Wish overload is never a good thing.
Three's a good start.
I'd still pare it down to Iowa class, Yamato class and Shokaku class. Those three would transform water events in AHII dramatically.
Thinking back on the earlier thread when we were talking about revising task force compositions to CV TFs, BB TFs and Invasion TFs, along with this it would seem modeling an Iowa and a Yamato as well as a Shokaku IJN CV and an LST (capable of launching invasion craft beached or at sea) .... and an escort carrier (Casablanca) may facilitate adding depth to the sea war in AHII. That's 5 ship models. The most complex probably being the LST. The escort carrier being a smaller non-spawnable version of the CV. The BBs being harder hitting and tougher than the cruisers by perhaps a factor of 4 or more.
If the game goes from one basic type of TF to 5 representations of TFs (Essex TF, Shokaku TF, Iowa TF, Yamato TF and LST TF) and ports cannot be re-coded to deploy more than one TF at a time then MA maps will have to have a minimum of 5 ports per side (if all types of task forces are to be allowed and just one LST TF is mapped per side). These ports may have to be located in hard to capture spots (rear areas with plenty of supporting bases near). The maps may require more water to traverse. Capturing another side's LST TF or Yamato/Iowa port/TF could be a significant boon. Port fights may take on more significance.
Scouting for enemy fleets would also take on more significance. All aircraft in AHII should be able to take on the role of reconnaissance. Sighting an enemy fleet and reporting it would be less cumbersome if a keystroke could result in a team message: "Enemy task force sighted." with the reporting players location being blipped on the clipboard map. Perhaps a fading dot (10-15 seconds or so). It would even be more helpful if the message described which type of TF: "Iowa Task force sighted headed NE."
Player controlled destroyers have been mentioned in more than one thread. I've seen them mentioned as both port defenders and fleet spawns. I, personally, think their number should be limited, somehow. USN destroyer squadrons of WWII numbered 8 or 9 ships. A limit of 10 isn't unreasonable. So a port could then spawn 10 destroyers. Task forces should probably not spawn any since that kind of makes the port ability to spawn them useless. The destroyers won't really be a threat to BBs (unless torps are modeled for them) but they would be a threat to the LST. What about
re-spawning? If there's a limit to how many destroyers can be spawned at any given moment, when one is sunk and another is spawned then the port may as well have an infinite supply. Should a down-time be imposed?
As fun as all this sounds, the more factors discussed - the more I wince on the coding that may be involved (from the ship modeling to the recon coding to the spawn limit coding). I find it intriguing if the coding doesn't make for a huge headache to implement .... if the majority of players even care.
