Assassin's Creed II/Collection

There are plenty of side-missions and things to collect throughout the game that have various impacts on your in-game experience or the meta-game of synchronizing with Desmond. While not everything you collect will help Ezio during the game, you can usually achieve better synchronization with Desmond by gathering more items. This synchronization isn't a part of the game and shouldn't be confused with Ezio's synchronization bar, which acts like a health meter.

To see your progress broken down by city, look either in your DNA for viewpoints, treasure, feathers and side-missions; in the Database for assassin's tombs and glyphs; or in your sister's ledger at the villa for progress on your hometown and other collections.

Side-missions
There are four types of side-missions, which can be completed for extra florins and better synchronization between Desmond and Ezio. Each mission type has its own icon on the map, so they are easy to locate. Side-missions are unlocked by completing memories in the DNA sequences.

For races you simply have to run through a series of location markers within a certain time limit. Only the next marker is shown – as a green target icon on the map, and as a small white whirlwind in your normal view. These races consist mainly of free-running and may take more than one attempt to figure out the proper route or even to know where the next marker is, as they're hard to spot sometimes. Guards will still act normally during races, and your route is over rooftops many times, so take their actions into account.
 * Races

These missions require you to take letter to people in the city. These are fairly simple with generous time limits.
 * Courier assignments

Beat up missions have you locating a woman's cheating spouse or boyfriend and melee fighting him until he submits. In later missions you'll only be given the general area of the target, so use eagle vision and look in out of the way places where an adulterer might be able to find some privacy with his mistress.
 * Beat up events

By far the largest portion of side-missions, Lorenzo de Medici will task you with various assignments to spoil his enemies' plans. Assassination contracts can be started from pigeon coops on rooftops, and there are usually two or three in a city. The missions are the same regardless of where you start them. In general you'll need to locate and kill the targets, although sometimes there will be special provisions like not using weapons or not being seen.
 * Assassination contracts

Monteriggioni renovation
One of the side-plots of the game is Ezio's work toward fixing up his ancestral home. The entire town is in disrepair, with many shops and services unavailable. When you progress far enough to visit Monteriggioni, you'll be tasked with taking on the repair of the town, with the help of an architect and your sister Claudia as bookkeeper. You'll also start earning an income from traffic to the town, and the better you make it, the more traffic will increase and fill your coffers with florins. Your sister and the architect are located in the bottom floor room to the right when entering your villa's front door. There you can look at the books, commission the architect or receive any accrued income.

Your money is accumulated every 20 minutes of play time, and is deposited into the chest behind your sister. You can either grab the coins directly from the chest, or you have the option to collect it while reading your accounts ledger. As you upgrade your villa, you'll earn more florins and you can see a breakdown of how much each part of your renovation is generating in Claudia's book. Your income is capped by the amount of money the chest can hold, so you'll periodically need to come back the villa and pick it up if you want to keep earning florins. Your chest's capacity also increases with the town's renovations.

Shops
These shops are open in your town, but need to be upgraded. Talk to the architect and select one of the following for him to renovate. For the shops where you can purchase items (all of them except the bank), you'll receive 5, 10 and 15% discounts at the first, second and third renovations, respectively.

Renovations
These are one time purchases that your architect will build for you. You'll see a larger difference in income by renovating the ones described "greatly" increasing the city's value before the ones that just increase the value.

Collections
As you collect various items, you will incrementally increase your town's income. The items that you buy in stores increase the villa's worth immediately, while codex pages, feathers and seals will all have to be taken to the appropriate places first. When any certain collection is completed, you may also receive a collection completion bonus. The models are found in the center tables in the armor room, and are acquired as you play through the game.

Assassination portraits
On the second floor of the villa, in the hall between your mother's room and the back of the house, you'll find a stairway to the attic. Here you'll find portraits of all the targets Ezio has assassinated. During the game the final number of targets is kept secret, but each portrait you acquire will add to your villa's total worth.

Codex pages
Codex pages are encrypted papers written by Altaïr, the ancestor Desmond controlled in the first game, Assassin's Creed. After the game ended, Altaïr became the leader of the Brotherhood (Al Mualim's old position), and kept a record of the assassins' interaction with the world and his own experiments with the Piece of Eden he acquired.

You receive some Codex pages when you've taken out one of the main targets and the rest are scattered throughout Italy in guarded rooms. The ones that come from assassination targets will usually give you an upgraded piece of equipment, and you also get an additional square on your synchronization bar for every four pages you collect. You can see Codex page locations on your map if you've synchronized the viewpoint in that area. The locations are usually inside buildings with the entrance guarded by two to four guards that will need to be either dispatched or distracted by your allies before you can enter.

The pages are put on the wall in a back room at your villa in Monteriggioni, but they must be decoded first. Only Leonardo can decode Codex pages for you, so you'll need to take them to him before going to your villa. In the beginning of the game, Leonardo will only be available during certain times, but afterward you'll see his icon on your map if you have any undeciphered pages in your inventory.

Codex pages are required to be collected; Sequence 14 won't start until you have them all. When you get to the last sequence you have before Sequence 14, if you don't have all the pages you'll be sent back out into the world to find them all. A map showing the location of all Codex pages is acquired in Sequence 12, and once you have it a persistent counter showing how many you've collected will be displayed on the screen. At this point, Leonardo will be at your villa, so bring the pages you collect back there to be decoded.

Once the pages are deciphered you will be able to read Altaïr's writings or look at his illustrations. Once you've put the pages on the wall, they can be rotated 90° at a time to fit a larger pattern. The pattern can only be seen by using eagle vision. The pattern is a large map of the world with a certain vault's location marked on it.

Assassin's tombs and seals
Underneath your villa, accessible from the room with the codex pages, you'll find the Sanctuary, which houses Altaïr's tomb and statues of previous legendary Assassins. You can read bios on each of the statues, and you'll see some armor atop Altaïr's sarcophagus behind a locked gate. Your uncle tells you that each of the six locks on the gate correspond to six Assassins' tombs located throughout Italy. If you find the tombs and acquire the seals, you can bring them back to the Sanctuary to open the gate and get Altaïr's armor. Though it has the same combined stats as the Missaglias armor, it has a different look and never needs to be repaired.

Once you meet up with Volpe during the course of the game, you'll learn how to spot and open the secret entrances to the Assassins' tombs. At this point, all the entrances will be marked on your map when you get to that area. All Assassins' tombs are restricted areas, so your alert status will be permanently notorious while you're in there and guards will attack on sight. Although the tombs often contain some guards, they are mainly lengthy exercises in platforming. When you find the the Assassin's sarcophagus, you can open it to get the seal and the memory ends when you take a secret exit out of the tomb. The tombs may also contain secret areas that have an extra treasure chest or two in them.

Store-bought items
Many of your collections will be completed through purchasing items in the stores located in cities. Nearly all weapons and armor will be bought at a blacksmith, pouches can be obtained at tailors, and paintings will purchased at art merchants. You will get access to better weapons and armor as you progress in the game, so you'll need to continue checking back in with the blacksmiths periodically. Altaïr's Sword and the Condotierro War Hammer are only available at the Monteriggioni blacksmith, and the war hammer only after you've delivered 50 feathers to your mother. Altaïr's armor is acquired by finding all the seals located in various assassin's tombs.

For pouches, you'll need to first acquire the item that it contains, and later bigger pouches may become available. Each city has different art for sale, so you'll need to buy all the art in each location.

Glyphs
Glyphs don't count toward your town's wealth, and Ezio doesn't gain anything by finding and unlocking them. They do provide Desmond with a higher synchronization with Ezio though, and they help to fill in the meta-story by uncovering "The Truth". The glyphs were placed by Subject 16, the test subject Abstergo used in the Animus before Desmond. He spent way too much time in the Animus and it drove him crazy and eventually killed him. Before that happened, he found out secrets about the world and what the Templars are up to, and split the information up into 20 encrypted pieces and spread them throughout the Animus' programming.

Although Ezio isn't aware of the glyphs, as they're not actually in his world, Desmond can see them through the Animus. The glyphs are located on major landmarks in cities, though they won't be marked on your map. When moving through a city, you'll occasionally see Database popups when you run into something new or notable. When you're at a landmark with a glyph on it, the popup will have a red eye icon on it. You can also cycle through the locations in the Database, and places with glyphs will have the icon on the top left corner. If you haven't found the glyph yet, the icon will be unblinking and red, if you've found the glyph but haven't deciphered it, it will be blinking and red, and if you've found and deciphered it, the icon will be grayed out.

Glyphs can be hard to find, as they're not marked on your map. They are generally located on the large, dark gray buildings on your map, so check there first. If you're in doubt, try matching the image from the Database with the structure you are investigating. When you find a glyph on a building, get close to it and go into eagle vision to download a piece of The Truth to Desmond's head. Each piece requires that you figure out a puzzle before it will unlock. If you successfully complete the puzzle, a small part of The Truth data stream will be unlocked and viewable as a short movie clip. Once all 20 pieces have been decoded, they are put together into a single movie. If you quit out of a puzzle without completing it, it will be saved in The Truth section of the Database, marked with the red eye icon. You can go back at any time to attempt to solve it.

Feathers
Feathers are found throughout the game and comprise the hardest collection to complete. Feathers aren't marked on your map; they are in out of the way, hard to get to places; and they only give off a slight glitch signature in normal view and even in eagle vision. For acquiring 50 feathers, the Condotierro War Hammer will become available in the Monteriggioni blacksmith, and for collecting all 100 you'll get the Auditore cape. As with glyphs, feathers will increase the synchronization between Desmond and Ezio.

Statuettes
In Monteriggioni there are eight statuettes, each representing a different Roman god. Like feathers, these won't be marked on your map, but they are easier to find as they give off better glitch signatures and are in easier to reach places. There are four pedestals surrounding the back of your villa, and each one has spots for two of the statuettes. You can read the inscriptions to see which two gods go on one of the pedestals. When you place both statuettes on the pedestal, you'll receive 2,000 florins, which is a hefty sum at the time when they first become available. This will give you some good starting capital for renovating your town.

Treasures
Treasures don't add to your villa's worth or provide any extra synchronization for Desmond; they're purely for collection and the small bit of florins they each contain. Treasure chests are small red and yellow boxes found throughout Italy, both in and out of cities. They give off a large glitch signature, so are easy to spot. In addition, you can buy treasure maps from art merchants for the various districts in that city. Because they're on your map, they are fairly easy to find, if not to access. There are 330 treasures in total.

Many chests will be guarded by one or more guards either out in the open, in a walled off area, or inside rooms like the Codex pages. Most of the ones being guarded outside or behind walls can be acquired without bothering with the guard, usually by hopping over the wall or just walking around behind them. For treasures inside buildings being guarded by two or four guards, you'll want to use the same tactics as for Codex pages – kill them off yourself or distract them with one of your ally groups. When they are located in a guarded room you'll usually find two chests there.

In Assassin's tombs and Templar lairs, there are more chests, both in secret areas that are hard to find as you make your way through, and at the end of the memory, around the sarcophagus or Templar treasure.

Viewpoints
Like treasures, viewpoints don't add to your town's net worth and don't impact Desmond's synchronization. They don't even provide you with any extra florins. Even so, they are extremely important for getting around in any city. Unlike the first game, not only is your full map obscured without synchronizing at the top of a viewpoint, but so is your mini-map. This makes it extremely hard to find your way around the circuitous city streets, and you'll often need to make quick decisions as you're completing an objective or running from guards.

Any time you open up a new area, one viewpoint icon will be shown on your map. After synchronizing there, the rest of the viewpoints will be displayed along with the territory around it. Synchronizing more viewpoints will reveal more of the map and the objectives within it, such as Codex pages and side-missions. Most of the 73 viewpoints in the game can be climbed without any problem, but a few in Venice will require that you know the climbing jump to access out of reach ledges. Every viewpoint in the game has a leap of faith you can use, but be sure to check the ground before jumping off the ones that can go in any direction like the tops of crosses.

Templar lairs
The Templar lairs are not part of the basic game and only come with special editions or certain downloadable content. For console versions, the White edition comes with the Templar lair in Florence, and the Black and Master's Assassin versions come with all three lairs available. If the normal or White version was purchased, you can also gain access to all three lairs by downloading the enhanced version of Sequence 13. For the Windows version, you get access to all three lairs by purchasing the Black edition of the game.

Templar lairs are much like Assassin's tombs, as you have to find your way through a large structure with a lot of platforming and you'll sometimes have to deal with guards. As in tombs, there are secret areas to find that contain treasure chests. At the end of the lair, instead of opening a sarcophagus, you get to open a Templar treasure, worth thousands of florins.