The boat thing was actually realistic though. Navies were ridiculously expensive and even after copper plating bottoms the hull would eventually warp and get eaten away, and the entire ship had to be decomissioned after a while. And boats were never a waste of money, but it might have changed since I last played EU4...trading fleets were great for making cash, especially with a colonial empire and strategically placed merchants orienting the flow, and military ships counted towards the total score, except for galleys. Galleys were better than military depending on location (inland sea's Mediterranean, Baltic, coast between Japan/China, etc) and if you had a large naval limit they made for cheap canon fodder.
no you are right, its not that they are a waste of money, its just that they are such a huge sink of cash, that at times, its not worth it, unless your nation specifically needs them for some means or another, they are somewhat worthless(British defense, or trade ships for trading power). If you decide to purchase your fleet limit worth of heavy ships, like the early carrack, they are utter shit in 20 years time when the carrack comes along, and then in another 20 years if your still sailing about in carracks you are again the same boat, pun intended. Decommissioning 50 heavy ships at 50g each is expensive, then repurchasing them again, count along the maintenance each month on these and you realize how much money is sank into something that doesnt really strike too big of a game changing mechanic in the game.
Initial purchase fee:
50gold x 50ships=2,500gold
Maintenance cost:
1.50maintenance fee x 50ships=75g x 12months=900yearly gold
lot of money falling out of your pocket. With the new mechanic in place, you will be able to re-outfit them, which i think will be a welcome change to just scraping them all, unless its the same cost, and then ill cry. Though the time without the ships i guess will be nice.
Could you honestly picture what or where these boats all go to die lol, like a huge boat graveyard of galleons and war ships heaped up from all the countries scraping their navies every 20 years for something else.
They spoke of new mechanics for the ships, so im ready to see what theyve done to them, and how it all will change, since as of now, im still on the bandwagon of heavy ships being worthless unless you are a country that needs them. They just dont seem to be worth the cost, and idk how in the hell the tariff shit works with the heavy ships and ive played 400 hours of eu4 lol. Do they need to be on patrol? or just in your fleet.