Fun questions to ponder about the future of subsims

[Molon Labe]

That's exactly what I want. I think a tactical sim like DW should have a campaign engine that tracks events at the strategic/operational level--something like a fleet command interface or the campaign engine in Falcon 4.0. This would allow you to use the tactical sim to resolve combat actions generated by player actions on the strategic sim.

How do you think would be the best way for the naval game to interface with the strategic world?

For example, a persistent environment where vessels are crewed in real time, perhaps the same crews (like "guilds") crewing the same vessels...

Having specific crews and the like would require a larger player pool than we can count on for modern naval sims. Would be nice to have.

Overall I think the best solution is to have a stategic interface that allows you players to log onto a persistant server (of course the clock would only run when people are in fact logged on), and then begin a tactical simulation in a platform and at a time of the players' chosing. AI reports would be provided to the stategic interface from platforms regarding contacts (sensors or flaming datum/distress calls) and such. And don't underestimate the value of anticipated contact (such as when platforms are nearing an objective). You don't get the "meta information" problem with this because you don't organize an encounter independently of the stategic sim. The tactical and strategic sims run in parallel, and the players move from one to the other as they please.