Can someone explain to me how the "ship class" thing works in Revolutions? It looks to me as though ships lose some amount of attack and defense efficiency if there are enemy (possibly also friendly?) ships of a higher class present, but I'm not clear on the details. Has anyone worked this out? And are old ships still useful as cannon fodder to absorb shots?
I do not know how the Naval stuff works as far as game mechanics, but I got to see my fleets in action ALOT in the Spanish-American war and then during the Boxer Rebellion when the Japanese got into it with me. From what I could tell, if there is really any disparity between the technological level of ships, then its a one-sided affair. I had a fleet of 3 protected cruisers and 2 pre-dreadnoughts, with 10 transports get attacked by this massive Japanese fleet with about 5 monitor-class ships and a butt-load of mast&sail frigates and man-o-wars. It was not even close. The Japanese ships just sank, fast. There was pretty much no damage to my ships. I am guessing that, had I had lesser ships in my fleet, like sailing ships, instead of really being cannon fodder to protect my good ships, they would have sank too for no good reason. Really, if you think about it, A big sailing man-o-war with 60-120 guns, and made of wood is pretty impressive. Until it meets up with an iron-clad ship with even bigger, if less guns. Those old ships of the line didn't have the range of more modern gunnery, nor did they have the ability to deflect cannon balls off the hull with no damage. So, in the game, the result seems to be about what I'd expect...wooden ships cannot even fight the new-fangled iron ships.
