Quote Originally Posted by NimitsTexan View Post
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One thing to bear in mind, what constituted a 1st Rate in most navies in 1799 was much more powerful ship a than what would have been labled a 1st Rate in 1700, so while the terms there were powerful Ships of the Line in use at the game's starting point, one should not be able to build Victory style 1st Rates right off the bat...
The best way to represent that development is not by denying the ability to even build {until later} the larger ships , but rather to use technology developments to enhance the vessels stats as naval technology is advanced with the stats beging at a point that reasonably approximates what the respective ships of each class were like in 1700 {this would probably only work if we can add hull strength to ships through tech developments to represent how each class grew in size and displacement , and even better if we can add to crew the same way} .

The tech tree definitly needs revision {badly !} and expansion {yet one more reason to "give it more work" such as in my naval proposals} .