Since CA seems to be paying a good amount of attention to the feedback from their customers, I figured there should be a thread compiling intelligent suggestions that go beyond simple bug documentation. If anybody else wants to add their two cents, I'll continue to update this first post.
1. Ability to select which allies you call to war.
Currently, it's an all or nothing choice which is a little frustrating sometimes. In my latest campaign as the Spanish I bribed the Cherokee into being my ally. On the second turn Louisania for some strange reason attacks me, which is fine but I would like to ask the Cherokee to join me in war to give some added pressure while simultaneously diverting the Cherokee attention from potentially backstabbing me. However, I am incapable of asking the Cherokee to join the war without also asking France to join the war. I do not want to request France's presence because I know they will refuse to attack their own protectorate and this will effectively cancel my own alliance with the French. Bottom line, it would add a nice bit of subtlety to what is currently a very blunt solution.
2. 'Banditry' for Rakes.
The Rake feels like the least useful agent in the sense that it's hard to see a benefit when they are not engaged in a mission. Combined with the difficulty of those missions, I appreciate my Gentlemen & Religious agents a good deal more. A more obvious passive ability would make the Rakes much more beneficial in my opinion. My suggestion: 'Banditry'. Although armies can already disrupt trade, a Rake could do so without an invasion or open warfare being neccessary. It would add a great bit to their usefulness and would open up another realm of espionage, allow another means of conflict beyond going to war, as well as encouraging the use of Gentlemen and Rakes to defend against such incursions.
3. 'Battery' upgrade for Ports.
There is no way to defend a Port other than stationing troops or ships within said Port. Why not however allow an expensive upgrade for Ports, much like Settlement Defenses, designed to protect them from attacks. These defenses would be useless against land based attacks, but a 'Battery' could force an attacking fleet to silence the defending cannons before the port could be overrun. There would be no 'Siege' option - just Assault, Demand Surrender, or Withdraw. This could allow some interesting coastal battles between navies and armies. It wouldn't negate economic warfare either, fleets could still raid shipping lanes, it would just make the complete shutdown of a port more difficult against the player who invested in it.
4. 'World News' tab on the diplomacy screen.
The game gives notifications of wars beginning and ending, but there is no way to know of their ongoing status without cycling thru the entire selection of factions. It would be less tedious and help to have a 'World News' tab, which could function as simply as automatically storing notifications of war until the war is concluded (whether that be by peace treaty or the destruction of a nation). Perhaps clicking on a war bulletin would show 'news headlines' of the various battles under it.
5. Light Infantry doctrine earlier.
A basic class of unit, light infantry should be available much earlier.
6. Options upon capturing cities.
When you capture a city your troops currently run thru pillaging and destroying the various public buildings with no discernable reason or gain from it. It would be much better to have a few options for how to handle a successful siege, other than default destruction. In fact, since many battles are fought at forts outside of the city, it would seem damage to the actual town should be minimal.
7. Call for peace.
If you can call your allies to war, there should also be a call to peace... especially if the nation who instigated the war sues for peace. Just like an option screen pops up to allow you to jump into a war, it would be nice to have an option screen pop up so you could likewise exit the war with your allies. Saying you would like to join the peace would open diplomacy screens where you could either set the terms or see what the demands were.
8. Demobilization options for troops.
Training expensive units to defend yourself or pursue a campaign against an enemy can bleed your treasury during peaceful years. Rather than having to disband those units and form new ones when war looms again, it might help to have a 'demobilize' function which cuts the unit strength down to around 25% (saving on upkeep), but keeping unit experience for when mobilization is needed (takes either one or two turns, much like the current replenish feature).
9. Add in 'Privateers'.
Raiding the trade routes of enemies is well and good, but sometimes a faction may want to weaken a country they don't like but don't neccessarily want to go to war with quite yet. It would be nice to be able to designate ships 'Privateers'. Much like hiring an Admiral, this would allow you to change a normal ship into a Privateer, which instead of Command stars would have a Subterfuge rating and lower upkeep. A Privateer could pirate any trade route, not just those of enemies. Clicking on a trade route would call up a selection screen to allow the choice of which factions to attempt raids against (as long as the fleet was exclusively Privateers). A successful attempt would steal some of the trade away, while a failure would result in international condemnation. If a few traits for Privateers were included it would be ideal to have it possible for them to descend into becoming full pirates and revolting against their masters to join the Pirate faction, provided they were not regularly monitored.
10. Display how balanced a diplomatic offer is.
It is frustrating to have to blindly seek deals with no idea whether you've met or exceeded fair market value. A simple display, similar to previous Total War titles, of how balanced an offer is would be nice.
11. Make death notifications more detailed.
While it's nice to know when your named characters die, it is unlikely that the player has memorized the various persons working for them. It would help to have the persons title or occupation listed along with their name.
12. Alter Bomb Ketch usage.
Bomb Ketches should not be able to use their mortars on the open water, but perhaps allowing them to be the only ship capable of attacking fleets within harbors would give them a more unique roll in keeping with their historical usage.
13. Display minimal captain information.
While captains are rightly not as detailed as generals, it would be nice to at least know their age so that the player can avoid promoting senior citizens who then promptly croak and make the players investment a waste.
14. Greater diplomacy screen detail.
Currently the game shows a very basic summary of your standing with a faction on the diplomacy screen. It would assist the player to have a mouse-over popup of the complete Friend-O-Meter.
15. Add function to trade screen to help find raids.
The game tells you which trade routes are being raided or blockaded, but while it sends an initial notification, there is no way afterwards to locate the pirates except by a tedious search of the globe. Adding a spyglass function onto the trade screen would help greatly.
16. Ability to request that other factions go to war from the diplomacy screen.
While it's true that allies are forced to join wars if they wish to stay allies, at times a nation may wish to incite another into warfare without engaging in the effort themselves. It would be a useful addition to the diplomacy screen.
17. Ability to request that other factions attack or defend specific targets.
This would make joint offensives possible and/or allow a faction to ask for specific help, instead of the often dubious worth of most current alliances.
18. Allow trade nodes to be exchanged much like regions.
Another suggestion to make the diplomatic options more all-encompassing.
19. Surrenders should actually be a noticeable part of the game.
Right now surrendering virtually never happens, no matter how badly outnumbered or outclassed the enemy is. In the extremely rare case that a foe does surrender, there's no real benefit to the faction who forced the surrender because the enemy is only moved a short distance away and begins despoiling the countryside. Surrenders should occur when an army or fleet faces certain destruction and there's no reason for them to fight on in the face of such (ie: extreme cultural hatreds, commander with great leadership skills, important faction goal at stake, etc). Secondly, surrendered units should give two choices for their faction: either 1. 'Dishonorable Surrender', which moves the unit(s) to the nearest faction settlement, drops their numbers to 10% and starts a free replenish function (so that the unit is useless for 2 turns) and the faction takes a hit to international opinion due to the men violating their surrender... or 2. 'Honorable Surrender', which disbands the unit(s) and the faction recoups 50% of their recruitment cost.
20. 'Shrines' for religious agents.
An interesting idea I thought of to add to the function of religious agents is to allow them to build 'shrines'. These 'shrines' would give a very slight bonus to conversion efforts, and would create a zone of influence so that multiple shrines could not be built in close proximity to each other. Uniquely, 'shrines' could be built both within the players borders and outside of them. This would allow players to be more involved in starting inflammatory cult movements, and make the approach of foreign religious agents something to be feared. These 'shrines' could be destroyed much like any other campaign map building, but just as them, it could always be repaired with an infusion of cash.
21. Make trade ships and trade nodes more interesting gameplay.
Daveybaby had a number of good suggestions, notably: 1. limit the number of trade ships a faction may build to one per commercial port level, 2. allow multiple nations to share a trade node, but split the profit amongst them, and 3. give monopoly bonuses. These three suggestions would make the trading mini-game much more dynamic and provoke conflict over the trade nodes more effectively while simultaneously allowing the AI to compete more convincingly against an experienced human player.
22. Implement weather into tactical consideration more.
Weather should have more impact upon the capabilities of units, and this would make choosing not only the place of battle, but also the time, much more important. Different weather considerations could have a host of greater effects besides simple fatigue penalties.
