[avers]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Here's my plan on how they will be implemented:

Merchant ships will no longer be assigned to individual nations, for the most part. There will be four merchant nationalities:

Merchant Nation: Contraband-Neutral (Base Renown Value 1)

Merchant Nation: Contraband-Hostile (Base Renown Value 1)

Merchant Nation: Non Contraband (Base Renown Value -1)

Merchant Nation: Friendly (Base Renown Value -5)

I can display any type of flag on a particular ship, so correct flag display is no longer an issue. This means that some ships under the Swedish flag, for example, will trade with Britain, while other Swedish ships will trade with Germany - just like it was during WWI. Also, some ships under the British/French/Russian flag cannot be sunk (if they are not carrying contraband or headed to hostile ports). Again, that was consistent with the prize rules.

Most ships will be accompanied by an invisible "dummy" unit that will spawn a row boat when your submarine approaches - the boat will have a ship's officer with the manifest. If the manifest has military equipment on it, you will be free to sink the ship.

Of course, there will always be a chance that it's a trap, and the ship is actually a Q-Ship!

Your other option is to sink ships without warning. However, you will risk losing renown if it turns out that they were not carrying contraband, or if they were blockade running merchants headed for Germany.

There will be some ships, especially late in the war, that you can attack without warning - these will be camouflaged merchant ships with visible gun platforms, etc.

I am drawing up a list of cargoes right now.

plus don't forget, there were two periods in the war where the U boats were allowed to wage unrestricted warfare. and this sounds cool.