Im doing a game similar to sid meiers Pirates! but set in a post ww2 world. You can also command several ships, sieze ports for your self and build facilities and land port.

Many such games is very sandboxy (such is the case of "Pirates" for example). You set out and do whatever you want. You retire at old age and get a summary of some achievements. I dont like that. Im thinking to add some selectable main goals. The game is still open when it comes to how you grow your wealth/aquire new ships etc.

This is similar to the Anno series where you can set your own goals at the start of a new game. Tracking goals that you set yourself and that you can follow as you play is NOT the same as simply letting the player choose what to do as they play. Not to me at least:)

So... what could such goals be? My ideas so far:

1. Each main faction (us, britain, germany, japan) has a single battleship. Sink each one. Once you sink one, all other national battleships gets a bigger escort.

2. Build a new settlement/naval base and "grow it" to some point by erecting some prestige building such as a shipyard (similar to "build an imperial cathedral" in Anno).

3. Countable "grinding" goals. Sink X ships, amass X wealth/influense. This is a bit boring. Not a favourite.

4. Wipe out 1 (or 2!) main factions (give all the ports to another faction or yorself and sink that national battleship).

Plz comment and add ideas!
Erik

to support an open world, you will have to consider timing issues, short cutting travel, etc... I.e. once you commission a new ship, it could take months before it shows up.

In WWII, one consideration might be paving an airport on a tiny island. In WW2, these pacific island airstrips were vital for shortening the distance for aerial attacks. But it meant intense battling to gain and control airstrip worthy land. But once that is done, it makes sense that you would be "granted" control of a carrier at that time.

Additionally, you could start lower in command, controlling a destroyer in a group of ships. I.e. have plenty of battle going on, but you get isolated objectives in battle, and can witness larger ships and strategies. Then as you do well, you rank up, and control more ships, and get sent on missions where you are given more control.

Additional objectives, taking over an island airfield with as little damage as possible. (make it useful sooner) aside from repair time, you have the expense of fixing it. money that could be spent on more weapons/troops/vehicles.

Also, Moral could play a major part of it. after a good victory, (or island party to unwind) your sailors are refreshed and feeling more confident and capable, will handle better, aim better, react faster.

It could also be that if you are commanding a large force (many ships) your strategy plays a major role, but the ships still have their own decisions internally. They will try to follow orders, but sometimes its just not reasonable. And that point where they decide to do their own thing could happen sooner if your strategy sucks.

Maybe you could also "claim" ships. I.e. take them over with out sinking them. By focusing on weapons, then boarding. You could use these pirated ships to launch sneak attacks, gain intel and more. For instance the longer your pirate ship goes undetected, the longer you get advanced messages about the fleet. I.e. they still trust their decoding devices.

These are gameplay suggestions (which is also welcomed by the way). But what about the "campaign goals"?

perhaps you could also have time commanding a variety of lower level ships. After piloting all of them for atleast X time or missions, it opens new missions for you, I.e. This mission requires 2 destroyers, a battle ship, and 20 transport barges. You need time commanding all of them, before you get to control them all at the same time. (maybe not the barges though, or the missions with them would be smaller, like loading/unloading, docking, etc... Particularly navigating an island shore to get vehicles unloaded.)

I also like the idea that at any point in the game, you can focus on a particular craft. (boat, plane, sub, tank) and take control, at least in some part.

Another goal could be Reward for confirmed kill. I.e. you've become well enough known that your enemy's are targeting you. Additionally Reward for confirmed kill could be reversed. I.e. Bounty for enemy npc's.

Take and hold some vital territory for X turns? Like, Take Signapore, and hold it for 50 turns.

Kick a faction out of the area, by systematically destroying either their naval bases, or their supplies, and removing their influence. I like this one because it's somewhat open-ended how you go about the goal, but the end goal is still pretty concrete.

Build a battleship, and sink the opposing battleships. (You could have it so that the opposing battleships won't show up until you build yours)