I've just started playing 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and seem to have hit a brick wall. Everything seems to be crazy difficult.

My character is level 3 after following the main quest as far as escorting the Oiseau. I want to board the ship but get slaughtered every time. Am I trying to do this at too low a level? If so, how can I increase my level? Other posts in this forum say you should avoid sea battles this early on, and trying to fight the brigands gets me killed too.

Try doing some merchant quests before the main quest(it doesn't matter if you don't bring the news to the redmond govenor, you can do that anytime to continue the main quest)these quests are fairly simple and will raise your XP maybe a bit slow but it works and is safe, and don't forget indeed aviod sea battles in the beginning. and off course save a lot
hope that helps =)

if you have a good sword/gun and plenty of officers there should only be one floor and if you use a good sequence and give all your officers potions and take potions yourself you should slaughter them easy...

try doing this....

as soon as you board fire your pistol after that block until they attack and then attack then block and vice-versa, hope this helped