Thanks for the info. After beating that first one, it's nice to know I can skip the rest.
This is the first Creed game where I feel overwhelmed with the amount of content lol. What's the low down on stuff that is worth doing and stuff to avoid (i.e. conquest battles). I already plan on doing all the side quests.
Ignore the quests with clocks on them.
Do some of the blue icon quests. That's oricalchum, the special currency, which can be found in extremely limited amounts around the world but is far easier to collect by doing some quests. You can spend it at the special vendor at the NW of the map. His inventory has 2 random items which are good tier horses, ship crews, loot, and it refreshes weekly Tuesday mornings US time. There's one blue quest daily which is a quick fetch/kill quest. There are two weekly ones, one is usually quick to do, often kill a merc which you should do anyway for his loot (one of them has my favorite weapon, the Mallet of Everlasting Flame), and they give a lot more currency.
Skip a lot of underwater stuff until you find the trident that lets you breathe underwater.
Remember that you get the bonuses from a second weapon equipped.
Play the game on Hard with level scaling set to -2. That's a good mix imo of a) feeling like you're getting some benefit from all your XP against mobs, and b) keeping the 1-1 fights againts mercs and bosses interesting.
Take your time, to not burn out.
The ship has extra storage.
Don't waste your resources upgrading gear until much later in the game. Just keep equipping the new stuff you find.
The expansion pass is well worth it.