I'm just ahead to start book 2 and i'm planning ahead naval combat. Chapter 2 assume that sailor will fight in background, but in that case quality and quantity of crew won't be important factor in combat.
I want to spice up this part by implement rules of mass combat from either "kingmaker" or "warpath". Have you any thoughts about it? it is worth to try ?
Im doing something similar already and its working really well. I'm using the shipboard combat rules from the d20 conan Pirate isles book.
Its based around crew morale, the crew from both sides roll to hit and the winner gains morale whilst the loser loses it, when they reach 0 they break and surrender. The casulties are the worked out from the amount of morale lost per side.
The Pc's are then free to either assist the crew (+2 to hit) or take on individual crew, marines or the captain or whatever else they want to do. It works out really well and adds a lot of flavour to the combat.