Dracul

Just out of curiosity, where do you think the lines are drawn between 'historical simulation' and 'game', with regards to NA? There is masses of historical simulation in this game. IMHO, NA is built around historical simulation. What I proposed would just add more apprehension in battle. Isn't this supposed to be a hard core 'game'?

I am not sure if this has been suggested before or not, but from my point of view, when I board a player, I generally make sure I have more crew than my opponent. Safer that way as I lower the risk for myself. In RL, however, no captain knew his opponents crew numbers before boarding a enemy vessel. True, a captain might have some idea of how many men might be aboard - but, no true and fast number. So, IMHO, we should have no idea of how many crew there are on a ship before boarding - only once boarded do we find out. During battle, give feedback and count crew kills, but still hold his total crew numbers back until boarding has started.

As if that will ever happen

I agree - I lost a fine Surprise with upgrades when I had computer malfunction/loss of network - there should be some sort of work around to solve this problem