Originally posted by Doubtful Teeks
When this happens, you recieve one or more Man-o-Wars, depending on the difficulty level.
Are you sure about this? I always play on viceroy, and I usually get between 2 and 4.
One thing many people doesn't realize is, how useless the vessels are. Think about it: What do you do with your brand new frigate? You sail all the way to your enemy to sink a couple of his galleons! What do you get from the galleons? In the best case scenario you get tools, muskets and horses, but in most of the cases, you just get rum and stuff that you can sell... and what do you do when you've earned 5000? You buy another frigate! And by this time, your old one is probably going to sink anytime.
During the war of independence, frigates are useless, unless you are a complete amatour and let the enemy attack you. I always kill every unit the same turn they arrive to avoid that nasty man-o-war bonus and obtain that terrain bonus. When all the land units are killed, you win. In theory, it's possible to win the game without a single ship.
Also, this may be off topic, but buying ore miners? What a waste of time! First, you have to produce a lot of cash to buy them... and that takes time. It's much more effective to live near an inca or aztec capital (that can train farmers) and make your own population grow with 4 farmers or more in every city. By the time of independence (1650-1700 in my games) you should have 3 preachers in every city and then you get more units than you can handle anyway (at least one self-produced and one from the port)
Anyway, I always have a bunch of Galleons and frigates (to store horses) and maybe slow down the enemy progress by sinking a few of his ships for fun.
1 Merchantman or Caravel (depending on what you begin with)
3 Galleons
2 Privateers
4 Frigates
2-4 Man-o-Wars