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On a nagging suspicion, I researched a bit about these ships.
THE HISTORICAL SHIPS
The Cog was a single masted ship with a single square sail and highly raised platforms in the likeness of castle battlements in the bow and stern. It appeared at the end of the 12th century and was most famously used by the Hanse.
The Caravel was (probably, only few pictures remain) a two-masted ship with a mix of square or triangular sails. It didn't have "castles" but the stern was raised. It looked A LOT like the MTW Barque. It appeared in the middle 13th century.
The Carrack, finally, was esentially a big, three-masted Cog with square sails on the two forward masts and a triangular sail on the aft mast. It appeared around end of the 14th century.
THE MTW SHIPS
The picture of the caravel of MTW has every trait of the Cog and none of those of the Caravel. Looks like a cog, appears roughly at the time the cog does, probably is a cog.
The Cog of MTW has three masts and looks a lot like the popular image of Columbus "Santa Maria". I suspect this was intended to be the caravel. But the Santa Maria was NOT a caravel, we have this from the pen of the great explorer himself. He referred to her as a "Nao", meaning simply "ship". In all probability the "Santa Maria" was a small karrack.
CHANGES
So for accuracy, I guess the Caravel and Cog should swap names. It will be a "popular image" caravel, but that's at least somewhat better. Both ships should be available to all Catholic factions and the Cog should probably have its "extra valour province" in Northern Germany, since Lübeck was the seat of the Hanse.
[This message has been edited by The Yogi (edited 11-06-2002).]
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What I like most about Totalwar is the way care so much about little details such as this.
I dunno if you are right or wrong (naval history doesn't interest me) but kudos to you for doing the research just to improve images in a computer game!
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It's getting warm in here...that must be one hell of an INFERNO!
