Yes, I know the combat engine is unlikly to change any time soon and there have been many, many suggestions pulling from various games about how combat could be altered.

So I figured I would throw in my own 2 cents, inspired from yet another game. Probots! (or Core Wars)

Ok, when I see these combat threads, two major issues come up:
(1) Rebalancing the AI (or having to expand it significnatly to make use of tactical combat).
(2) Against the Sprit (i.e. we are the leaders, not the fleet commanders, so we should not be micromanaging fleet actions)

One way around this is a hybrid solution. The combat engine stays the same, but the game allows plug-in policy definitions. Simple programs (scripted, LISP, XML, something that does not need compiling) that you can select as your basic 'tactics'. The bot would have access to basic fleet information (self stats, enemy stats) and the ability to execute basic commands (fire on target X, run away). Commands and information could be added by researching various technologies (retreat would be an example).

At it's simplest, the AI would just continue using a 'everyone fire at the biggest ship till it blows up, rinse lather repeat', with the possibilty of culling various scripts from the user community for the differnt AI races.

True this would appeal to the modders and programmers out here more then people who want a true tactial system, but this would also probably be simplier to implement and allow for a bit more race flavor.

Thoughts?