Hello again.
I was thinking about the use of ships in this game, and it dawned on me that we need a scene for boarding our ship from land. Have a beached ship near a lake, an inventory chest within the ship, and a "helmsman" character who you order to "take sail", and also have the ability to transfer party between the ship and your party. This would turn the ship from a simple prop into something more of a mobile castle that needs to be defended when you are away from it, instead of the following being heard throughout the coastal regions of Caladria:
Sea Raider: "Hey, there's a perfectly good, yet totally abandoned ship several feet away! Let's not take it!" (Or equivalent grunting in Sea Raiderese.)
As for Sea Battles - I know that applying my suggested capsize effect would be extremely difficult, so for something (slightly) simpler, yet accomplishing the desired effect, put "figureheads" (aka target dummies) on the ships. When destroyed, the figurehead "drops" 5-10 barrels of Swadian Fire (AOM seige projectile) behind it, wiping out any remaining life on the ship, and leaving that odour of burning pine that any pirate loves to start the day by smelling.
Ultimately, this trigger can be applied to the ship itself, once we've figured out how to capsize it.
As for City, Castle, and Village Functionality- Sword of Damocles Version IV. Sheer awesomeness for what we are trying to do. Implementation of a faith system, which can be turned to the Orinite/Corinele/Various others system. Public Health. Barracks training. Trading systems. We could possibly add shipyards for training crews and building ships, and the eventual "items" that would be needed for a legitimate claim to a city's throne.
Final idea - I've been screwing around with the map and scene editors, just trying them out. Maybe we want to go for an even bigger map - Caladria the Continent, with clearly defined ocean borders, maybe some more spread between the factions with larger areas of uncontrolled bandits between them, a larger system of rivers for sea trading.
That's my two and a half cents, anyways.
Thanks for hearing me out,
Terrabyte