Just end my first "tutorial" USA campaign, and have lot of suggestions and thoughts about game (Please, don't think this is criticism, I just try to make game even more perfect than it is now
):
Events-For now only player and his current opponent may lose ships, other nations are invincible. However, in that time number of ships were lost due to navigational errors, internal blowings and occasional ramming. During the war there are also floating mines, submarines and other dangers. I think they may be implemented in game as random events. Maybe it will be even possible to create "war" between computer opponents with such ship-harming events.
Design notes-Start date better be nearly 1895, as now researching progress still runs to dreadnoughts too fast in my opinion (I want more time to play with these fat slow pre-BBs and CAs!
) and tech tree seem to be adapted more to this date (now many inventions happen later than IRL)
-Allowing main calibre wing turrets earlier in game would be nice, as it will help to recreate French shipbuilding school (there should be number of restrictions for further research, of course: only 2-4 turrets in certain positions, only single or casemate turrets, etc)
-France may get advance in medium gun turrets tech, as that was one of their main design features.
-Russia may get advance in minelaying tech, as it was notable part of fleet strategy and here Russia really had success.
-now speed-concerned machinery has very limited usefulness, as it works like constant slow speed reduction after defined time. I think it may be better increase the chance of critical breakdowns, repairable but crippling ship for some minutes... or some hours.
Guerre de Course
-Submarine warfare needs some tweaking - now even during fleet support 30 USA coastal subs sink 2-3 French merchants every month, but in the same time they never had opportunity to attack warships (though there were some in Caribbean). Enemy subs engage merchants as well and hit only 2 obsolete warships during all game time (both survived). This is weird, I think. More attacks at warships should be performed, and CSSs should be ill-suited against merchant shipping unless you have possession in enemy home zone.
-Blockade is too powerful, in my opinion. Can't believe that France may get a revolution after 2 years of war with USA and 3 month of blockade without any decisive battle. Also, loss of less than 100 merchant ships during 24 month all over the world couldn't harm even weak economy too much. Also, Guerre de Course even under prise rules should upset Global Naval Power a bit, as some of ships, caught with contraband would be British.
-Raiders scuttling should be reduced, especially warships. While playing Italy I saw USA lost 3 or 4 their CA raiders without any damage "due to lack of fuel". Hope they shoot incompetent captains after loosing the war
Operations and strategy-Some rough instruments to choose fleet strategy and ship roles needed. For example, now "scout" design (short range, fast speed, small guns) is very unhandy, as it has more chances to be involved in anti-raider patrolling or coastal defence. Also this bring player free VPs, as sending fast CA to raid near enemy heartland usually ends in massacre of such weak ships. I propose separation ships in two or three ranks, while one of them means main body ship, other means ocean patrol craft and maybe third one for active fleet ship player don't want to be involved in battles now (of course, this should only reduce probability of improper use of ship, there is still number of reasons commanding admiral may ignore your decision)
-Also there may be some way of defining actions fleet concerns: preparation to decisive battle may mean better fleet balancing in "fleet battle", but lack of coast protection, "Jeune Ecole" means better light forces combinations in cruiser battles, etc.
-Creating 3-4 generally stronger CLs means guarantee of victory in light forces clashes, no matter how many CLs opponent has in pool. However, if you have, say, less than half of enemy ships number, enemy may perform some operations without your presence, even symbolical. I think this should be reflected as free VP flow to superior force.
-some operations also may be undetected by enemy, but they still affect war, VPs for them should be gained too.
-And VP value of some declined or undetected operations should be raised nearly in 3-4 times minimum. Say, if you declined to protect convoy, enemy got all effects as if he sunk ships in it; if coastal raid runs undetected this means merchants sunk and land targets destroyed; etc.
-During blockade there may be mission "attacking blockading force", the thing never happen IRL, but first thing I do when playing SAI on German side. cruisers attacking AMCs and old warships with possibility that fast superior squadron is somewhere nearby.
And my personal wanting:
More statistics and fun staff info! Much more! I want to know, what crew of this ship ate for dinner yesterday, where is their favourite bordello, what tobacco sort loves their boatswain, what's name of their captain, and their talisman cat too!
Seriously, it would be good to collect statistic of battles fought with possibility to see at least after battle info screen (preferably with individual ship statistic). And SAI feature with ship service history would be great here too. Statistic of crew loses will be much more complex to implement, but may add more life in game, in my opinion (And if there would be captain generator... And if every captain would have bravery and stupidity hidden parameters... OMG, I should stop now!
)