Wouldn't it be nice to have a future tech that would allow us to establish sea settlements? That way we could take advantage of the sea and conquer them as additional territories. Also, we could had fish/whale and oil reserves in the open sea, and by using a specific unit (boat or unit that would allow us to build a temporary/permanent oil rig), we could have those resources extracted. That way we could have more usage of the sea territories and naval units. When establishing this exploitation, we would have an option to where we would like to send the resources to.

There is some simple (and more complex) things that could be done with the seas.

1. Allow multiple harbor districts, for example a second one with three mast ships and a deep sea harbor (can be built over ocean instead of coastal) with naval warfare.
2. Allow the construction of artificial islands over Reefs
3. Allow the construction of artificial islands in deep sea to claim territory.

Yes, both ideas will work great, but since we have too much sea territories aside from coastal, it would be a great idea to use them to collect more food and oil.

Why not both?

rendymonyab wrote:

Rather than having sea settlements I've seen ideas that sea territories should be controlled by whomever has the most units present. And then allow resources (like oil) to appear there and subject to offshore oil rigs that could be captured if you take control of the sea zone.

Also by controlling sea zones you can either block trade routes, or otherwise make them more expensive by requiring they go around your area of control.

If any of these are implemented 100% sea zones should probably be shrunk in size significantly so that there are many more of them to be controlled, thus more reason to field larger navies.

kalaak wrote:

Wouldn't it be nice to have a future tech that would allow us to establish sea settlements? That way we could take advantage of the sea and conquer them as additional territories. Also, we could had fish/whale and oil reserves in the open sea, and by using a specific unit (boat or unit that would allow us to build a temporary/permanent oil rig), we could have those resources extracted. That way we could have more usage of the sea territories and naval units. When establishing this exploitation, we would have an option to where we would like to send the resources to.

Id love to be able to absorb a sea-territory from the Industrial Era onwards as part of my naval empire and colonialist exploits, and to eventually be able to create sea-stead esque tiles on the ocean. A modular network of domed habitats that float on the ocean with dedicated buildable districts for living space, agriculture, aquaculture, seafloor mining and manufactory.

Would be cool sea outposts an ratach them would be in last contemporera techs you could build districts then 

Yes, but the idea of neutral waters should in my opninion still have a place, maybe keep it limited (i really like the deep harbor idea)