I assume the fishing nets were a placeholder for a proper grappling hook animation, just like cumans and meso civs were given the cannon galleon as a placeholder for the catapult galleon.
But if any ship has to be “demoted” to make some room it’s the fire ship, it should be much less common, perhabs even a byzantine UU, as they were a rare sight, as opposed to the simple tactic of boarding that everybody used until the range of guns became excessive (becoming second fiddle in the 16th century with the line of battle and finally disappearing in the 19th). Having smithing upgrade improve your greek fire also would make little sense.
As for the demo ship, it could be supplemented by the option of turning any ship into a burning ship, to be set loose on the enemy. Another common historical tactics, take your worst old ships that wouldn’t last long anyway and use them in an uncrewed kamikaze strike.
until cannons were popular, most medieval naval warfare was ships boarding each other and basically fighting land battles on floating platforms. Considering that this aspect isn’t in the game at all, I think realism is out the window, fell on to the street and got on a bus.
Firegalleys are visually distinct and their short range attack is still visually clear, so for gameplay reasons the fire galley is great. Smithing upgrades benefitting them makes about as much sense as them benfitting galleons. Visually galleons fire scorpion bolts, which aren’t affected by blacksmith upgrades.
Some thrown hooks being affected by blacksmith upgrades is equally nonsensical.
Fire galley are the closest thing we have to a melee ship (until hulks), melee units are affected by melee blacksmith ugprades.
The hooks imply it’s boarding, you use them to keep both ships close. Much better than a flamethrower. The game’s engine wouldn’t allow proper boarding as you see in Total War or Bannerlords so it’s close enough.
They should move cannon galleons, demos and unique ships (alongside their upgrades) to a new building. Idk if 6 ships is too much, but it would be better than have them all in the same place
Also, I feel like the catapult galleon is pointless when dromons exist and less historically accurate for american civs than cannon galleons. I would prefer if Dromons became a upgrade of catapult galleys and stopped being as good as cannon galleons as taking down buildings. Basically, turn the ship into a water mangonel
Melee ship
I really dislike the idea of melee ship throwing hooks as an attack. Make it ram enemy vessels instead.
Monk ship
Add a monk ship (let’s call it “boarding ship” or “pirate vessel”) which uses hooks to convert enemy vessels. It’d be fast moving and low HP, and can only convert up close, so you need multiple to successfully convert enemy fleets.
Civs historically famous for piracy (Berbers, potentially Croats) could get techs that slow down boarded enemy units or repair the monk ships over time.
Rather than outright removing it, I’d replace the animation so that instead of spitting fire it’d shot boiling oil. Civs like Byzantines and Chinese would be able to upgrade oil into fire.
IRL you need momentum for the ram to work, but allowing ram ships to continuously bump opponents wouldn’t really be jarring IMHO, the game does similar silliness sometimes (units throwing scimitars or double axes).
Close enough to me:
Medieval galleys instead developed a projection, or “spur”, in the bow that was designed to break oars and to act as a boarding platform for storming enemy ships. The only remaining examples of ramming tactics were passing references to attempts to collide with ships in order to destabilize or capsize them.
I don’t like the current ship uu balance. Some are insane like that fairy tale Indian civ ship or the new Chinese uu super op, or how Roman have antic better than cannon galeon.
I doubt the new system changes anything about what I dislike anyway so I rly don’t see the need to change generic ships afters 25 years.
I am not crazy