Questions and Ideas for Empire

I've read plenty of previews, but not them all i'm sure. So I'll propose some Ideas and you tell me if they are confirmed or just give more ideas and improve others :beam:

Similar to land armies being able to cripple a city's economy, by destroying it's exterior buildings. Can ships do such things, that not only cripple the enemies economy but also improve the player's faction?
For example stealing from trade ships. There could also be a limit on how many trade ships your fleet raids by putting limits on your fleets's cargo. You can empty the cargo everytime your fleet comes near the allied controled coastline or in a port, thus increasing your treasury. Your fleet's cargo can increase with stolen goods more quicker when near enemy ports and much slower on empty sea.
Like this you affect your enemies trade and force the AI to send fleets against yours.
This presents an alternative to blockade. In blockade you stop trade completely, but by placing your ships near the ports you'll only cripple their trade a bit and get some treasury out of it.

A fun addition would be treasury ships, that go to the colonies and collect taxes, etc. You could stumble upon one in the middle of the fog-of-war on the campaign map and attack it. These ships would be very well protected but if you could rob them you would win a nice amount of money.
However I can't make up an historical reason for the existence of these fleets. Probably they're function would be to bring gold and silver to the motherland, but I don't see the advantanges and awards that would make the players build these fleets and test their luck, in a strategic point of view.
Or maybe, only the AI can build them...

Another fun thing would be being able to bombard coastal cities, just for the sake of it, or to open path for your invasion force. Of course cities would have forts to defend themselves. The city could be right next to the sea, like Lisbon, and full of forts... Or the city could be just out of range from your cannon fire but with forts defending beaches that could provide a quick access to the enemy city for your army, and so you make use of your fleet to destroy the forts.

The next idea, is something that could be put on many games, but I've never seen it. It would be great for the other TW games. I'm sure many of you have already thought about it.
The point of this idea is to have a faction creator or revolution creator. The historical era of Empire TW is quite know for it's revolutions on many aspects, this could justify why this feature is added on Empire and not on other strategy and TW games.
So you could be able to name your faction, choose its starting government, even choose from a list of new (invented by CA) units and historical units,etc. Then finally choose the region where you wish to rebel and found your faction.
The problem is that there aren't many regions on Europe compared to Rome: TW for example. You saw how the only spanish city was Madrid. Rebelling from Madrid wouldn't be very fun and would be very unrealistic from my point of view, since your faction is controlling Madrid, and the whole Spain from start.
However I know that many people wouldn't mind this.
For me it would be less ahistorical and more realistic to rebel on a region or two in northern Spain, but I think with the way the campaign looks right now, you'll be able to rebel on some places that would make your revolution look less ahistorical, like on the middle of the political confusion that was actual Germany, or on one of the many colonies.

That's it, thanks for reading. :laugh4: