dano and the rest, I see that you simply didn't understand anything in these games

Ever played moo2 multiplayer? or RTW for that matter? I have a feeling that if we played head to head I would completely destroy you.
thats where you see best the value of tactics, but here I think we can expect a very strong AI, so.
In moo2 the missile/beam/fighter craft/etc issue was also way way more interesting than this freakin boring slightly altered rock/paper/scissors game in galciv.. (I reckon I'll watch the fight movies maybe twice, three times. after that just click it away because its valueless to the game)
You could still auto it, of course. you can in moo2 too. there's even an option when starting a game to completely dissallow tactical combat.
sure you could do it better than the AI most of the time, but to assume its tedious is stupid. its supposed to be fun.
there was intelligence there because the missiles would take a few combat rounds to get to the target, but could potentially be very powerful, while beams are instantaneous and have many interesting and useful side-effects (some kill marines, some double hall damage, some ignore shields, etc) fighters needed to return to the ship to refuel and rearm, and there were tons of other components with interesting and useful tactical effects: black hole generators, tractor beams, boarding craft, warp intredictors, fast missile racks, teleporter devices, quantum detonation device, reflection fields, just to name a scarce few.
In conclusion, moo2 had so much tactical depth that to miss it you have to be an utter moron.
As for RTW, a game which is essentially all about tactical combat, well. sigh...
I SAY A RESOUNDING YES to tactical combat in expansion

))
of course that would mean having to add actually interesting weapons and gear rather than boring crap that can be readily deduced to pure numbers for the benefit of auto-combat. but hey, thats life.