by Complex
Funny thing: We never ever thought that the galleon might be better for a pirate than the frigate.Galleon holding more cargo? Well, that's just a little bit of gold "lost" when selling the random loot in the next town. Not that big of a disadvantage, as this does not make much of a difference in the later stage of the game.
Being weaker in PvP combat? Arguably. But those merchants are tough calculators, never spending too much money for their fighting abilities than absolutely necessary. They are - at least in our games - contempt to prevent being attacked by pirates, by having a galleon and thereby threatening to being a real problem. I did not see them really chasing pirate players with their galleons (except for close situations, when a pirate was about to win, and, well most of the time they lost, because it simply was against the odds, but what else to do in such a situation?), mostly because they tend to have low spotting skill or navigation anyways, so they usually don't "waste" their actions on trying to hunt down pirate players.
As a pirate you tend to get your victory points mainly by finishing those merchant raids with looting 12 gold. Now here every point of manoeverability is EXTREMELY important. Think about it this way: Raiding a merchant with a frigate will quite probably give you a victory point, as you will be able to draw this fourth card, whilst with a galleon you have to be quite lucky to get one (a VP), and you will for sure have to go to port for repairs afterwards, costing you actions points, which is, effectively, time.