ive got a brilliant strategy for the game.
you can only take the treasure fleet or the silver train once in the game otherwise a trigger flicks and it is disabled til next year.

so you chase the treasure fleet through all the oceans, and you get a whole heap of galleons and avoid the annoying land battles.
though you do have to compete with silly winds and in anything but a barque you can't go into the eye of the wind and its hard to go against the wind at all.

thanks,
dessa