.First of all, WitP is not an RTS or a production game, and a lot of the criticism I've seen for including production is that it would tend to alter its character. I agree.
Nevertheless, it's kinda preposterous for reinforcements to be fixed for the entire course of the war in UV, and it would be even more preposterous for the longer time-frame of WitP.
The solution, I think, is to model production so that it reacts to the game situation, but keep it out of the hands of the player. The AI ought to look at losses for different ship classes, and decide from that what new ships out to be laid down or whether conversions ought to take place.
This might be kind of hard to implement, but I think it could be done fairly easily if, instead of a list of times for ships being commissioned, the computer is given a list of dates when construction was begun. At those dates, the AI would look at the current theater situation and decide what kind of ship to build, within reason (e.g., a historical destroyer could be replaced by a minesweeper, but not by a battleship). This approach would effectively model the availability of shipyard facilites without getting into messy details or excess player control.
Another possible modification that would prevent excess strain on the AI and allow for varying strategies would be to allow the player to assign some production priorities that would skew the AI's choices in favor of those classes. For example, if I'm anticipating that a coming invasion will cost me a lot of transports, I could warn command to start building replacements ahead of time.
Interested in hearing criticisms or if WitP is too far along to include something like this.
