Turns out seafaring is a wrapper of even more padding AROUND those. During sea battles you sometimes need to board an enemy ship... and you suddenly find yourself in the same wave-based slog once again. Except they seem even more superficial as enemies spawn on-the-spot right in front of your face.

Initially I thought "it'd be cool if they come out of the ship's cabins/decks" NOPE they just materialize out of thin air. Feels like absolutely the lowest-effort part of the game in terms of potential attention to detail. Not only did an unwanted feature return for a 3rd game, it feels phoned in.