Continuing from before.
4, Smuggling. One thing that strikes me is that Colonist can't smuggle goods to other European players. One of the biggest gripes King George had with the colonists was that they were flouting the English Mercantile Acts and doing a lot of trading with England's trade enemies. So I think that when you could sail to the Homeland, there should be an option (and new screen) which would allow you to trade elsewhere in Europe. However, there would be a chance that your ship and cargo would get intercepted by the Navy and the ship would be lost and perhaps a financial fine imposed upon you.
5. Similar to smuggling and the lack of roaming barbarians is the lack of pirates. In the games I've played, the only pirates are those the AI players build. The early part of the game is easily withing the "Golden Age of Piracy" so I'd think there should be pirates running around.
6. Since most colonists can't build navies, a started a thread about on one mod asking why our colonies pay taxes but never get help from the king? My feeling is there should be a mechanic where the colonies ask for Royal help and troops & ships are taken out of the Expeditionary Force and sent to help. One of the reasons for the taxes (at least in US History) is England was trying to recoup revenue from having to pay for the 3 pre-Independence wars. Having to pay taxes in the game but not getting any of that help is sort of lame.
I don't know how it could be done in Col2, but if there was a way to have some sort of system to track
then any time you ask for Royal troops, wherever they are quartered, there would be an increase in
. Perhaps the level of
could just add to the number of
that are needed to producing things to show folks not working. Anyway, having to ask for Royal help and perhaps having to kiss his ring would increase the
just as successful battles would decrease them.
7. Privateers. The Fall From Heaven modmod Orbis has a neat system where there is a Letter of Marque promotion that allows for a privateer mission. Any ship would this could act privateer for as long as the privateer mission is kept active.
Conversely, I think a neat idea from the old Civ III mod Rise and Rule could be used for pirates or ships attacking other ships during wartime: prize ships. In the mod, prize ships were usually created (80% of the time) when a privateer or warship attacked a cargo ship. The ship would be a 'bad' version of what ever class it was. In this I mean it generally held one less cargo space. However, while you could use them for transport, the real use was to bring them back to port and then convert them into a big
bonus. Taking prizes was a BIG deal back in the day. So much so that during war time, many good captains refused to be promoted away from the swift frigates because it was much more lucrative to stay in a ship that did a lot of commerce raiding. (more on that below)
8. Europe at war. One thing about Col2 that I find odd is that the European powers never go to war with each other outside the scope of the game. In this I mean the forces the cause the AI to declare war are dependent on what's going on in the game. However, historically the Europeans went to war all the time for lots of reason, many of which had no bearing on what was going on in the colonies.
I think that there needs to be something like the system that is in
Sid Meier's Pirates! where the European power will often be at war with each other regardless of what's going on in the game. That way having warships and ships with the letters of marque promotion become really valuable. I mean from what I've seen on the forums and in play myself, there is NO reason to build Frigates since the Royal Navy ships sink them with ease and thus are only needed if the AI likes building privateers. However, if war breaks out, then like the barbarian spawn, you'd have enemy country sending in ships and perhaps regulars. Like the smuggling mission I mentioned, I think pirates and warships during war should be able to enter the "Homeland" zone and then have an option of "Commerce Raiding" and thus they'd disappear and every so often you'd get a hit and make money or get a notice that your ship has been sunk. Again, historically a lot of cargo ships found it much more lucrative during times of war to bulk up on canon and marines a get their letters of marque and raid enemy shipping then do 'honest trading'. If anything, it gives you a mission for all those caravels that tend to be nothing but people transports later in the game.
Sort of like I mentioned above, you could ask for help from the King or perhaps like the way the Indians do, the King would come calling saying, "I'm dispatching X ships and X troops to help you" and you'd get these troops to use till the war ended.
These are just some ideas I've had. I'm not a coder so I don't know how hard a lot of these would be and I am sure some might not be viable. However most of them, I think, should be possible and wouldn't cause undue hardships in regard to game play.