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The problem with "tactical combat"

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The problem with "tactical combat"

from GalCiv2 Forums
I wish people would stop asking for tactical combat in this game in posts about what people want for the updates/expansions. It seems like those people just want to play MOO/MOO2 in a GalCiv format. Don't get me wrong I love the MOO games and still play MOO2 to this day When I first bought this game I thought to myself "Its good, but it doesn't have tactical combat" and I wanted it to have tactical combat. But after playing it I realized that its current combat system is a much better fit, not to mention more elegant.

If you really think about it, its hard to describe MOO combat as tactical. Someone else posted somewhere that most (if not all) of the combat was resolved in the same way as if the computer was resolving it, I move and fire weapons, they move and fire weapons.

Compare this to a real tactical game (XCOM: UFO defense, Jagged Alliance, etc.) and you'll see that a so called tactical combat system would pale in comparison and just be a clunky annoyance in this situation.

I hope this isn't an inflamatory posting, I'm not trying to critisize any particular game or gamers prefrence, I'm just hoping that people will realize the strength of the combat system implemented in THIS game, a strategical combat system, one in which you can tank advantage of your oppenents specialization in a particular weapons / defense field and use it against them (not to mention engines, sensors, and hull sizes) should be more than enough to make up for a comparativly shallow tactical system.

Ernst

16,063 views 35 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Great thread, my two cents.
I truly enjoy the grand scheme of conquering the galaxy starting from customized race design all the way to customizing ships... and tactical combat. Moo2 somewhat spoiled me in that regard, I had no problem with the simple 2d map and turned based combat.
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmm, well I'm glad that there are at least a few other people who recognize that MoO3 got some things right, at least conceptually

One of the issues that is cropping up for me now that I'm playing on bigger maps is that fleet management (even with waypoints) is really tedious. Especially when you have 50+ planets all pumping out ships (again, I find this even when using waypoints for the planets). The nicest feture in MoO3 with regards to fleet management was the way in which it handled deployment and reserves. Granted that system won't translate very well to the current mechanics of GC2, but it really simplified the mechanics of dealing with 1000s of ships.

I still don't think SD needs to add in tac combat for any of their GC titles, but I think that they should take another look at the tradeoff between the free movement system, and a warp lane type system. Honestly I think the AI would be that much stronger as well if they moved to a more restricted system.
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Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I still don't think SD needs to add in tac combat for any of their GC titles, but I think that they should take another look at the tradeoff between the free movement system, and a warp lane type system. Honestly I think the AI would be that much stronger as well if they moved to a more restricted system.


A warp lane system a la Starfire comes with its own set of issues. Sure, the AI only has a few possible points of contact. However, if you've read any of the David Weber & Steve White novels set in the Starfire game background, you'll see it tends to produce a war of attrition in which warp point assaults play out something line "going Over the Top" on the Western Front c. 1915-17. This comes from the defenders setting up at optimum weapon range from the warp point and blasting the attackers as they come through one by one - they suffer disproportionate casualties until/unless enough get through to even the odds. In the grand strategic scheme of things, it means the attacker has to have a large local superiority to prevail. That doesn't feel right for me. It doesn't feel "naval".

Of course, you can ignore that via a different "explanation" of what is going on. GDW's board game "Imperium" used what looked like a warp line system, but that was set in the Traveller game background and it wasn't really "warp points/ worm holes". What it represented was that ships used a "jump drive" system in which maximum jump distance was short compared to the distance between stars and ships had to refuel between jumps. Thus, it was technically free motion by jumping between stars, but the number of destinations you could reach from any given star was extremely limited and they showed the routes on the star map. What was happening at the tactical level, though, was that ships might jump into the star system anywhere so there was no laying for them as in Starfire.

That of course is just a special case the classic Stellar Conquest/MOO system of free movement by jumps, where ships can't be intercepted in route so battles only happen at stars. I don't think AI has that much trouble with this. It didn't seem to in the original 8-bit version of RFTS, anyway (which threw in the added twist that you could not detect them in route - that really enlivened things because many destinations are in range and "he who defends everything defends nothing").

The trouble with the GC system is that it started life more or less at what you'd get if you took Civ ground warfare and swapped out the art so that land looks like space, cities look like planets and ground units look like ships. Civ AI (as with Empire, whose combat system the original Civ copied) just seems to hold back some units as city defenders and throw the rest at in a stream at enemy cities. That works well enough (with production cheats for the AI), but is fundamentally different from fleet-centered naval-based combat of the other systems I've described.
Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As MOO fan I do have to say that GC2 isn't MOO. GC2 is closer to Civ 2 or Alpha Centuri. The combat in GC2 is very simple. Ship designs, while making a ship to look what you want is great there isn't really much choice in to what to put on it.

GC2 is a empire builder with combat a much further second.

The closest game I played is Space Empires IV (5 is in work). Tons of customs choices, and you can mod just about anything. That is what I would say is MOO4.

I love GC2 and have played a ton of games. It is a great game even without it's tactical combat.
Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Barnacle Bill,

You also forget Spaceward HO. Boy, I used to play Imperium Galacticum all the time on my Atari 800 XL. That game was great for it's time (So was some other SSI games).

I was actually disappointed in MOO 2. I think they took a step backward in space battles.
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A warp lane system a la Starfire comes with its own set of issues. Sure, the AI only has a few possible points of contact. However, if you've read any of the David Weber & Steve White novels set in the Starfire game background, you'll see it tends to produce a war of attrition in which warp point assaults play out something line "going Over the Top" on the Western Front c. 1915-17. This comes from the defenders setting up at optimum weapon range from the warp point and blasting the attackers as they come through one by one - they suffer disproportionate casualties until/unless enough get through to even the odds. In the grand strategic scheme of things, it means the attacker has to have a large local superiority to prevail. That doesn't feel right for me. It doesn't feel "naval".


Err... where did I suggest that they adopt the starfire warp exit rules? All I'm saying is that if you move away from open space to something where there are chokes then you simplify the requirements for attacking and defending. Once you have enemy ships in the same 'space' then you can implement the same combat system they have now for all I care.

The biggest hurdle to moving away from open movement is in how anomalies and galactic resources would be handeld. Personally I say scrap the anomolies anyway, and stick the resources on 'dead' planets which you need to send constructors to mine. You can even use the dead planets to build up the other types of starbases, though they won't exactly be star bases anymore.
Reply #32 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You also forget Spaceward HO.


I never actually played that one. The cowboy theme (Stetson's on colonized planets, etc...) put me off. From the reviews I read, it seemed sortof related to Stellar Conquest, but perhaps even simpler.

Boy, I used to play Imperium Galacticum all the time on my Atari 800 XL. That game was great for it's time (So was some other SSI games).


Yes, Imperium Galacticum had some innovations. As I recall, it was the first computer game in the genre where you could design your own ships. It was also the first to feature minor races. It also had a cool box cover (an Emperor-looking dude reaching out to grasp the galaxy with advancing starships in the foreground, as opposed to a space cowboy riding a bucking-broncho-like shark-shaped spaceship on the Spaceward Ho box).

SSI was truely a pioneer. Their "Cosmic Balance" was a tactical space combat game with ship design, that was very popular in its time. "Cosmic Balance II" was a 4Xer which could optionally use "Cosmic Balance" as a tactical module. Alas, I never could find either on the shelf for C64 back in the day. In a happier alternate universe, SSI survived, ported Cosmic Balance I & II to the PC, and kept producing enhanced & updated versions down to the present

Err... where did I suggest that they adopt the starfire warp exit rules?


Fair enough...

All I'm saying is that if you move away from open space to something where there are chokes then you simplify the requirements for attacking and defending. Once you have enemy ships in the same 'space' then you can implement the same combat system they have now for all I care.


I think you'd get the same AI benefit with a MOO-style jump system, while preserving more strategic mobility than with a warp line system.

The biggest hurdle to moving away from open movement is in how anomalies and galactic resources would be handeld. Personally I say scrap the anomolies anyway, and stick the resources on 'dead' planets which you need to send constructors to mine. You can even use the dead planets to build up the other types of starbases, though they won't exactly be star bases anymore.


Well, in any system where you are only "at" stars, you can have anomolies be at stars as well and benefit the first race to get a survey ship there. Resources could be converted to asteriod belts, where tou have to build a starbase to access them. I'd eliminate the class 0 planets altogether, just showing the "usable" planets.
Reply #33 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


One of the issues that is cropping up for me now that I'm playing on bigger maps is that fleet management (even with waypoints) is really tedious. Especially when you have 50+ planets all pumping out ships (again, I find this even when using waypoints for the planets). The nicest feature in MoO3 with regards to fleet management was the way in which it handled deployment and reserves. Granted that system won't translate very well to the current mechanics of GC2, but it really simplified the mechanics of dealing with 1000s of ships.


I see three problems with the current GC2 movement/combat system:

1. Fleet management can be very tedious on large map. A fleet in GC2 is more like a squadron, where you group a bunch of ship together to act as one unit. This reduces the number of units you have to manage, but there are still too many units on the large map.
2. Fleet in GC2 can not support or defense each other. It is too easy for an enemy fleet to thread its way through your fleet formation and take out the transport. Star bases and planets are similarly vulnerable. This can be exploited by the human player. The AI can’t deal with this effectively.
3. You can’t patrol a region of space. This leads to the cheesy sneak attack exploit by the human player. You can throw up a fully equipped military star base in the middle of the AI territory and take out the computer most productive planets in a single turn.

What needed is a way to group fleets together into a battle group that can be moved as one unit, can defend each other and patrol a region of space. I don’t mean just stacking all the fleets into one square, but abstractly spread them throughout the battle group zone of control (like the circle around each star base) with some held in reserve. Any combat ship or any enemy non combat ship enters the battle group zone of control will be challenged and attacked. Combat can still be handled with the current fleet-on-fleet combat system. Surviving damaged front-line fleet from the battle group can be automatically cycle to the back and replace with fresh one from reserve. The size of the battle group zone of control is depended on the number of fleets in its front line (and may be their average speed). Non combat fleets (i.e. transports), planets and star bases within the battle group zone of control are essentially protected until the battle group is attritted enough to expose them. Combats occur wherever two opposing battle group zone of control overlap. The intensity of combat may depend on the number of front line fleet and the battle group standing order. We may need to add Non Aggression treaty to diplomacy to allow some overlapping of battle group zone of control and preventing military incidence. The movement of the battle group can be limited to half of the minimum speed of its fleets to simulate the patrolling overhead. And finally the battle group can be set as a waypoint to automate reinforcement.

Reply #34 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think you'd get the same AI benefit with a MOO-style jump system, while preserving more strategic mobility than with a warp line system.


That would be fine too, give slightly more meaning to the supply techs I suppose.

Well, in any system where you are only "at" stars, you can have anomolies be at stars as well and benefit the first race to get a survey ship there. Resources could be converted to asteriod belts, where tou have to build a starbase to access them. I'd eliminate the class 0 planets altogether, just showing the "usable" planets.


Sure that'd be a fine way to do it as well. Otherwise just move the anomolies to the colonizable planets so that first to colonize gets it.

With any of these suggestions its a large diversion from the path they set out on though, and I'm doubtful SD will make the change out of fear of what the 'purists' will say. I think we can blame MoO3 for creating those nutso purists in the first place

Reply #35 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
With any of these suggestions its a large diversion from the path they set out on though, and I'm doubtful SD will make the change out of fear of what the 'purists' will say. I think we can blame MoO3 for creating those nutso purists in the first place



I think I'm missing the connection between MOO3 and nutso Galciv purists... or between Galciv and nutso
MOO3 purists?

As to purity, I think Galciv began with a concept not too far from "what if we did a space mod/conversion of Sid Meier's Civ". I sense that there are plenty of Galciv fans who don't really want it to deviate from that general description. Me, I've been playing these things since the 70's and see the genre as one big box of possibilities, out of which the devs could fashion the ultimate game if they are open to both reapplying stuff that worked in other games and trying new stuff that the fans come up with. I've played a bazillion games of Civ I-IV, and it is a fine product line, but it has some significant problems (especially the level of micromanagement required for large empires). I think there have been better ways to do it demonstrated in the past for a 4X game of truly galactic sweep. To me, the fun parts are exploration, expansion, R&D, diplomacy (if done right, which it seldom is), ship design, and combat. Fiddling with the internal optimization (maximize production, prevent/suppress riots, prevent/clean polution) of 100 colonies every turn gets tedious. So, I try to influence what I can with any space 4X game that is still open to change at all (i.e. not abandonware).