If you want to save time and money by adding less ships to the game, do so, but not at the cost of historical accuracy. I say drop the Light and Heavy monikers and select perhaps a 1st rate and a 3rd rate instead. That way the game will have the big 100+'s and the 74's.
Come on, now. You're building a time-period game, don't botch it with silly details that are easy to fix.
Yes it would be alot nicer if we had 1st-4th rates separated or 100+ gun and 74's. I wouldn't use light and heavy to describe a ship of the line, that seems like something from a person that knows nothing of real SOLs. SOLs are all heavy, they're like sea fortresses, heavily armed. There really isn't such a thing as a light SOL, as that may refer to frigates instead.
Realistically I do not believe the East India companies had 1st rate ships of the line, or even 74 gun ships. They were prohibitively expensive to maintain and operate. When this type of fire-power was required the companies leaned on the mother government for assistance. It would be hard to get the government to allow the company give over control to those types of warships. I believe they were added to the game for the sake of play-ability.
Kind of Artistic license to attract a larger audience.
i agree with Cruizer.
I know that the Trading companies could basically have their own armies but i'm pretty sure warships were Government Navy exclusive in those era's ???
Would kind of be like a freight company in the modern age with a destroyer in the fleet? there would be no justification...
By justification i mean that Frigates and large armed vessels of that time would and should have been sufficient to rival any ship possibly fielded by pirates or rival companies.
And the sheer amount of resources and maintenance as Cruizer said would have made them rediculous to include in a trade fleet. A rated ship in a fleet those days would probably have been theoretically unfeasable for the operators. Especially if in the case that kind of firepower was needed the case would have most likely drawn the attention of the government the company was under.
Yes I agree with Cruizer, but it did not mean that East India Company ships never were engaged with national navies.
The Dutch had some large VOC ships (almost 70 guns). Some were recaptured by the Dutch at the Raid at Medway/Chattam.
At one point the VOC was almost equal to the Dutch national fleet and these VOC ships were used in the service of the Dutch navy, though the Dutch never brought up 1st rates.
SOLs shouldn't be in this game - or should at least be an extremely rare occurence.
But they ARE in, because they're fun and they sell games... (forgivable vices I would say).
Would be nice if we were able to replace those two SOLs with other ships types through modding, though...
I would probably make just one SOL type available to the player (4th or 3rd rate) and make it very, very expensive/difficult to maintain - even to the extreme of hardcode-limiting the bastards.
"No more SOLs for you!"
I was not trying to say the SOL should be removed. I think the SOL makes a nice addition. I am given to understand the later Indiamen ships were nearly as large as 3rd rate but with the fire-power of a heavy frigate and much smaller crews. All those mouths to feed would not be much space for cargo.Originally Posted by briny_norman
SOLs shouldn't be in this game - or should at least be an extremely rare occurence. But they ARE in, because they're fun and they sell games... (forgivable vices I would say). . . .
I agree they should be a bit of rarity. But it will be fun to set the wolf among the sheep.
Greg.
Sounds right, ship of the lines were made for all out WAR between EMPIRES, not really for escorting trade ships, they were so valuable and pricy that the admirals who had them never even moved them very much, unless in fleets for invasions or that type of serious events. 6th or 5th rate frigates, along with corvettes and sloop of war's were more likely to be the escorts of those trading convoys. I'm just interested in the naval battle part of this game, as for trading, not so much. So yes I do support huge 1st rate ship of the lines, they can be really fun in battles, and when it comes to hardcore firepower.......lets have'em!!!
Light and heavy were stupid names, they were left there for too long :-)
EIC now has ship-of-the-line, 90 guns and ship-of-the-line 46 guns. So, according to the (british) rating system, they are 2nd rate and 4th rate.
We are aware that these ships were very expensive, powerful and all that. But, it would be a pity not to have them in a game with strong emphasis on naval battles.
They are prohibitively expensive and take equally long time to build (90 gun takes better part of 2 years). And they are not really suited for trading (they do have large cargo space, but as that is used also for marines, you cannot really trade with them unless you give up having marines on board). They are excellent when attacking ports or destroying enemy war fleets.
Kim,
In multiplayer, will you be able to choose your ship(s) yourself or will the game host allocate ships to each player (as it was in the Age of Sail II game)?
mmmm... maybe open a topic on multiplay specifically.
Cheers,
Arno
nice...
it would be a nice to goal, to have one of these rates in your war fleet. A nice flagship for your company.
also on the topic of multitap will it be limited to 1v1 or will there be say 2v2 3v3 ??
Wow didn't expect them to be 2nd and 4th rates..........Are we going to have 1st and 3rd rates then? And I don't think 46 guns is a correct number for a 4th rate Ship of the Line. How come the USS constitution, a REAL heavy frigate from the 18th & 19th centuries that still exists today, have 48 guns onboard? And the USS Constitution is a FRIGATE,(just in case u didn't catch it the first time
I'd say the 4th rates should have guns in the 60's range, as the 3rd's are in the 70's and share the 80's with 2nd's, which goes up to the high 90's, and then 1st rates, as everyone know, 100+ guns. I don't think 46 guns would fill all the gun ports we saw in the pics and vids of the "light" SOLs neither.
Early 4th rates could easily have only 46 guns - that's quite normal.
It wasn't untill the second half of the 18th century that SOLs below 60 guns were taken out of Royal Navy battlelines.
And considering EIC starts in 1600-something, 46-guns 4th rates are quite logical.
The Dutch navy had mostly 50 - 60 guns SOLs even during the Napoleonic wars.
But the jump from 46 guns 4th rates to 90-guns 2nd rates seems a bit high, so perhaps it would be better balance-wise to add a few guns to the 4th rates, making the gap a little smaller...?
They are equivalent to 2nd and 4th rate of the (british) rating system. Named as I mentioned above. Defining sailing ships is always sketchy as best, as there were few standards at that time. However, number of cannons is not the factor that makes a ship a frigate or ship of the line. Just take a look at this article for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-rateWow didn't expect them to be 2nd and 4th rates..........
Check also the link to frigates there, it gives a definition of that ship type.
The 46 gun ship of the line actually does have exactly 46 cannons :-) 20 below deck on two decks and 3 on the deck per side.
I would like to emphasize that the main thing here is how the different ship types in the game complement each other and offer player options. For example, there is only 6 gun difference between frigate (40 guns) and 46 gun ship of the line, but 46 is more durable. On 1-on-1 battle the frigate can seldom win the day. However, frigate is cheaper, faster to build, it comes available earlier and it is faster and more agile.
The "light" ship of the line I see on the shipsheet and in the video does not match the "light" SOL I see in the screenshots.......I was referring to the one I saw on the shipsheet when I said 46 guns would not fill all the gunports, but the one in the screenshot, is somewhat, if not much, smaller. It's easy to see the difference if you compare them, so what's up with that by the way? Does the ships change over time? Since we're starting at 1600, it'll make sense if the ships are smaller at the time, but does the ships get bigger as time passes? I see from the article that 46 was at the bottom of the 4th rate gun range, I think it would be cool if we can upgrade the ships like adding more guns to them. Makes me wonder though, that gap between 4th and 2nd rate sure is quite big......where's the 3rd rate?
(I might have compared our ships here too much to the ships in Pirates of the Burning Sea, where I had 4 frigates that mounted 48, 50, 52, and 53 guns, and then a 3rd rate SOL at 72. I think the ship standards from Potbs might be of the 18th and 19th century, as frigates got pretty big later on, but the 17th century ships weren't so big at the time. But it would be really nice if the ships in EIC actually "grew" over time.)
Can we customise our ships ?? It would be a nifty option, or a neat little thing for us to play with in the game on the side.
Maybe altering things like..
Timber/frames used... This can alter time to build as well as durability ??
Amount of cannons/size... This can alter time to build, cargo hold, firepower ??
Mess size (nfi about navy but you know the place were the crew sleep as well as the stores for their food?) ... Alter how far a ship can travel without docking for ressuply, amount of crew supported, cargo hold....
Stuff like that ?? hehehe... If i owned a company i'd like to be able to tell my shipwrights who i am paying good money the specifics of my ships if only minor...
I too played POTBS, though i'm not a naval historian i was a noob, however in the game we had a player driven econ, and it took acrued labour hours/+materials /+ player earnt money to build a ship. it would have been nice in that game to customise our ships when being built a little. However we did get to equip our ships a bit, making them minutely faster, by a certain engineer type equipment etc.
Sorry for the noob bashing and crap wall of text. I'm bored at home/works quiet, and i drink too much coffee.
Ya I remember the good times of Potbs, it was a pretty good game. You can call it somewhat of a strategy game sometimes, because of the player controlled economy, taking enemy ports and dominating the map. I liked the ship battles of Potbs, although I hated the PvP system. I really wish Potbs didn't have a monthly subscription fee of $15 or so, which gets really annoying when you buy the game for around $40 and then only get 1 month before you have to start paying the monthly fees. If we can make EIC just as fun or better than Potbs at the naval battles, then I'd have no problem forgetting about Potbs.
Yeah there were alot of good things in that game.. sadly a few bad things..
Loved the Port battles... 1 armada against the other...
And making Ships...
Can't waite for EIC...
I played PotBS, from the first beta players to a few months of subscription.
Its an MMO and that means it takes a lot, an awful lot, of time. The more time you spent the bigger and stronger your ships will be.
The port battles where fun, the scale of the map was fun. Some sailing physics were quite well, but all in all it was very arcadish. I mean you could fire a 1st rate broadside into a cluttered group of enemy ships, but it would only hit the targeted ship, nor would it do any "friendly" fire.
Would I really did not like was the enormeous amount of special "warcraft" like skils. That killed the real game of who is the most skilled naval player. Again the player with the most gaming hours would have not only the bigger and better ship, but also the better special skills. So as a newbie or if you start a new character it would take you at least 1 month of continues play to be able to compete.
No, in multiplay I would prefer a game where I can play a few battles when I have the time and quite after 2 hours of play.
Personally I'd prefer if it weren't 'light' and 'heavy' as well.
Why not just go for 74-gun Ship of the Line and 46-gun Ship of the Line? Much more flavour that way.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote