8. Naval Supremacy

8. Naval Supremacy

I firmly believe we should be upgrading all 3 of our ports simultaneously. We need to invest in ships and captains to trade goods faster and with Ireland and France. I will do a more in depth analysis of our needs later.

I'd say Drummore and Whithorn need to be given precedence as they are the closest to Ireland and England respectively, or is Kirk closer to England? The county would do well to find one or a few "professional" captains, to help supplement the cost of their educations and boat, and use them for international trade. With a triangle of trade between Drummore, Whithorn, and Kirk surpluses and scarcities could be rectified easily with organized trade runs between Whithorn/Wigtown and Dumfries/Kirk.

I believe Kirk is closer to England . . . it's closer to Egremont I believe, which is the closest port in England. I don't know why ever built the port in Whit to begin with . Should have been in Kirk, but alas. We can make building Drummore and Kirk's port priority over further upgrading Whithorn's. I agree that this will help keep all towns supplied, since I think you can get from any three of those towns to the other within one day.

I admit I don't know much about ships, but does anyone have any idea what size fleet Galloway should shoot for? Probably at least 3 trade cogs, then some more military types ships.

As for captains, I can poke around. I know I'm having some people pull together to build a ship with me. If Glasgow or Galloway would have the basic naval classes I'd be studying right now too. Hoping in 5ish months I can get a ship and will over my services that way. Anyone know of anyone else interested in naval trade for Galloway?

Three is a good number to test with...two for domestic/northern England trading and one for international trade. I believe Cecci knows of someone who is actually trying to sell a cog, she mentioned something of it in the tavern. Also she may know of a captain with international experience who would be willing to offer their services to Galloway through her time as a HM on the mainland.

3 ships is probably the maximum we could sustain, each cog would need 5 well trained crew to operate it, so we would need to train a crew for international and have 2 domestic, one at first, then veyr later on get a military cog. Untill our population rises though we cant really maintain a larger fleet which is why we need to make alliances and treaties, Fury and NNGO seem obvious options.

We should upgrade all port, but i want a large excess of workers in Drummore to build theres, dont want to hit the mines too hard. Kirk is building its and whithorn has ones, the second upgrade isnt as important, so long as we have one level 3 port. Kirk is closest to England but the closeness is not really important since sea travel can be so fast. If they land in Kirk which is closer they are one days walk from wiggy or dumfries, if they land in whithorn their one days walk from wiggy and no other town, so Kirk is a far better port than whithorn to cater for England, especially since ships prefer to hug the coastline. Drummore is closet to Ireland but again closness is not so much a factor and not that many ships from Ireland stop here at the moment, and they would prefer to dock in whithorn than drummore, the extra node really does kill that town.

Once Ardencaple has a lvl 3 port I am geussing Galloway would be able to commission a cog just got to pay some gold however perhaps a Glaswegian/Gallowayan joint navy would be established to rule the Irish Sea.

Actually all the crew doesn't have to be well trained

As long as the captain knows what he's doing and perhaps has a person to hand it off to when they aren't available then all is well

True Sulli but i hear they sail better with trained crew so we want would to get the international one crewed with good guys. Even still thats about 15 people for 3 boats, hard enough to find that many active people to be in ships i think, we want some to be left on land

As for buying a ship from adrencaple we may do depends how far along whit is and the cost etc.

And ruling the irish sea would be a bit difficult Our fleet should just be trade and one military vessel when we get round to it, leave the pirating to others.