trusteft: One of the reviews say the game is now no longer possible to play as a trader due to the morale hit you get when you retreat, is it accurate?
Also, can someone please explain to me how soldier combat works? I 've heard two different things about it, one that it is more strategic and one that it is full blown action.
Yes, the game now features a moral system. Running or evading combat, as well losing decrease the crew effectiveness, while winning fights increase it. Moral loss affect your combat effectiveness, I don't know for sure but maybe affects the overall ship performance (such as speed or wind handling). Honestly I can imagine you can trade while having 0 moral but you can't take on stronger NPCs like that. Though there is no unavoidable fight, sometimes it is possible to pirates appear while you're anchored in a port or when you want to travel through region border. Maybe even sea monster can attack you.
The soldier combat is a very simple TPS fight. You control the captain, you can slash with sword, and you can fire your pistol. The other sailors are AI controlled and you set their ranks in the crew distribution screen. It is possible only outside of combat and can not be changed while engaged. It isn't hard to win these just make sure you shred the hostile ship's crew with shrapnel or other high crew damaging weapons. The land combat is a little more troublesome as there is no help and the pirates will fire all of their pistols on you with quite good accuracy. 4-5 hit is enough to kill you while you can't even see where they are. It requires a little experience to know your approach, there is no other way around.
The strategical crew combat was removed and replaced with the TPS fight a long ago by the way.