Hey everybody. I'm glad to be working with you. Shall we start thinking about what we're going to do in the next couple of turns?
Reading through the thread I saw several mentions of mortars, which are an option and within the time period:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoehornHowever, my thinking is that if we're serious about dominating the sea, we should design a class of ship that we can build a lot of, cheaply, right now. My idea would be something like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee-class_brig-sloopSteam-powered ships being that much better than sail-powered is still a way off, and if we have practical experience of building good warships that work, we'll have a leg up when that time comes. I'd prefer to design a small ship to save on cost and insure ourselves against another National Effort result.
I think our next revision phase should either be spent downsizing our cannon to 3-pounders, or creating a carbine version of the Brown Bess. 3-pounder cannon would no longer be Very Expensive, so our ground troops could have more close artillery support and we could turn out more ships. Also, a 3-pounder should be enough to sink opposing gunboats. Carbines would make our cavalry better.
Overall, my plan would be to design a sailing sloop about 100 feet long by 25 feet wide, carrying 2 3-pound bow chasers, 2 3-pound stern chasers, and 4 3-pounders on each broadside. In our revision, we would downsize our existing 6-pound cannon to 3-pounders. After that I have no idea what we do.