[Psientist]

sorry I'm late to this thread. Here are some thoughts.... I made a star trek mod of an old Dominions-esque game called Warlords years ago, and what helped the map problem was.... STARGATES! Dominions 3 maps can make links between ANY two provinces on a map, not just contiguous ones. So, you could fill the map with systems and a limited number of gates.

two -- Torpedoes! Create a unit (ship) that #summons or #makemonsters units with no defense or protection, berserk, fast moving and flying (which does work underwater if you set it up right), and with the "blood vengeance" trait. banzai!

There is also a way to set up a battlefield spell to summon monsters to the field randomly around the battle area. I've got it in my notes somewhere, you can bitmask it.

Lasers - probably have to be set up as spells to get the "underwater" distancing right....

Is there a way I wonder to edit the battlefield animations? probably not in the mod manuals, but if you had the right tools I bet it could be kludged.

And now for crazy talk... why not flip-flop the land-air thing? if you made land=space, that would open up your space combat, and make ground combat more limited, which seems to me more the focus of the mod. the aquatic / amphibian / air breathing limitations could probably be made to work both ways.

An interesting effort.