"Age Of Sail" Questions

[Blue Monkey]

I was careful to write double-hulled with reference to Hokule'a. That's how it's described by the builders. AFAIK that's quite a different technology from a multi-hulled vessel. Doesn't that mean that the hull essentially has two walls with a ballast space in-between? That would make Hokule'a both double- and twin-hulled. Can double-hulling be done with a dugout building technique?

[timerover51]

I will get back to this when things here settle down a bit. My son had surgery last week, and he was at the emergency room at 4AM Saturday morning because the surgical wound had started bleeding pretty bad, and then today, he nearly passed out when the doctor changed the dressing. I am afraid that I have a bunch of other things on my mind. I have already buried one son, and this is a bit draining emotionally.

[Ozymandias]

Originally Posted by timerover51

I will get back to this when things here settle down a bit. My son had surgery last week, and he was at the emergency room at 4AM Saturday morning because the surgical wound had started bleeding pretty bad, and then today, he nearly passed out when the doctor changed the dressing. I am afraid that I have a bunch of other things on my mind. I have already buried one son, and this is a bit draining emotionally.

Dear Lord, and I sat down to apologize from being absent from the thread due to R/L insanity -- which amount to a hill of beans compared to this!

My prayers are with you, and with your son for a speedy recovery.

All Best Wishes,

Oz

[scratchthepitch]

timerover51

I hope your son has seen the last of the complications and recovers soon.

[timerover51]

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

Dear Lord, and I sat down to apologize from being absent from the thread due to R/L insanity -- which amount to a hill of beans compared to this!

My prayers are with you, and with your son for a speedy recovery.

All Best Wishes,

Oz

Originally Posted by scratchthepitch

timerover51

I hope your son has seen the last of the complications and recovers soon.

Thanks very much, guys. It went better today, and he has his next followup on Thursday, when we will have a better idea as to how long this is going to be.

[scratchthepitch]

Sounds like he is doing better then. That's good news.

[timerover51]

First things first, update on son. It has been two and a half weeks since the surgery, and things are definitely looking much better. We saw the surgeon today, and he is quite pleased with how things are healing up. The incision is closing up from the inside noticeably, with no sign of any infection. It just looks like it will be a slow but steady healing process, with my wife and I getting very good at dressing changes. I am not sure if the moderators would appreciate a picture of the canyon being posted here, but my son has me taking a couple of new photos every night so he can see how things are going. It is a tad hard for him to see his lower back. Thanks for all of the concern shown.

Next, @ Blue Monkey:
I was going through the Oxford Atlas of Exploration a couple of days ago, and they were using the terms "double hull" and "twin hull" interchangeably to describe the Polynesian colonizing canoes. I suspect that is also the case with respect to the modern replica, with the mention of "double hull" meaning a catamaran with two hulls, and not a "doubled hull" as you would have on a modern oil tanker.

@ Ozymandius:
I posted this on another thread, but as it has considerable application to your mod, I will ask the moderator's indulgence to post it here as well.

Yes, working within a limited time period, in this case, the Age of Sail, makes it much easier to have a greater range of ship speeds for sailing ships than if mechanically-propelled vessels are included. A larger sailing ship has two speed advantages over a smaller ship.

The first is the benefit of a greater speed-length ratio over a shorter vessel. Wave making resistance for a ship increases drastically once the speed in knots exceeds the square root of the ship's length in feet. For example, a ship that is 100 feet long traveling at 10 knots has a speed-length ratio of 1. To increase the speed of that vessel to say 12 knots, or 20%, will likely take an increase in power on the order of 44%, the square of the speed increase. Unless steps are taken to reduce the friction resistance of the hull, which is roughly proportionate to the speed of the ship, the actual increase in power needed can easily reached the cube of the increase, so for a 25% increase in speed, the additional power required can be 200% or double the power for 10 knots. A World War 1 US 4-piper destroyer required 3,000 horsepower to reach 20 knots in speed, while it took 26,000 horsepower, nearly 9 times the power, to push the ship to 36 knots, a speed increase of 1.8.

The second advantage of the larger ship is being able to carry a heavier spread of sail under any given wind condition, so that as the winds grow stronger, the larger ship can maintain a greater sail area than a smaller ship without becoming unstable. There are many cases of a ship-of-the-line running down what would normally be a smaller and faster ship, in lighter winds, when a gale or near-gale was blowing, as she did not have to take in sail. There are also a fair number of instances where the smaller ship ended up capsizing from carrying too much sail while attempting to escape.

When you combine these two factors, it is fairly easy to justify giving an East Indiaman nearly twice the movement factor of a caravel, say having the caravel move at 6 and the much larger East Indiaman move at 9 or 10. Then a Seafaring nation gets a +1 bonus from having trained seamen able to get that much more performance out of a ship, with the boosts from a Navigation School and Magellan's voyage being viewed as coming from more efficient rigs and better hull design and also a much better understanding of the wind and current patterns to gain shorter voyage times.

[scratchthepitch]

timerover51

Good news about your son. I guess he wont be doing sit-ups for a while, but other than that, it sounds like the worst is over.

It's unfortunate that there isn't a way to simulate the effectiveness of different sailing rigs with regard to things like how close they can sail into the wind (I cant think of any way in Civ to do this). That way, the smaller ship rigs could be given their place of advantage in certain circumstances (such as a schooner hauling close to the wind to escape a faster frigate).

[Balam-Agab]

Originally Posted by timerover51

Yes, working within a limited time period, in this case, the Age of Sail, makes it much easier to have a greater range of ship speeds for sailing ships than if mechanically-propelled vessels are included. A larger sailing ship has two speed advantages over a smaller ship.

You are correct that a larger sailing ship is generally faster than a small one, but this fails to take into account the way that larger ships were used. Any ship that was third rate or above (i.e. most ships of the line) were part of some sort of flotilla and as such were required to keep pace with the rest of the ships. Smaller ships; Frigates, Sloops, even some Fourth Rates; had greater individual mobility. Thus i'd say say that frigates et al should have more movement than Ships of the Line.

[scratchthepitch]

Originally Posted by Balam-Agab

Thus i'd say say that frigates et al should have more movement than Ships of the Line.

SOL were generally pretty slow in comparison to frigates. SOL were not very manueverable, either, so most ships could avoid them if they wanted to. Frigates were used both in scouting for the battle fleet, and for independent missions.

[timerover51]

Originally Posted by Balam-Agab

You are correct that a larger sailing ship is generally faster than a small one, but this fails to take into account the way that larger ships were used. Any ship that was third rate or above (i.e. most ships of the line) were part of some sort of flotilla and as such were required to keep pace with the rest of the ships. Smaller ships; Frigates, Sloops, even some Fourth Rates; had greater individual mobility. Thus i'd say say that frigates et al should have more movement than Ships of the Line.

You are correct, and I actually factor that in, with Frigates having 1 or 2 movement points more than the Ship-of-the-Line. However, the Royal Navy did use individual ship-of-the-line for the escort of important convoys, which is when some of the incidents that I was talking about occurred. A case in point is the capture of the USS Wasp, sloop of war, following the Wasp's capture of the HMS Frolic. With badly damaged rigging the Wasp could not run, and neither could if fight with any chance of success against the HMS Poictiers, a 74-gun ship.

Posted by Scratchthepitch

It's unfortunate that there isn't a way to simulate the effectiveness of different sailing rigs with regard to things like how close they can sail into the wind (I cant think of any way in Civ to do this). That way, the smaller ship rigs could be given their place of advantage in certain circumstances (such as a schooner hauling close to the wind to escape a faster frigate).

In my changes to the Age of Discovery (World Map) scenario, I have given the schooner the greatest movement factor of any ship in the scenario, a total of 13 with bonuses, to reflect the ability to sail close to the wind. However, I have also given it a low combat factor to also reflect the light armament normally carried. She is then a very fast exploration vessel, but also quite susceptible to attacks from enemy vessels.

[scratchthepitch]

Originally Posted by timerover51

In my changes to the Age of Discovery (World Map) scenario, I have given the schooner the greatest movement factor of any ship in the scenario, a total of 13 with bonuses, to reflect the ability to sail close to the wind. However, I have also given it a low combat factor to also reflect the light armament normally carried. She is then a very fast exploration vessel, but also quite susceptible to attacks from enemy vessels.

I made the smaller ships faster for the same reasons.

[cockroach]

Originally Posted by timerover51

The ship of the line and the galleon were two totally different designs, the galleon still being a warship based on a merchantmen, while the ship of the line was a warship pure and simple.

It's be more accurate to say that the galleon ultimatly diverged into two different linages: a true warship derived from northern European developments, notably the English race built galleons such as Ark Royal and Revenge and a more merchant/general purpose linage best seen in the spanish fleet. The warship linage ultimatly lead via a number of transitional forms (Prince Royal in her initial form; Vasa) to, with the development of line of battle tactics during the 1630s to 60s, the ship of the line.

[Ozymandias]

Originally Posted by timerover51

First things first, update on son. It has been two and a half weeks since the surgery, and things are definitely looking much better. We saw the surgeon today, and he is quite pleased with how things are healing up. The incision is closing up from the inside noticeably, with no sign of any infection. It just looks like it will be a slow but steady healing process, with my wife and I getting very good at dressing changes. I am not sure if the moderators would appreciate a picture of the canyon being posted here, but my son has me taking a couple of new photos every night so he can see how things are going. It is a tad hard for him to see his lower back. Thanks for all of the concern shown.

Originally Posted by timerover51

[...]
When you combine these two factors, it is fairly easy to justify giving an East Indiaman nearly twice the movement factor of a caravel, say having the caravel move at 6 and the much larger East Indiaman move at 9 or 10. Then a Seafaring nation gets a +1 bonus from having trained seamen able to get that much more performance out of a ship, with the boosts from a Navigation School and Magellan's voyage being viewed as coming from more efficient rigs and better hull design and also a much better understanding of the wind and current patterns to gain shorter voyage times.

Excellent! Thank you once again!

Best,

Oz

[timerover51]

Any further progress on this, OZ?

[Ozymandias]

Originally Posted by timerover51

Any further progress on this, OZ?

Just back in NYC for a short time. I'll post some tech flowcharts before I leave again on the 4th.

Thank you for both your help and now your patience!

Best Regards,

z

[Ozymandias]

Okay, here's a VERY ROUGH first cut of a tech tree, without dependencies but with the techs lined up roughly chronologically in columns. I know it needs much improvement; this is just to make certain I've got the basic concepts down without, e.g., breaking it into multiple tech lines.

Critique away!

Thank You All Again,

Oz

[Blue Monkey]

It's more of a technique than a technology but perhaps you could have portolans. If not as a tech then perhaps as an improvement or resource of some kind?

[Ozymandias]

Originally Posted by Blue Monkey

It's more of a technique than a technology but perhaps you could have portolans. If not as a tech then perhaps as an improvement or resource of some kind?

I was thinking of putting in portolans (rutters) perhaps as a Tech enabling Sea Trading, or a SW enablin +1 Sea Movement (would go with Cogs ... ?)

[timerover51]

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

I was thinking of putting in portolans (rutters) perhaps as a Tech enabling Sea Trading, or a SW enablin +1 Sea Movement (would go with Cogs ... ?)

The Norse Sagas give sailing directions that are pretty specific, so I would say that the idea of a Small Wonder would be a good idea with either the Knorr or the Cog.

Also, you might want to consider a Cast Iron Cannon Advance to go with the Ship-of-the-Line and Frigate, as cast iron was far cheaper than cast bronze and made it possible to arm large number of large ships with guns. The cost differential was between 5 to 1 and 9 to 1 over the period, and the technique of casting large amounts of iron was a specialized operation.