by robbbbbb
Runewars is based, in part, on Battlemist. Battlemist had an expansion, Battlemist: The Sails of War. It's terrible, and I say this as a fan of the original game.The problem is geographical. Battlemist, like Runewars, has a single continent over which the players battle. Sails of War tried to make Battlemist into an island-hopping game, which disturbed the game's original dynamics entirely. And that's the problem with ships in this game: Either the game is turned into island-hopping and the ships are the focus with ground units as a sideshow (as in Twilight Imperium) or the game remains a single continent, only now with the prospect of using ships to skirt an enemy's forces and land in his rear area, which, again, completely disturbs the game's original dynamics.
If one wanted to design "Runewars with ships in it", I think you'd have to start with the notion of ships in the basic game, and not as something you add later. There's no place for them in the game's design space.