Tactical combat in expansion?

No.

its sounds like a demand:P but its not hehe

I don't think I have ever played a 4X game where tactical combat was interesting.
Moo1&2 ... put lots of guns on your ship. Whoever has the most/best guns wins ... wheee!
Moo 3 - don't get me started
Rome TW - Put strong infantry in a line, lots of archerse behind them, let the AI walk their troops into a withering hail of arrow fire over and over and over again. Mop up with calvary .... wheeeee!

I hope sword of the stars can pull it off, but its damn tricky and consumes enough resources to make a full fledged game, so tactical combat really isn't a 'Must Have' for me.

But hell, what do I know?

Dano

If you want tactical battles, go play a different game. Don't ruin this one.

Tactical games are fun in that way that you have more control over the possible ending of the fight!
like in Space Empires IV theres tactical! if the enemyships has shields and you dont you GREATLY inceases the odds of you wining IF you concentrate the fire on one of the ship at the time! But play Space Empires IV without tactical (aka the computer runs the show) you may very well lose because your ships hits randomly at the enemy ships

I have no intention of ruining this game:S i love it:S Is requesting a thing to ruin a game then youre just stupid:S dont take it wrong...

Its just that it would be fun to be ablo to control the ships but its not necessery! (cant spell it) Just something that would be fun..

But hey give me crap for requesting stuff....

I'm with Dano13.

In the 4X games that have done it, it wasn't done well and/or wasn't fun. Take Space Empires IV, as an example. In a big fight, moving all those little ships individually was tedius, blunders made by the system if you used grouping to move stuff was frustrating, and being able to whup up on stuff you shouldnt be able to beat just because your micromanagement of units beats the AI took a lot of the fun out of the game. If you want tactical combat there's some very nice games out there that do it well. Independence war II was neat, and is probably cheap as dirt by now. I'd say try Space Empires: Star Fury but their electronic distribution system was an absolute rip-off so don't waste your money until you can get a hard copy. Some people liked the Star Trek ones (I think they were Starfleet Command I and II). I thought they were so-so.

The bad thing is, everything is real-time these days. If you're looking for a turn-based tactical combat space game I can't think of any. Maybe someone else knows of a good one.

Rich

i dont care of other games:P ALL i wondered was IF it was possible to add it in an expansion for those who would like to use it.. nothing else

Tactical would be nice if it was incredibly well done, I guess, but if you have a large empire and a lot of battles it gets tedious in a hurry. I can surely live without it. I'm guessing that watching the battles in the cinematic style of GalCiv2 will be much more entertaining...and optional!

I remember in MOO2 I usually did tactical battles, such as they were, just because the auto-fight usually resulted in huge losses. In every MOO2 battle I would fight the exact same way so it was largely pointless.

I generally enjoy tactical battles. But I believe the blurb I read before about them being tedious and neccasary in teh long wrong is correct. Take Space Empires IV,. you're almost forced to tactical battle every fight in order to get a good outcome, want to capture a ship? Tactical. want to preserve your fighters for hit and run while your destroyers soak up damage? Tactical. Want to land troops on the planet and cover the porter's descent? Tactical.

It's my hope that by leaving tactical out, development has focused on auto battles actually being intelligently perfomed by the computer. It's going to be interesting to see, because no other 4X has managed it, especially with the numerous weapon and defence types possible. While I'd like the option to perform tactical battles, if the game is improved by not having it, just like it is by not having multiplayer (Which as the blurb said, I never ever actually use even though I have played almost every 4x and strategy game in existance) then that's a positive, not a negative.

While I agree tactical combat could potentialy break the game, and possibly wouldn't be in the spirit (as your running an empire, not a fleet) I would like some control. For example, from what I've read (and correct me if I'm wrong) if I my fleet attacked another fleet, and that fleet had a Troop Transport in it, my fleet would take out the troop transport last. While most of the time this makes sense (as it's a non-combatant) what if I could only muster I small fleet to protect my planet, but by destroying there troop transport could buy valuble time for reinforcements.

For this reason I'd like to be able to set priorities I.E.:

Attack Strongest Defense First (I can't think why anyone would use this though...)
Attack Weakest Defense First
Attack Strongest Offense First
Attack Non-Combatants (Weakest Offense) First
Attack The ship with the highest Offense to Deffense ratio First

Excellent idea, Doom Kraken. Having this adjustable per fleet would give that bit of micromanaging control we love and crave.

Attack The ship with the highest Offense to Deffense ratio First

This is already what it uses--it's the most efficient means of decreasing enemy combat effectiveness. The only other useful option would be attacking unarmed ships first, but then you would be entirely unable to escort troop transports, etc; Attackers fire first and Cargo Hulls only have 1 HP. So even that probably isn't going to happen.

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.

I and my Father love MOO2. I felt tactical combat as reward that my empire produced. Each battle was different. As at one time you have to take out missle vessels, others interceptors, other havy armored. Now for weapons, when having 3 or more weapons it not always good idea to shoot them in particular order as i always saved missles for more close range (they were usualy taken out before impact), powerfull waepons went on dangerous ships while weak ones gradualy worked on weaker ones.

If someone doesn't like it why not put auto button and lose possible win.

I afraid i am not getting this game without tactical combat.
I don't think there just 'few' people that would like this feature as MOO2 was extremly good game as it had managment and combat that were very good balanced togather.

Might I point out.. adding non-combat ships to a combat Fleet is pretty silly. You only have so much logistical support. Rather then add in your tansports to your uber fleet.. put them behind and escort them.

And Yes I wouldn't mind having Tactical combat, but I want the Strategic game done first (Which it sounds like it is) So I'll also clamor for that in the Expansion. That and Multiplayer

Moo2 and SE4 tactical combat was crap,with crappy A.I.RomeTotallyEasy had nice looking tactical battles with crappy A.I.

Galciv2 is a strategic game only,get used to it.

i like MoO2 very much and only one word STRATEGIC is also the possibllity to reatret your fleet when you can see the enemie fleet will be able to destroy you because of your "wrong" weappon you put on your ship --perhaps also "wrong" deff-systems..and of course it make samething when you have diffrent ships like missel-cruiser, beam-dreatnouts and gun-friggats...i am not shure that my ships (the AI) will realy shut on the right ships they can realy hit...when my misselcruiser shut againts ships with point deff it is stupit...when my beam-dreadnouts try to shut against shildships also and my gun-friggats try to take out very well armored ships make also no sence...i am the emporer and i don't only send my fleets in to battle i want also to controll them..so when it is possibel for Stardock to make a expasionpac for this i will get it...strategic is not possible without tactic even when you are in a good strategic possision you mabe loose in take the wrong tactic

To me tactics are something to be saved for multiplayer. I've never played a tactical game where after a few tries you couldn't outsmart the AI. As far as strategy is concerned, I'm still playing chess against the computer and losing.

I just have to comment that some of you guys are silly very silly. I mean if you ever watched a scifi movie/series or the history channel you would see tactics and strategy go hand in hand with empire building.

I think you should give Citizen nightboy42 some credit as being smart enough to point out tactics are needed. And this arguement about it doesn`t make sense is foolishness. But its not your fault. Devs from other games give you the same thing with few REAL innovations or things that should be common place. And then some even mess up the things they try to do because of lack of true insight on battles and the nature of Warfare.

For the tactics I have an idea on that and thats DELEGATION. You could have at least 4 Fleet Admirals depending on how big your empire is (probably one of each corner of your empire) then have maybe 5 - 10 admirals for each FA. You should make or assign a Fleet Admiral with a certain characteristic or charisma that makes them do certain things in cetain situations (for some fun situations) or you could sometimes take control of all FAs. If you do you could assign the normal admirals to do certain things like hiding in a nebula or behind a Moon for a sleath/sneak attack and you have to assign them if enemy is spotted what to do. And also inform them whats the goal of the mission (disable, destroy, hit and run, escort, target for capture in which they target only certain some subsystems etc.

That shouldn`t be tedious at all. BTW if you are already talking about tedious a 4x game maybe not for you.

Cya La8ers,
MZ0.

Of cause the answer is "No" developer made it clear a lot of times , but I still cry for MoO 1 style combat , yes it was stupid , but boy it was fun

The tactical AI wouldn't stand a chance, unless something else in the game suffered greatly (and even then...). It would render the game far too easy.

Another vote for No from me.

I don't understand why anyone is arguing against inclusion of user controlled tactical combat in an expansion pack. Those who want to fight tactical battles can do so and those who want to just watch the computer fight can do that. The computer controlled version of tactical battles is complete and done already.

Lord Doom,

Actually, much like should happen, it's the faster fleet with the best sensors that determines who runs and who stays. You can view what an opponent is outfited with at LR with decent sensors. And if you move faster then them, you can outrun them. If they move faster then you and have seen you.. then they catch you and can try to tear you apart.

So the strategic element of retreat is still there. There just isn't an automatic 'do not engage' button there. Remember space is really really empty and not much of a place to hide.

I, for one, would like Stardock to spend their time developing some other cool stuff for the expansion pack. A competent tactical AI seems like something that would be quite a challenge to create, and I'm not really interested in it. I'd rather spend my money on something else.