SchurkjeBoefje

How do you get the 566 crew figure when the book states 415? Though the 415 was 10th december 1665, so possibly that was not its entire fighting complement. Edit: I think the later (1694) Zeven Provinciën would suit the game better, unfortunately there is very little known about her and she didn't have an illustrious career like her predecessor did. The picture of the engraving in the book looks pretty, though. The ship in that seems a little bit straighter, I like that. I'm not a big fan of the old style high afts. There was also a Zeven Provinciën of 74 guns from 1782. That one would be absolutely fantastic to have, but even less is known about that one than about the 1694 version, though it stands to reason she would be quite similar to the 74 gun ship "Vrijheid", also from 1782. The Rijksmuseum has a large model of the Vrijheid so there's more data on that one. Though I've already suggested the 1782 Vrijheid as a good candidate for a later Dutch SoL.

Really cool maquette display! Wish more museums had something like that, for any scene they'd want to represent. Gives a good idea of the scale and relative sizes and such

Now I want to sail a Kraken

Wouldn't the larger seafaring nations, esp their navies, in our NA timeperiod be using brass (it's referred to as brass but I believe this meant bronze) cannon rather than iron, though? I'm pretty sure brass was a superior material to make cannon from, as it withstood the pressures a lot better. Plus you could melt it down and recast a new cannon from it, something that was more difficult to do with a used iron cannon because of the way the structure of the metal was weakened. My metallurgic knowledge is slim at the best of times, though, so if anyone needs to correct me on this, feel free to do so

But would a severe British defeat have altered the course of the war? It's hard to say anything conclusive about the eventual outcome of the Napoleonic conflicts, but it definitely would've changed a few things I wager.

"The England that the Netherlands faced in the Anglo-Dutch Wars was a much weaker country than the England that we know from the Seven Years War, Napoleonic Wars etc." The Dutch only ended their 80year struggle for independance in 1648. That's not that far prior to the Anglo-Dutch wars. Not to mention that England was still a lot larger than the United Provinces at the time. The entire population of the United Provinces never rose above 2 million! "and did not yet possess as great a navy as they did in the Napoleonic Wars etc" And yet they had larger fleets and bigger ships in many of the engagements during the Anglo-Dutch wars, whereas the Dutch never enjoyed a quantitive or size superiority. " or battles such as Lowestoft" De Ruyter did not command or even fight at Lowestoft, dude.... "De Ruyter lost countless battles, and he never won a major victory except for Medway, which wasn't even a naval battle. " Excuse me? Lost countless (!) battles? How are you even determining who won or lost? Points? De Ruyter's fleet handling made sure that in many occassions, the goal of the English fleet was not achieved, the potential naval invasion of the Netherlands never happened and that the Dutch fleet survived and was not destroyed. How exactly is that losing countless battles, lol? Maturin hit the nail on the head when he said that you're comparing historical events through the lens of a videogame a few centuries after the fact. With a poor sense of history to boot! (Really, throwing Lowestoft on De Ruyter's conto? De Ruyter was in the Caribbean back then! Literally 5 seconds of Googling could've saved you from making that dumbass mistake!) I will also say: Solebay, Schooneveld and Texel. Why don't you do your homework and see how the situation was for the Dutch Republic at the time and how the outcome of those battles, heavily influenced by De Ruyter's command, saved the Republic from a combined Anglo-French gangbang, before making statements that shine mostly due to their bright and unpolished ignorance!

Big picture in spoiler. Could one actually get on those balcony levels at the stern? Look like doors on either side to me. Imagine sitting on the stern balcony of a massive lineship like that Put some chairs on it, enjoy the summer evenings.

A lot prettier than the later US super-frigs! This one looks elegant. Very nice.

Any self-respecting captain would walk his own ass off the plank (yeah I know, the whole plank thing is a myth as well) for keeping a ship in a state of disrepair like that!

Armada is just Spanish for 'fleet' I think. There were many Armadas in the historical sense and I wouldn't be surprised if 'lead ship of the Armada' just meant she was the flagship of any fleet she found herself in.

I definitely agree there's an important difference between fictional and purely fantasy. I have no problem with 'fictional' ships as long as they're properly designed or just a generic ship type with specific exterior/decorations etc, as long as the ship is realistic, has a use in the game, doesn't break balance etc etc, the line between fictional ship and actual ship is rather thin. That said, no whacky designs please. No Black Pearls with tattered sails and magic. Would enjoy the TinTin ship, though

I believe the term 'frigate' was used rather loosely in the 17th century, describing various forms of warship. Later on it become more synonymous with the single decker fast warship that we now consider "the" frigate of the age of sail. Even today, 'frigate' is a not very well defined term for a warship. Is it defined by function? Size? Multiple possibilites there and also used rather liberally.

Oh yeah, high level ship customisation like that would definitely be very cool for for player groups with a lot of financial punching power.

Any ship can be used for dual roles. Again, the caveat here is that converting her to warship form would require serious financial investments, technically out of reach for any run-of-the-mill trader. There is first the financial investment to acquire the large amount of (standardized!) artillery. The second one is paying the amount of crew you need to effectively run all those guns. The potential third one is having to modify the ship's interior. If outfitting and maintenance costs in this game eventually approach something realistic, then it won't be a 'simple' matter of clicking a few buttons and voila, your trader is now a superduper heavily armed warship. There's a reason only admiralties built and ran real warships Was muy expensivo. If we're going to 'allow' run of the mill players (i.e. not in-game billionaire equivalents) to have that kind of attainable power without seriously serious financial sacrifces, I genuinely fear what that implies for the rest of the game.

Well yeah that makes sense. I think some people were thinking of a 50 carronade armed hauler That's a bit optimistic.

We cannot reasonably consider Glatton in her carronade form a trader either. Fitting her with so much artillery + the complement to crew all those guns, we're talking about proper warship levels of financial investment. Of course that doesn't mean one can't haul cargo with her, but first one has to ask what her warship refitment did to the cargo capacity, second one has to ask if it's worth going trading with it when you have to keep 500 crew on the payroll. (And third, one does have to feel sorry for the unwary enemy who might roll up a little too close and receives some of that epic firepower )

Very nice. I hope smaller ships like these become more of a bread-n-butter thing of NA than all these lumbering, decadently ornamented, royal pet projects of baroqueish first rates.

I'd much much rather see the abiltiy to move around in our ships' interior than walk through a town. The latter would be a Herculean task to model as well, with all the different settlements in the world.

It's a bit early indeed for the timeperiod, but I can imagine it matters a bit less for merchantmen than for straight up warships. That said, I'm sure us Dutchies had "a few" merchantmen in later periods as well.

Exterior of those ships is way too baroque for me. Goddamn colour explosion. Not to mention those gunports. Ewww. Wasn't there a 18th century Fredericus Something that would be a much better addition to the game? It was in the player selected ship poll. edit: Christian VII, mid 18th century. Fits the timeline a LOT better, looks a LOT better (fine, subjective that). Problem with these 17th century ships is that they *will* be outclassed later on. No doubt about it.

The extra C is old timey spelling. You see it a lot in those days. Looks like a nice little Fluyt style ship.

Basically this. It was a terrible ship. Hell, it didn't even WORK as a ship. Vasa 1628 was an artificial reef. That's pretty much it.

Tbh, I would love to see them (well, anyone) build a lineship replica with modern tools, just so that the thing is at least done within a foreseeable amount of time. The Batavia yard is currently rebuilding the 7 Provinciën, but that was a big ship and it's gonna take a loooong time with their small workforce and strict adhering to oldskool methods. One can still go oldskool methods with smaller ships, going oldskool on a SoL seems a very ambitious project. It would just be awesome to see a proper authentic SoL replica sailing, regardless of how it was made.

I think the French also used quite a lot of galleys in the Med, out of Toulon.

My recently arrived "Dutch Warships in the Age of Sail" would have dimensions for many of these 17th century ships. Though I agree that it would be better to find 18th century ships, fits in better with the timeline, and generally speaking a 80-gun ship from 1660 is well inferior to an 80-gunner from 1760. That's just the way those things work.