Hi again. Firstly I want to say how much I respect what is happening at this forum. Trying to make things historical is really a completely unique idea in gaming and it is great that players will have the choice to play something historical for once.
I have a lot of points to make about military sailing ships.
It should be stressed that capturing ships was the driving force of the large navies at the end of the 1700s. Captains wanted to fight for their country in order to gain prize money. As England had completely depleted its source of Oak trees in England by 1800, the English were desperate to increase their shortage of ships by capturing. Crews went in by boats at night time into harbours and stole ships from underneath enemy gun emplacements. This was how the navies of the world worked. Every navy did this and it was not just the exclusive role of privateers. A privateer was a vessel (of any type) that a wealthy investor bought to use for capturing prizes. This was all about money, where as service in the navy could mean duties involving mail dispatches, troop transport or convict transport that only paid the monthly wage.
It is interesting for me to note that frigates seem to upgrade into destroyers, rather than modern frigates. The majority of any decent sized navy is still made up of frigates, whose role is still to scout and patrol. Smaller navies that can't even afford frigates mostly use patrol boats around coastal areas and this might be something worth thinking about. Maybe upgrade your ancient age coastal boat to the more modern patrol boat at the right time? I see that destroyers (which are basically just big frigates) are probably unnecessary as the role they probably fulfill is actually the role of modern frigates. Frigates are modern sub-hunters. Cruisers shouldn't replace battleships, but they did make them redundant. Guided missiles that can now fire 250nm make the 25nm range of the best battleships redundant. The modern age shouldn't have battleships (although it is fine if they are still floating around ie. USS Missouri). Modern navies are centred around aircraft carriers, with cruisers acting as anti-air and anti-shipping and frigates acting as picket defences against subs. In my opinion destroyers shouldn't exist in the modern age either.
All ships have the ability to carry troops but it was rare for a battle machine like a SoL being given the task of transporting. It was more common for a frigate sized vessel or smaller to have transported soldiers. Merchant vessels especially were converted for transport duty or in the case of the invasion that Napolean was planning he was going to use small barges. The Spanish used the Galleon to transport soldiers during the Armada which was exceptional circumstances due to the fact that the ships were meant to fight in the English Channel and then invade England. The Galleon was a Spanish fighting ship, not a transport. The images that you showed me Rhye don't appear to have a Galleon shaped vessel anyway. It would be more historically accurate to still use the same animation and call it a merchant vessel, or transport if you want. I think an issue you may be having is finding special names for every vessel that covers what every nation would have called it. Maybe an early sailing vessel could be merely be called "Sailing ship" (similar to the naming of the Scout ship) rather than Junk (which was a style of rigging used in the Orient).
I believe a Man-O-War should be a frigate sized vessel as it was more common to call frigates or smaller MOW. The largest ship image should definetly be the SoL. The third image (the second largest ship) has lines that suggest it is a Fleut (a Dutch merchant/fighting vessel). This could be used as the transport class. The other two images that are smaller could be the frigate and the MoW. The MoW should be a frigate that reflects the skills of the British (rate of fire especially and maybe faster coastal movement to reflect better training). As enslave should be done by all sailing vessels, it shouldn't be unique for the MoW. I have been told that privateers already have the ability to hide their nationality, and that is probably all the abilities the privateer should have over the frigate. They are not unique ships.
I have more to say but I understand that people have a life outside of reading my post
Feel free to ask anything further (if you dare
).
Samart