1) PIRATES! I am talking about proper Pirates here, not just rebellious ships, I want annoying little fella's who hound my trade routes (maybe not attacking trade ships if they don't feature, but causing a disruption of your trade route instead) and require my attention, the grand age of Piracy is in the timeframe, so I want Blackbeard to blow some holes in please. Hiring your own privateers would also be quite good, maybe if your hire them they only disrupt other countries trade and not yours, who knows, but I was rum drinking swashbucklers!

2) Ability to rename ships, it's nothing huge but I liked naming my ships in Sid Meier's Pirates and let me add my own touch to the game.

3) As has been touched on, do not make the games so rigid that nobody can make mods about anything but gunpowder era, allow hands weapons to still work well enough to equip lots with them etc

4) Increase the diplomatic options and re-work it. It's certainly improved but a similar base as the one in EU would be quite good, where viewing your reputation is quite simple, if needs be for immersion just make it avasilable through an advisor who is mointoring relations with other factions. In EU, people don't just attack you, they usually do it because you have a poor reputation world wide or you've been rude to them, it works very well (though can be improved) but is a good base.

5) More than one start date, let me fight the Napoleonic Wars and Wars of Independance, rather than waiting for them, by which time the world will be completely different.

6) Glorious Achievements, let me win by conquering everything, but don't force me to do that. Alot of players like to sit and play realistically, MTW's GA's allowed you to win without going nuts, this was a great feature.

7) Stick to the turn baded campaign, it works very well.