oh man, you should definately add the Americans. And then if you do what was suggested about making FDF a more military based colony and make America aligned with France, you'll definately get me based out of FDF (besides, I've always liked the town itself, I just hardly ever go there because I'm almost always at ends with the French <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" /> ).
And of course, it does depend on time period, but all of the warships in potc are from the napoleanic era or only a few decades earlier. Frigates were quite new in the 1700s (wasn't it actually a German ship that was the first "frigate"?). All of the ships of the line are much too big to be from any other time period before the mid 1700s to napeleanic era. The <i>Royal Soveriegn</i> was a good example of the change of warships. I don't care what is said by anyone, the ships (with the exception to the ghost ships), the weapons, etc. from the movies were all napoleanic era. Ships like the <i>Dauntless</i> were only found in the later part of the 18th century. Regardless of what the game developers/hollywood intended the series takes place in the late 1700s.
Also, Spain probably had the largest (though most unweildly) ships of the line. And though Spain is known for the galleon, it was actually England who is responsible for the improvement over carracks. Up until the developement of the frigate, nearly all large ships fielded by any nation were essentially galleons. The Spanish galleons were so well known because it was the Spanish galleons that were full of gold. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/treas1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":treas" border="0" alt="treas1.gif" /> But I can see how you could make at least a treasure galleon exclusive to Spain. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> I know we don't have any, and it's probably impossible, but one ship that was pretty much exclusive to Spain (among major powers) during the Napoleanic era was the galley.
If you want a ship to be exclusive to France, it would a lugger. The English for one did not use luggers, and it was actually widely recognized as a French ship. And you can make all French designed warships better than everyone elses (except America) because they were (the problem was that England had better, more experienced seaman, better gun crews, better discipline). But then that would of course unbalance the gameplay.
You could also make some kind of schooner a Dutch exclusive ship. And the fleut was dutch designed, but it was so good that other nations used it too. If I'm not mistaken, <i>Queen Ann's Revenge</i> was actually an overhauled fleut. I for one wouldn't mind the fleut (or at least some versions of the fleut) to be Dutch exclusive (even though I never play as the Dutch).
I really like the idea of improving FDF though and especially adding America.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/monkeydance.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":mi" border="0" alt="monkeydance.gif" />