Some ideas to improve later game combat and warfare

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Just throwing some ideas out there to possibly improve the overall campaign in general and mostly late game combat and warfare.

• Allow more than one battle per turn, depending on their size. It's reasonable for one large fleet battle to take up one turn, but I would like to see the opportunity to play multiple small scale engagements or skirmishes during a turn. It it really tiring wasting months of a war on raider interceptions. To support this idea, a few things and conditions to consider:
  • Include a save button on the scenario dialogue so that a player can save between battles if there will be more than one
    
  • Allow auto-resolve for battles of a certain size and smaller
    
  • Don't force multiple battles per turn every turn. Allow multi-battle turns, but 1-battle-per-turn turns should still be the norm, except in certain areas and conditions.
    
  • Increase the likelihood of multiple battles per turn in areas where combatants have large forces concentrated together and bases in close proximity (e.g. Adriatic, Yellow Sea, Baltic Sea). Also consider other conditions such as time period (limit in early game), fuel shortages, time of year, access to oil and oil firing, fleet size, national contributes.
    
  • If you're concerned about demolishing your own or the AI's light forces in a matter of months, limit the size of these skirmishes or allow them to be cyclic. Like you get a a few months of increase chance of multiple battles followed by downtime where they are rare.  
    
  • Regardless of the above three points, land combat should greatly increase the likelihood of multi-battle turns, especially in the later years of the campaign.
    
  • Keep in mind I'm talking about two battles per turn, maybe rarely three at most.
    
  • Even that may seem extreme, but in my experience with raider interceptions, really small scale cruiser/destroyer skirmishes, and AI constantly battle declining, I feel like most of the wars I don't do anything but watch subs do thing behind the scenes work. At the minimal, stop allowing raider interceptions from taking a potential battle spot. 

  
  

• Invasions: I already suggested some of my invasion ideas here. Personally I think in general (late) game invasions take too long to trigger and shouldn't always require naval superiority. To quote Mango from Discord, "They should honestly make it so you can invade regardless of force power. Just give you a disadvantage in the matchmaking for the invasion". Totally agree with this. It's so easy to have an invasion you've spent months paying for be delayed because the AI added one more cruiser to the sea zone that put them a head by a margin. It also doesn't rally make sense that you can make a one or two time payment for an invasion (e.g. the invasion kicks off after just one or two months) or a six to eight time payment (constantly delayed) and get the same results. Where the hell does all that extra money go?
  • I'm inclined to suggest that invasions should instead be given a mandatory wait/planning period dependent on distance from home region, value, and research level, which results in a very high chance of triggering an invasion once the planning period ends. With winter months reducing the trigger of course. 

I was going to include a section on strategic aircraft improvements, but that part ended up being very involved. I'll post that in a separate thread.

Edit: Forgot I wanted reiterate to some thoughts I had expressed in the DLC thread as they're still relevant.

As for the war/diplomacy system, I just find it too boring. Tensions rise, you go to war, you whittle down/decimate the AI, the AI spams subs, you randomly obtain peace, tensions rise again, and repeat. That's if you're winning the wars. I just wish wars had a little scope or goals either through the ambition of your nation's AI leadership or through your own ambition (in cases where you have significant say in government). And I like how the battle generator simulates raids and such, but I wish missions had more purpose. Like coastal bombardments or raids that actually impact enemy logistics or repair ability in a sea zone or supporting scenarios that impact land combat outside of naval invasions. Intercepting of enemy taskforces that are traversing a seazone rather than a random battle that happens in random places of a seazone when two forces are present. Having some kind of scope or missions, from both the AI and player, would impact what battles happen and where. Does the AI want to attack a possession, defend a possession, actively hunt down the enemy carriers, or simply maintain a fleet in being to control a sea zone would impact what kind of scenarios that would trigger (player versus AI initiated coastal raids/bombardments, cruisers actions vs fleet battles), where they happen (closer to AI or player held possessions), and how often. To be honest the current war system and invasion system works good enough for WW1, but WW2 or Pacific spanning battles - not so much.