Well i'm just finishing law studies and as far as i know as long as this game is free you can use all images you find. Just give credits to authors. EAW is very modable, there are dozens of mods adding new units, changing it's stats etc. So it's not a problem. I was not playing EAW too much (i will reinstall it to check this out this evening) so i don't remember if ship's damages are carried out to strategic part of EAW (like in Rebellion) but even if they don't it's still not that bad, maybe not perfect but always better than battles in rebellion. But we can deffinetly "intercept" data about nuber of ships that survived a battle. Good luck in making your game, i can't wait to see it working If you ever want some help with game concept/realism/economic i'm offering my help i think i'm quite good at it (my skills = my vison of my skills - my presumption )