now, and perhaps that is a good idea!

Hit the Start Button and then select the Animus Database, and then take a look at the following sections, which should have the following entries:

Locations

These are both the locations you visit and the ones you are told about or that are referenced in other conversations with the people you meet. Reading up on the locations can help you to weigh their importance to your current strategy and activities.

Boston

* Bunch of Grapes

* Crown Coffee House

* Faneuil Hall

* Green Dragon Tavern

Other

* Theatre Royal

* Markets

Naval

* Atlantic Ocean

People

These entries cover the people you have met, interacted with, or discussed in conversation, and reading their dossiers is really a good idea, since it adds to the depth of the characters you meet and it can also provide you with insight that will help you to decide how you should relate to them.

Individuals

* Charles Lee

* Benjamin Franklin

* William Johnson

* Reginald Birch

* Altair Ibn-La'Ahad

* Ezio Auditore

* Louis Mills

Events

These mostly deal with events that you have participated in, even peripherally, and the entries largely are intended to serve as a means for you to better understand the environment and the events you have experienced.

Other

* The Beggar's Opera

Items

While on the surface this section suggests that it will be a list of in-game items, what it really is is a section to help in illustrating the technology that you encounter in this world.

Ships

* The Providence

In addition to the above once you have read all the entries and the “!” goes away (that indicates entries you have yet to read) you can use the first section, Recent Entries, to see any that are new, saving you the time of having to page through each of the four titled sections. Sweet, right?

I cannot stress how much these entries add to the depth of immersion that you can achieve in this game, or stress how worth it that it is for you to read them. This is not the first guide that I have written for an AC title - previously I wrote the walkthrough guides for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and Assassin's Creed: Revelations - those games also contained rich background material similar to this, and I found them all the more enjoyable by taking advantage of it!

Back on the Adventure

When you exit the Inn you will find yourself on the outskirts of the city – you can simply head over to the marker for the Main Mission if you want to, but instead why don't you hit the Back Button and take a look at your map for a moment? As you can see, you do not have much of the area explored, and believe it or not, exploring is its own reward! So instead of heading right for the mission, let's walk around, observe people, be picked on and bullied by soldiers, and more important than that, reveal map locations, mission locations, and other plum surprises!

Each area you walk through gets added to your map as the “fog of war” is dissipated, and as you begin to collect a more advanced knowledge of the city and its surroundings, you will find that there are a number of things you can do, from finding pages of the books for Franklin to petting dogs and cats, and even picking pockets (stealing) from the people you encounter. And getting abused by soldiers, but we covered that already. More important than that you will be adding landmarks to the map as you work your way through the area, which in turn adds entries to the Animus Database.

Recovering Johnson's Chest

Once you have satisfied your curiosity and added some locations to your database head for the main mission quest marker to start the mission - which basically involves storming the Mercenary Fortress and recovering the Chest. There are a few bonus objectives - take out 10 Mercenaries with firearms and keep Lee and Hickey from losing health - but you can always replay this sequence later to score 100% Synchronization on it, so for now just do it any way you can...

Of course you could do it like I did, and shoot your way in! You will need a shot to blow the powder bags in order to open the closed gate so do not use all your ammo on the Mercenaries, right? Once you get inside and find the Chest you have a showdown with two blokes and then you need to escort your crew – and the chest – to safety. This will involve some more killing so be ready – and if you make it a point to use your pistol you should easily be able to meet with the bonus objectives assuming you do not run out of ammo.

Once you reach the wagon that finishes the escort part of the mission, and then you have a CS in which you return the Chest to Johnson and discuss your problem with him. That concludes the quest Johnson's Errand and, with any luck, gets you 100% Synchronization!

Mission: Next on the List - The Surgeon

The starting point for the next mission is in the room where the last one ends, specifically you need to speak to Charles Lee, which will trigger a CS in which you talk to Johnson and his servant again, and Charles reminds you that a suitable candidate is on your list - which adds the marker for him on the map and in the game.

When you exit the Inn you appear outside the house you need to visit, and you just need to walk over to Charles and activate the next stage of the mission, which causes Charles to kick down the door to the house. Inside you tear out the face on the painting of Benjamin Church, and then you are prompted to eavesdrop on his neighbors while you are hidden - and that you should not kill any of them! Well yeah, I mean you cannot listen to them if they are dead... Well, you can, but it won't amount to much, just gurgling.

Position yourself against the wall (by the marker) between the two citizens in order to listen to the conversation without anyone becoming suspicious of you, and then you are prompted to climb to the top of the Church (marked on the map) and Synchronize the view - do that and then take your first major Leap of Faith (cool that they kept that in the game) and make your way to the next markers, working your way through the eavesdropping until you are prompted to rejoin with Lee and head to the restricted area marked on the map.

The game will prompt you to find a place to stash Lee - you can do that by targeting a hiding place and ordering him into it – but the point is not to hide Lee and proceed but to get Lee to the Warehouse Entrance with you! An easy way to do that is to try to lure the guards that are between you and the Warehouse out of the protected zone and kill them, then make your way as quickly as you can to the door and trigger it without YOU being detected. Lee getting detected does not seem to blow the optional mission item...

Obtaining the Key via Pickpocketing a soldier

The Warehouse door is locked and you need to pickpocket a key from a soldier nearby, but bear in mind you STILL cannot be detected! You must figure out a way to do it all ninja like... If you fail then you need to load the last checkpoint and try a different way - but really if you look at the layout the target behind the warehouse is the most obvious choice since the only other soldier that is near them is a patrolling one - so you can wait till he leaves then drop down onto the docks and pickpocket the target, then make your way back without being detected.

Once you get inside the Warehouse you get a CS of a sadistic officer who is interrogating Doctor Church - after the CS you are tasked with assassinating Cutter and his men without being detected and without the Doctor being killed.

The easiest way to do this is to hide by the wall here and whistle to get the nearest guard to come investigate - you then assassinate them and Lee will go kill the other - then sneak up on Cutter and assassinate him and voila! Mischief managed!

You then cut away to a street outside of the Inn - go inside and you will sit down and have a chat - and then you find yourself outside and moving on to the next mission. One thing of note I should add, isn't it bloody annoying how the soldiers will bully and assault you? I find that to be one of the most annoying bits of the game... You pop out of a CS standing right next to a Redcoat and they attack you straight away! Sucks I say!

Mission: The Soldier

Walk up to Lee and talk to him to initiate the mission, then follow him past the guards (remember he is actually an officer in the British Army) and into the fort, where you will find John Pitcairn (read the dossier on him too) and as you walk up the steps you get a CS of a soldier being interrogated by General Braddock.

You intervene and Braddock acquiesces to your presence but not to letting the soldier go - he has you removed, and Lee and you chat. Thus begins a tailing mission in which you are to follow the patrol but not be detected - you have to stay close but not too close, get too far away and you fail. Get too close and you fail.

Basically you follow until you get a CS and then you send Lee out to distract the patrol and get them into a dead-end, then you appear and talk to Braddock, who refuses to cooperate, and then the battle ensues. There are two bonus objectives to this encounter - (1) do three combo kills, and (2) do not allow them to call in reinforcements. To achieve these goals you are going to need to kill quickly and even if you do that you still may fail... The reason that you need to kill quickly is because the timer is what decides whether the snitches call in reinforcements, so the faster you take out the entire patrol and talk to Braddock the less likely it is that that will happen.

As for doing the combo kills, if you have the hidden blade selected as your weapon the chances of actually pulling that off are really slim - use your sword and you should easily be able to make the three combo-kills and STILL manage to get to Braddock before the reinforcements arrive. Make note of this - even IF the snitches call reinforcements, as long as you get to Braddock and trigger the CS BEFORE they arrive, you will still get the credit for the optional items. Cool that.

Once you have completed this mission you will leave, sparing Braddock's life, with Pitcairn in your company, having satisfied all of the requirements of the mission, and well done you!

A General assassination and three very discrete corner kills!

Mission: Infiltrating Southgate

The next mission begins with you entering the nearby Inn and chatting up Lee, who is leaning in his usual spot. You announce to your group that you have found a solution to the problem and you explain your plan (or start to) and then the CS ends...

The plan is to attack a convoy and then take their uniforms and their places, and take the convoy into the base. The wagon plods along and you are told that when in uniform as long as you do nothing illegal you will not be detected, but then you reach a checkpoint and are about to be detected! How does that work? As the enemy draws closer you us LB to order the attack and your men take out the Redcoats, then the wagon moves on, and you have to do a second attack, then you reach the cornfield and you have to launch two more attacks.

When you reach the fort you are halted and inspected, and you talk your way inside, a CS plays in which the Native American woman is set free, and then you find that there are two bonus objectives here - Find and kill the General, and Perform stealth assassinations form corner spots three times. The main objective is to free the captives without being detected. Now remember as long as no enemy sees you committing an illegal action you will not be detected by them...

This is trickier than you might think as you need to find three spots that you can do assassinations without being detected by other soldiers AND you need to free the prisoners without being seen...

Make sure you have your hidden blade selected and then head all the way along the right side of the path through the tent area to the back where there is tall grass and boxes, and you will see a lone soldier working on something - the location of the General will have been noted. Wait until it is clear and kill that soldier then hide in the grass and wait for all of the other soldiers to come and see the dead body then move away - target the General and make noise to get him to come back towards you and execute him and, if you do it right that will count as the first corner stealth kill.

Staying right where you are, do a whistle and another soldier will come back to investigate - stealth assassinate them pulling them behind the corner, then get back in position to rinse and repeat, taking all three stealth kills from this one location!

Now run all the way along the wall past the guarded gate to the far side of the camp and release the prisoners here, then head to the far side and release those prisoners, then sneak onto the docks and take out the patrolling sentry there, sneak aboard the ship and take out the guard and then release the prisoners there and you have fulfilled the mission requirements to a T.

Assassinating Silas, the quick and easy way

Mission: Assassinate Silas

Once you have managed that, you need to extricate yourself from the fort without taking firing line

damage if you want to fulfill all of he conditions for the optional goals, which will not be an easy task if you try to take a conventional approach to this mission segment.

Here is the thing – you begin in the middle of a battle about to be shot by a skirmish line of five soldiers, with two near you that you are fighting - and when prompted to, you need to hit A to take a human shield who will be quickly blown away by firing line damage, after which you can then start battling - you may want to switch back to sword first though...

I should observe that this particular battle numbers among the most confusing for most of the players I have talked with about the game and this mission - basically it took them a lot of dying and restarting before they realized that they were making life hard on themselves by trying to fight at all! What am I talking about? Simple really, your main missions goal for this part is to assassinate Silas, not battle the troops here, and while it may feel good to slice and dice your way through a hundred troopers, you are really just increasing the odds that you will take firing line damage and blow the optional goal for this!

If you did that - stood and fought with your men and killed lots of the enemy you will naturally have taken firing line damage and you may have had to restart this checkpoint a fair few times, with the result being unlocking the Achievement “Whit's fur ye'll no go by ye!” (10G) Block a firing line 5 times by using a human shield. Of course that means you failed four times but hey, who is counting?

If at first you get confused by the fact that there seems to be a never-ending supply of enemy to battle, well, yeah that is sort of the point – you are not meant to stay in the groups and fight, you are meant to seek out Silas (the guy who was yelling earlier) and execute him! So once you have some breathing room, head towards the gate up the road and climb the palisades to the left of the gate, where you will encounter Silas and some soldiers acting as his guard. You need to kill two of them to get to him, after which you just have to incap him to trigger the CS - seriously, this is not that difficult a challenge, just watch the video embedded above to see what I mean!

Once you have incapped Silas you then have your CS with Silas and he gets dead, which basically fulfills the primary goal for this part of the mission, and so after a CS that resolves the situation with the native prisoners, the Sequence ends, you get 100%, and you also unlock the Achievement “Mystery Guest” (20G) Complete sequence 1 & 2.

So, well done mates! You are well on your way to finally reaching Conner - well, not yet, but soon...