Also, why do you care if there are cheese tricks?

Hey man if you want to add things that would make the game worse and have bad reviews as is the case with tactical combat, go play moo2 or SE4 or stars! or any other tactical game. It just wont work, computers are NOT in par with a human player on tactical fights, as is the case with moo2 as people have stated be4 and above me... AI would just take TOO MANY resources from your comp's cpu, wich you probably would also complain about if it indeed HAD tactical combat in the first place, just stop looking for something to brag about and go play some other tactical game. Also 1 of the good things bout this game is the computer CAN kick ur arse w/o cheating at some levels, dont you think it would be good if it were so both ways??Stardock alrdy has said this game is NOT a follow up to popular games like moo1&2, is its own game in its own right, if you just cant accept that then just leave, im pretty sure stardock wouldnt miss your $40 anyway

Comparing SE and GC is like comparing Risk to Axis & Allies...

LOLZZ thats funny man


Monc34

GalCiv II weapons don't have a range component.  Therefore, tactical combat in the way you're thinking ala MOO is meaningless.

I can't think of any scenario where you would want to control the units in GalCiv in combat because the strategy is so straightforward -- eliminate the unit that represents the biggest threat to your ship / how tough it is to kill. 

Only with ship ranges and other elements would tactical combat really make any sense.

Personally, I don't like tactical combat for the same reason that others have stated with regards to Master of Orion.  I didn't like the tactical combat in MOO2.  I liked watching it.  But I didn't like feeling like I had to manage the units in order to get an optimal result.

Heck, right now I'm struggling with getting the AI to do a good job tactically handling its starbase placement.  Or getting the AI to pick the best technology to research in a given situation.  Or getting the AI to pick which improvements to build on its planets.  I think those are much more basic things nowadays.

I think I saw someone else say this and I agreed with it -- Master of Orion II was one of my favorite games. I played MOO2 in the delivery room with my first born child -- I'm not kidding. That's why I know when MOO2 was released -- October 1996 because my son was born on November 30, 1996.  So I am a die hard MOO2 fan. 

But I don't think the player controlled tactical battles were a strength of the game.  They certianly wouldn't be today unless they really improved the tactical AI AND made the AI play roughly the same game the player was (i.e. decrease how much it was cheating).  What was acceptable in 1996 may not be as well received today in my opinion.

But ultimately, for me it boils down to not wanting to feel like I had to manage the battles.  The only way we would ever consider it is if we felt we could do the AI so good that it would perform the battles better than virtually any human player and even then it would only be less idea than the best person by a small percentage.

And that would be non-trivial.  It would also require the the combat system be more sophisticated starting with combat ranges, defense ranges, and special modules that had varying range effects as well.

Without range for weapons, defenses, and modules in a tactical battle, controlling units is pretty meaningless and unnecessary.

 

 

I see some of you have some very good ideas some strange of what an empire duties are if you are Emperor. I that respect Citizen misophist is right. You should have Ministeries to deal with and not anything esle except for whether
to go to or not. They should be ministeries in but thats in the future.

People I think you are missing the point. You can add lite tactics to the strategy of this game. Which you can make blockades for oncoming ships and have a group that is sleath/cloak ready for ambushs Ok lets forget about targeting hardpoints/subsystems. What about stealth or cloaking, etc?

I like tactical

GalCiv II weapons don't have a range component. Therefore, tactical combat in the way you're thinking ala MOO is meaningless. I can't think of any scenario where you would want to control the units in GalCiv in combat because the strategy is so straightforward -- eliminate the unit that represents the biggest threat to your ship / how tough it is to kill. Only with ship ranges and other elements would tactical combat really make any sense.

Well, there's always room for improvement. People worry about adding a subgame that's RTS or even just turn based. I think that most of the fans here haven't played enough variety of PC games. For example, the combat system used in the Fallout series was fantastic. It was turn based and based on the GURPs combat model. Weapons had ranges and everyone moved until their movement points ran out. Different weapons require different movement points to fire. Very simple.

While the tactical battles of MOO2 may not have been the strength of the game, the tactical battles in Fallout certainly were. I'm not advocating an exact copy of MOO combat. Fallout had better tactical battles, so perhaps tactical battles for GalCiv2 could be made to resemble those of Fallout. I never figured out cheats to win in Fallout combat. Just had to build up your skills and armor and find better weapons.

But I understand that you're not trying to recreate MOO. Judging from what I've seen so far in the previews/reviews and forum posts, the game has plenty going for it in terms of the strategic AI. However there is always room to improve.

Here let me put this forward. I totally recognize the sheer competence level of Brad. And further I respect that. I think folks that like a bit of the nitty gritty feel of battle, are just asking for a little more psuedo control of their babies.

And I have to admit, I love space tactical combat. I mean.. HELLOOOOO... directing the combat is often fun, because it makes you feel better in that ... immediate afterglow of success.

Do I recognize that Brad is directing the game to have a strategic approach. You build it, you get it out there, and then hope the commanders of the vessels do their job right. And that your rock beat their scissors. And again I'm not at odds with this. I think it really does neutralize that stereotypical tactical versus strategic advantage that some folks play at.

So if it means the comp is going to handle all the battles for me. Okay, hell I'm down with that, I'm down with watching my ships blow the hell out of the enemy. I just want to know that I did everything in my power to give my guys an advantage.

Skill, technology, experience, instinct, luck.

The right tool at the right time.

And I think that's really what a lot of folks are trying to express even if it's coming across as "Gimme TacticAl11-01 d0meD!!" posts.

I just want slightly more complicated battle, even if I can't control it. I want to know, that working hard to ensure my troops take advantage of speed trainings, pays off.

More than, bland old (though probably very pretty) attacker group A, get's to shoot first. So it ALWAYS pays to be the attacker. (Real life.. the outcomes from individual martial artists fights, to massive military battles.. don't always favor the attacker. And that's my only overal opinion on this. Did I call combat bland.. yeah, and it's probably not fair to do right now. But if the combat is only as complex as, bonus to attacker in getting to kill first, and it's rock, scissors, paper.. then I feel a bit let down is all. And it's just because you don't see modern games telling us it's rock, scissors, paper. EVEN if they really are.

Here's what I AM going to do though. I'm going to look forward to the game, and then I'll play it. And then once I get a bit more under my belt, beyond just the on the paper aspect. I'll put forth additional ideas. If I think combat should be more robust, you can BET, I'll advocate it. Even if it doesn't ever get us actual tactical control. More design options, and experience.. and whatever else comes to my mind, I'll bring back up here. And I'm sure once we've really gotten this in hand, and experienced it. Brad'll definately hear us out on things we would love to see.

Logistics.
Logistics.
Logistics.
You have complete control of that in this game and quite frankly most tactical situations could be played out in the game map. Want to protect a weak but important ship... keep it away from the attacker on the map just like you would in a tactical battle. As far as I can see the tactical battle is there.

Complicated...you'll get it on a large map. It's all about having what you need where you need it when you need it. Truely no more. All the fiddle faddle of combat between units IRL comes down to training and really doesn't effect the outcome of a war more than truely the moral of the fighters involved.

K, there are so many ridiculous things said in this thread I can't remember them all so I'll just address the ones that itched me worst:

* No emperors on the battlefield? well maybe no.. except for say, alexander, atilla, ghengis, the persian emperor
alexander fought (missplaced his name), and just a few of the ones made famous in western culture.

*an emperor wouldn't go down and command an army / it makes no sense -
Back to alexander, atilla, etc etc.
And it makes at least as much sense as the emperor of a galactic empire designing a fighter craft or directly controlling colonies.

As someone put fairly strongly and eloquently, if you took away the areas of interest you'll end up with a game of 'emperor having tea'. or worse, a game composed of a series of sliders and thats it.


* Tactical combat AI in moo2 was weak.



And yeah, you can claim that tactical AI was weak in RTW, but mods could fix it, patches fixed it to an extent, and interestingly, its precursor, M:TW had fantastic AI, much better than RTWs, so try that one.


* "wouldn't want players with bad strategy to make up for it with brilliant tactics" /
I don't even know how to respond to that, but man, it itches

Some say that its too much work, well, expansions should be worthwhile.
I'll be damned if I buy an expansion that has an extra campagin and a couple of new ship graphics

OK I know civ4 is great even without tactical combat, but thats civ. it has a tradition and focus and very very intricate levels of control of whats going on for those who are proficient enough to get down there, but in a 4X game you're catering for a huge moo2 crowd thats used to having control over fleets.

anyway, even with galciv2s very simple combat system there can be fun added into tactical combat when you add range and speed of weapons and unique properties to some weapons a la moo2.








My own argument is that some form of tactical combat is a MUST because strategic gameplay means nothing without it.
Think about it:

As a strategic choice you decide to build a small fleet composed of one gigantic planet killer ship, and many smaller screening and point defense ships to protect it.
Now, you attack a planet with it.
Do your screening craft actually screen? do they protect? do they understand the tactical implications of your strategic choice? no. so you have to either command them to do it yourself, or click a button setting them to do it, but since that would necessitate adding a button for every possible tactical situation you can think of, doing it yourself is much better.


And to the toilet goesa lot of the strategic meaningfulness of fleet makeup and ship design

I fear you can say all you want Lightzy, you won't get your tactical battles.
You'll have to look elsewhere, in a different game.

As a strategic choice you decide to build a small fleet composed of one gigantic planet killer ship, and many smaller screening and point defense ships to protect it. Now, you attack a planet with it. Do your screening craft actually screen? do they protect? do they understand the tactical implications of your strategic choice? no. so you have to either command them to do it yourself, or click a button setting them to do it, but since that would necessitate adding a button for every possible tactical situation you can think of, doing it yourself is much better.

The above statement makes me think about a very very important difference between GC II and MOO2, that may not be fully grasped: In MOO2, battles take place only in solar systems. In GC 2, battles can take place anywhere in space. This means that all manoeuvers, retreat and attacks made in the MOO2 tactical battles are translated in GC2 by ships movements and attacks on the galactic map.

My intention is that you cant design a fleet in a specific way in order to deal with a specific task because the combat AI algorythm is set in stone and doesn't know or care what you had in mind for the fleet, what you want to acheive.

there's no smart way to use supporting ships in a fleet or have certain ships tagged as more 'expendable' so that they'd protect more important ships by placing themselves in the line of fire, and quite a lot of other things I can think of off the top of my head.

at the very least you should have option open to you before battle in dictating the goals..
such as tagging certain ships to be defended at all costs, certain targets that should be taken out regardless of costs.. to try to withdraw if a certain % of ships are lost.. etc.
things that will alter the combat algorythms.
anything for some feel of control over whats going on, if only so you could blame yourself for doing something stupid rather than going 'wtf' at a weird dice roll or something

Do you see President Bush Commanding forces in battle on Iraq??????? NO right????

lol!!! no!!! but i want ...to than perhaps he dosen't make again war

There hasnt been a ruler of a nation on the battlefield fighting for hundreds of years. Did Winston Churchill, Hitler, Staling, Roosevelt, et al go down and tell the battalions and divisions where to go in the fight for Europe. No!!! As for misophists statement that because there are resources a leader could choose to harvest that they should be able to control individual ships, that is ridiculous. That arguement doesnt make any sense. It isnt abstract at all to say that there could be some resources to harvest that could give an advantage. We have examples of that right on our own planet. What leader wouldnt instruct his people to go out and harvest that with support of government monies. There is a reason that there are generals. It is totally insane to think the president/Emperor of a 50 BILLION person empire would be out controlling his little four man fighters as they attack the enemy. INSANITY!!! I will say that I wont buy the expansion, no matter what it has in it, if it has tactical combat. Go somewhere else if you want a tactical space sim. There doesnt seem to be a huge shortage of games that do that.

Can it be that you both are have a bad note in historie???

Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonapart, G.J. Ceaser, Dschinges Kahn, Gen. Washington, Montezuma, Tecumsee, ...the "new" leader you countig are not fighting but controlling of course

I SAY BEFORE WHEN IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO you can read???? When Stardock says no way to complicatet ok BUT PLEASE---DON'T WRITE SO STUPIT THINGS LIKE THAT YOU ALLREADY WRITE ...
--strategical without tactic you can forget than its only a question of luck than you can let make al dessions by the AI why you want spend 3 hours of creating a ship but some moments of give tactical orders before or some emergence orders in the battle will make you tried????
It is ok for my when Stardock say sorry a so good AI for tactical battle will coast to much time to make or will not function verywell or we will not do it make for us only coast..ok but not your non-wisdom-on-anything-argumentation

at the very least you should have option open to you before battle in dictating the goals.. such as tagging certain ships to be defended at all costs, certain targets that should be taken out regardless of costs.. to try to withdraw if a certain % of ships are lost.. etc.

Well, I guess you must first play with GC2 to see how it works.

Like Frogboy have said, there is nothing like weapon range. This means than in a battle, any ship can be targeted and it is impossible to protect a ship IF it has been targeted. So things like "tagging certain ships to be defended at all costs" have no meaning in GC2 battles. The point about "certain targets that should be taken out regardless of costs" can be very very annoying for the player if the AI is allowed to fire at transports (only 1 HP) before attacking your escort ships. Protecting transport in battle would be impossible. Not to mention the fact that during the beta ,some players found it strange that the AI didn't protect their transports when trying to invade a planet, allowing the player to successfully twart some invasion by killing undefended transports.

So many games with tactical battles. So few games like CiV and GC, that reject them completely. Try to understand that if you love tactical battles, and you truly feel that the computer is good enough (it's not) then go play one of the countless games with tactical battles available. Spend hours marveling at your brilliance as you crush the helpless enemy time and time again. But please, this game is not for tactical battles. If it were included, it would ruin the game for all those who realise why it wasn't included to begin with. I think that part of why this game is so anticipated is because it DOESN'T have tactical battles. Please, leave us true grand strategy players alone. We already have less good choises than you could count on your hand. Those who love tactical in some way shape or form have countless. I don't want to be forced to play CIV just because it is the only one of it's kind. And even though you just might not understand, it is true that tactical battles would ruin this game. Yes, even if you could turn them off.

Saying tactical combat would ruin the game even if you turn it off makes about as much sense as saying that telling a colony what to build next ruins the game, instead of just delegating EVERYTHING to governor AIs.


And having no weapon ranges and stuff DOES MOST CERTAINLY NOT mean that options like 'defend certain ship at all costs' tags mean nothing. Combat algorithms, which I imagine are pretty damn simple to begin with, can handily and happily be altered by such pre-combat choices to make sure the kind of tactics you want are applied, even if they're still abstracted. that much is quite necessary, but a full fledged tactical combat system would be very nice indeed and a great addition in an expansion.

First off, build orders (govenor AI's) and tactical battles are not even remotely similar.

Here is a test Citizen Lightzy. Start Rome Total war. Play one game by manually fighting every battle. Now, "turn off" the tactical battles and play a new game. The difference is incredible. Therefore, those who chose not to fight the battles would be rated far lower than amatures who can't get enough of the same glorious victory they had just two minutes ago. GC1 used the metaverse, and this one will too. Read some of what people are saying before you declare how much "sense" something makes.

And does it need to be stated time and time again how much resources are required to create a mediocre tactical simulator? Time, effort and processing power that would be an absolute waste on a game like this. It doesn't need it! It was never suposed to have it. This isn't MOO3 or RTW or any other cheese dick tactical game. Those of us who don't want tactical battles have clear and inteligable reasons for not wanting it. Those that want it just "want" it, and state things like "I liked MOO3", or "I thought RTW was cool." Does this make as much sense as telling a colony what to build next? I hope so, becuase it is fairly simple to understand.

Also, if you know so much about algaroithms and such, then make your own game. But don't lecture frogboy, because people are waiting in line to play his.

Well now since both sides are just belittling each other. I'm gonna have to avoid this thread. It's a shame. But oh well. Enjoy the game however you will when you get it. It is a first person experience anyhow. *grin*

Saying tactical combat would ruin the game even if you turn it off makes about as much sense as saying that telling a colony what to build next ruins the game, instead of just delegating EVERYTHING to governor AIs.

It slows the game down....which CAN make a game worse.
My arguement still is that tactical combat is in the game as is.

Well, I could have a lot to say, but I won't because I don't have time right now.  Basically, I agree with all posters who say that tactical combat is not needed in GalCiv2.  Unless you can find a way to make tactical combat interesting, I don't want it.  MAYBE, Sword of the Stars will have really interesting tactical combat (and I hope it does), but it will be the first time it's happened in this genre.  MOO1/2/3 "tactical" battles were anything but.  Everyone could figure out the ultimate shipkilling combination and just do that, over and over.  Heck, the end game became me moving my fleets and hitting the "z" button (for super fast Auto) because actually controlling it was almost always pointless.  The AI was terrible, not only at combat but at designing its ships.  That is the main cost of tactical combat with ship design -- making an AI capable of designing decent ships is really damn hard.  I never played enough of MOO3 (though lord how I tried) to really get a feel for the its AI, but I'm sure it wasn't very good.  There are way too many variables when you introduce so many types of weapons and ranges and armors and sensors and to hit calculations.  Sure, it would be fun against another person, but computer AI's just aren't up to it yet.  Maybe in 10, 20 years when the processors make todays fastest chips look like toaster ovens, MAYBE then, having full on tactical combat a la Star Fleet Battles will be a good idea.  Until that time, however, I say go with what works and is still fun and GalCiv2 as it stands has both those qualities. 

And having no weapon ranges and stuff DOES MOST CERTAINLY NOT mean that options like 'defend certain ship at all costs' tags mean nothing. Combat algorithms, which I imagine are pretty damn simple to begin with, can handily and happily be altered by such pre-combat choices to make sure the kind of tactics you want are applied, even if they're still abstracted. that much is quite necessary, but a full fledged tactical combat system would be very nice indeed and a great addition in an expansion.

Sorry, I don't get it. How will you able to prevent the ennemy ships to target a specific ship and destroy it? The fact the there isn't any range limitation to weapon means that ennemy ship can target anything at any time in the battle.

May be the fact that I have participated to the beta (and the gamma) and watched how combat works prevents me to see your point..

When was I arguing with frogboy?

And I stated most clearly the reason tactical control is important: because much of the strategic layer (namely designing ships and combining taskforces) loses depth without it since the algorithms don't take into account your intent.

Secondly, it'll be a better game.
You may as well argue that high tech graphics make the game worse (as many many throughout time have done) because blablabla takes resources off of gameplay not necessary blabla.
right.
and some form of tactical command through a system like 'mission orders' that alters algorithms is 'too much control' for you, I donno what to say.

Since people here are arguing for the sake of argument without any smart content I'll just leave off.

And having no weapon ranges and stuff DOES MOST CERTAINLY NOT mean that options like 'defend certain ship at all costs' tags mean nothing. Combat algorithms, which I imagine are pretty damn simple to begin with, can handily and happily be altered by such pre-combat choices to make sure the kind of tactics you want are applied, even if they're still abstracted

Do you understand how combat currently works in GC2? As has already been pointed out, any ship can be targeted by any other ship. Ship defenses affect only that ship. Combine these two facts, and how is any ship supposed to be "defended at all costs?" The only way "defend at all costs" could work is if you can force the enemy to engage other ships before they engage the defended ship, and in that case, it would mean simply saying "you can't shoot at that ship." which would be rediculously abusable.

There hasnt been a ruler of a nation on the battlefield fighting for hundreds of years. Can it be that you both are have a bad note in historie??? Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonapart, G.J. Ceaser, Dschinges Kahn, Gen. Washington, Montezuma, Tecumsee, ...the "new" leader you countig are not fighting but controlling of course

Sounds more like you're having problems reading all of the message. Of the people you mention, only three are in the last hundreds of years (200), and even those are borderline, not to mention the fact that Washington never lead the military while he was president and Tescumseh could hardly be considered to be the leader of an empire. If the claim is that these things don't happen any more, please don't reach back to the time of Alexander the Great, that just means that you're missing the point.

On a seperate note:

but in a 4X game you're catering for a huge moo2 crowd thats used to having control over fleets.

Odd, I haven't seen any statements by stardock saying that they're catering to a huge MoO2 crowd. I've seen claims that they should be, but that's usually by members of the MoO2 crowd. GC1 was financially sucessful, as I understand it, despite being even further distanced from MoO2.

For example, the combat system used in the Fallout series was fantastic.

From 4x space games to RPG, talk about apples and oranges. But I'll bite anyway. How does that address any of the actual issues here? The three big complaints against tactical combat in this thread consist of:

1) It takes time and attention away from the focus of the game, which is empire management. GC2 is a game of galactic conquest, not a combat simulator. An RPG would be quite boring without tactical combat, that would be like GC2 without strategic combat and influence takeovers of planets.

2) Tactical AIs, especially in situations where it has to deal with custom-designed units, are almost always lacking. I'm a programmer, and I've known enough other programmers that think the same way: they don't want to work on something they know or suspect will be sub-par. It can get forced down their throats from higher up, but in the case of Stardock, the AI programmer is at the top, so I doubt Brad would commit to doing tactical combat unless he were certain that he could get the AI for it right. In the case of RPGs, balancing this isn't that hard, since they don't need to make sure that given equal resources, the AI has an equal chance to win the fight because the character has to go through a lot more than one AI opponent. In fact, I've never seen an RPG where the AI wasn't exploitable in one way or another.

3) This idea would be a developement resource hog, and there are other things that many of us would like to see those resources spent on.

Seriously, I wouldn't mind a game that revolved around tactical combat that was done right, but I dont' think GC2 should be pounded into that round hole just because it's a peg, square or otherwise.

Odd, I haven't seen any statements by stardock saying that they're catering to a huge MoO2 crowd. I've seen claims that they should be, but that's usually by members of the MoO2 crowd. GC1 was financially sucessful, as I understand it, despite being even further distanced from MoO2.

More the title of the following thread https://www.galciv2.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=164&AID=88762 is clear : Galactic Civilizations is not Master of Orion

[quoteFrom 4x space games to RPG, talk about apples and oranges. But I'll bite anyway.

So essentially, you're backing off your handwaving claims that the leader of an empire wouldn't be down directing individual ships and that having tactical combat wouldn't fit into the strategic focus of the game? I want to see you bite on how the leader of an empire would stoop down to designing military vehicles. Like I said before, sorta on par with the POTUS designing military vehicles for the US military. How many of you want to remove ship design because it clashes with the notion that the leader of an empire wouldn't be designing ships?

My point which you failed to grasp was that the Fallout tactical combat model is better and more up to date than the MOO one. Ignoring the progress that has been made in tactical combat since MOO is silly. Brad mentioned the lack of weapon ranges in GalCiv2 prevents the implementation of tactical combat. Well, if you add weapon ranges then you could start to develop a tactical combat engine. Oh, and it's not an apple to oranges comparison. Ranged tactical combat is ranged tactical combat, regardless of whether it takes place within the large subsets of RPG or space strategy game.

If you anti-tactical guys don't want resources spent on tactical combat then what do you want it spent on? I haven't seen anyone mention anything specific other than a month of Brad's time polishing the strategic AI. Well, guys, there's 10 months till Xmas, 9 if you take away one month for Brad to polish the strategic AI; plenty of time for more enhancements. I just think that having user selectable turn based ranged tactical combat would enhance the game immensely.

While Stardock may not be catering specifically to the MOO crowd, they are the type of crowd who would be interested in GalCiv2 and there are LOTS of them. What business doesn't want to increase sales? Oh, and I haven't seen one mention of MOO3 being a good game until Derekroth mentioned it. MOO3 sucked!