The long and short of it is that all you need in order to rule the waves in glorious fashion is the Kanko Maru. It's cheap, got good hull strength and has loads of crew.

Don't even so much as look at any other ship except for the Kasuga class or Kaiyo Maru class "frigate".

This is, of course, if you are planning on auto-resolving a lot of battles. This is where the Kanko Maru can truly shine. It will win battles that you think are impossible, sure, you might lose a few, but they are relatively inexpensive to build. Their upkeep is low too, you can easily keep a dual stack of ships. This can allow you to use them to blockade ports, for fire support or just block access so your ports won't get blocked. If you place them well, you can actually reach all the way out to the edge of the map with your control zone with the fleets, meaning enemy navies cannot pass without engaging your ships.

If you want to do the battles yourself, the Kanko Maru isn't bad, but it will not dish out great damage. It will, however, tank quite some damage. Personally for playing the battles manually I find the Kaiten class to be quite good, it's a small target with good firepower.

Chiyodagata class Gun Boat
This small turd of a ship I've never seen much point in. It can only lay one gun on a single target at a time. It has terrible hull strength and morale. As soon as something hits even remotely close to it, it'll either bail out or sink in order to make the enemy unable to hit them. It's fairly expensive for what it is and gives. Do not use this.


Chiyodagata class Torpedo Boat
I personally never used them too much. They use up an entire slot in your navy and you have to hit the torpedo for them to be useful. After that they're pretty much the same turd of a ship as the normal Chiyodagata.


Kanko Maru class Corvette
This is it lads. Why would you build anything else? She's cheap, got to giant paddles and just enough guns to make things interesting, but not too many to spoil you. The masterpiece. Seriously though, this ship performs extremely well in auto-resolve. The cost-efficiency is what puts the crown on the Kanko Maru. A fleet of these could easily raid trading routes for big money while it's not supporting your troops or blocking access to your ports and trading routes. Moreover, it seems to me their guns are more accurate than some of the "more equipped" vessels.


Kaiten class Corvette
A fairly small and fast ship with a decent array of guns. This is a good ship to combine early on with Kanko Maru if you are planning on actually playing the naval battles yourself this is a good pick.


Kanrin Maru class Corvette
There can be only one -Maru! And that is the Kanko Maru. Never took a liking to this one, not sure why. It feels fragile when I've used it.


Kasuga class Corvette
A slight uptick in upkeep and you get a very competent vessel with a good number of guns. It is a great ship to have when you want to play the battles yourself but honestly, the cost efficiency of the Kanko Maru is higher. It's good for artillery and combined with a few Kanko Maru it can take on significant enemy fleets.


Kaiyo Maru
Okay so maybe there can be two... The Kaiyo Maru are great. Very expensive, but they'll beat most other ships handily. Unless.. it's auto resolve against a couple of Kanko Maru. Big ship, big boom, what else is there to say?

Western Ironclads
Well, considering you only get to choose one and you also get the infantry of the nation you choose this one perhaps doesn't matter as much. I've always favored the more standard British Warrior class. I was least impressed with the L'Ocean. It was really not worth the money and could easily be blasted apart. The Roanoke isn't a awe-inspiring ship perhaps, but at least it's fairly cheap. Warrior is easily the best in class here, also being extremely expensive.

I will add a few tips for naval combat and campaign management here in a bit.