A modest proposal for Campaign

[LowHitPoints]

First some praise.  The ship designer is addictive.  I love tinkering with designs and every once in a while can generate some absolute monsters.  The tactical battles are fun and challenging, making a glorious victory feel satisfying and impactful.

The campaign is an innovative twist on grand strategy, but I want more!  Specifically more role playing elements to allow me to mold my navy and try different "what if" scenarios.  This forum has several posts suggesting tweaks and upgrades, and I would like to add my thoughts to that list.  Two ideas that I would love to see in the game are Design Philosophy and National Interests.  I want the ability to tweak how your Navy approaches warfare.  Basically a set of buff/debuff choices that you, as the Grand Admiral of your nation's Navy select.  Only one philosophy and one interest can be chosen on a five year cooldown (changing early costs money & prestige)

Design Philsophy:  Applied as a % to ship values either during or after ship is designed

While you can design ships to highlight different attributes, it feels like the AI for both your and enemy ships deploys them the same.  I suggest a list of buff/debuff choices to steer the AI into using the ships the way you design them to be used.  Examples (not an exhaustive list):

- Armor focus - Ships that can take a beating and stay afloat

-- bonus to armor quality in addition to tech level

-- Increase to armor cost per ton

- Speed focus - Can't hit what they can't see

-- bonus to engine efficiency to allow for faster top speeds and cruising speeds

-- Increase to smoke interference, engine cost, maintenance

- Torpedo focus - put more and deadlier fish in the water

--Increase to damage, faster reload

--Increase to detonation chance, decrease to gun reload

National Interest: How you run your Admiralty. 

As the embodiment of the Dept of the Navy/Grand Admiralty, this is how you shape your vision of what a Navy is/does.  There where several shifts during the time period of the game and while there are Techs that cover the evolution I feel being able to skew your nation towards one or the other would make the game feel more unique.  Examples (not an exhaustive list):

- Arsenal of Democracy

-- Decrease to ship build time

-- Increase chance of flaws

- Gunnery School

-- Across the board buff to accuracy

-- Training cost increase

- Send in the Marines

-- Increase to % chance of naval invasion mission during peace, Invasion success during war

-- Decrease to task force command size to represent troop transports within task force

 

These are just a few ideas, and would obviously need to be play tested and balanced.  In conclusion, I want more control over how my Navy approaches the challenges of the game, and to make each nation and each playthrough more unique.