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Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his ancient crown, |
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—Lord Macaulay, The Armada |
In game[]
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| Prereq: | Build time | HP | LOS | Attack | Attack speed | Movement speed | ||
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18s | 675 | 30 | 70 | Rather slow | 44 | ||
| Cost | Created from | Armour | Weapon range | Specialty | ||||
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 : x; : y
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 : z
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4 | 
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9 | 0-10 | ? | ||
Overall strategy[]
The first genuine warships to appear, Galleons are the early mainstay of your fleet, and while slow and cumbersome, are armed with plentiful broadside guns to challenge all other surface vessels. They are rather slow if compared to faster escort craft like Galleys and Brigantines, but they carry sufficient firepower and gunwales tall enough to confer killing power commeasurate with their profile, and also function as the capital ships of your fleet, with their enhanced line of sight. Unlike later units, Galleons have no minimum range, being an offshoot of earlier vessels, so they can be used to safely despatch escort warships, although Fire Vessels will pose an issue — one Fire Vessel might be able to take out one Galleon in one shot, so be careful, and always screen them with lighter craft.
Unit summary[]
- Powerful heavy ship with increased rate of fire, built to attain surface marine superiority.
- Has +1 armour and a few more hitpointsand higher rate of fire compared to Man of War.
An Atomic Battleship and his escort group.
History[]
The galleon began as a specialist warship whose only cargo was bullion; but thirty or so years later began taking the place of the carrack as a long-haul armed carrier for general freight. Her career in both was to last into the early 18th century, when her trading role began to be replaced by smaller but cheaper and faster brigs, as well as larger "ships of the line" for naval duty.
The galleon has her origins in post-Mediaeval Italy, where she developed from the galleass, which was a large galley built taller and higher for sea combat and with a full rig of sails and was meant to be capable of being rowed in the absence of wind. The appearance of the galleon also reflected this (in Italian, "galleon" or "galleone" meant a "large galley"). It was said that the first users of the galleon were the Genoese, who then passed on the design to the Spanish who in turn refined the design further (and who were one of Genoa's most important trade partners). She was smaller than a carrack (the first of the great European tall ships), but was more optimised for war — while she kept the same configuration of an Italian-style war galley — she had a raised section at the bow similar to a galley's rambada (today referred to as the fo'c'sle) and also kept her snub-nosed prow, the galleon however was built more narrowly and taller, allowing it to host more broadside guns and yet remain more manoeuvreable as opposed to the galleass which if upscaled could host massive bow-based "superguns".
Although the Spanish navy hosted mediaeval-style war galleys and galleasses for various tasks (ie littoral patrol work and bombardment), it was the galleon that came to exemplify the intrepid spirit and martial aspirations of Western imperialism which would be first established by the Spanish Empire. While they were originally meant to replace carracks as war vessels, the Spanish began to build them larger and more roomier for the purposes of bringing back precious metals and rare goods back to Spain for trade — the famous "Manila Galleons", because they were tasked with bringing back goods purchased from China delivered to the Spanish outpost in Luzon, to be shipped to the Americas via Mexico and then back to Spain.
Meanwhile, a new maritime power was on the rise in Europe — the English. Whilst the Spanish were building larger and broader, the English experimented with so-called "race-built galleons", named either because they were built for greater speed or mobility, or because they were "cut-down" to achieve such aims (ie "razed" or "shaved down") by trimming the top weight of the ship for increased stability at sea, granting the English a resounding defeat of the Spanish armada sent to unseat Elizabeth I in 1588. From this time onward, galleons would begin to become more streamlined, and would evolve into "frigate-built" (ie lean and low vessels) in the 18th century.