Not that I particularly care about whether it is real time/turn based. I'm just saying don't write off real time as automatically being without tactics.

I think all this real time and 3D stuff and so on belongs to this mainstream wave where everything has to be as realistic as possible. More realism doesn't really mean a better game, but that probably doesn't bother the EQ30 gamer sitting behind his playstation playing the game Spider Man Hyper Ultra X2, which he only bought because spider man looked cool at the back of the game case.

Well as long as one can create a RTS battle system that is more or less indepenant on how fast the player enters his commands, and as long as the motivation of having an RTS is not only for reasons of realism and the "ultra-cool-real time-3D-effect" I'm open to everything. I wouldn't want to be under time pressure, let alone be forced to use my slow reflexes in this game in order to win.

And that's why I was asking for homeworld-style: There I could pause at any moment and think through all commands I was about to give. Since galciv is so single-player oriented (which I like), this is very much feasible here as well. Infact, this could be used to free up some computational time for the AI as well, because basically, as long as the player thinks, the CPU is mostly idling.

But I also felt I HAD to play out remotely close battles myself in order to ensure success because I wanted to win the game

More to the point, I don't want players to feel like they have to play the tactical combat battles in order to do well at the game.

I understand what you are saying, and myself have gone through such phases, but this is not just a problem with tactical combat. It's a problem with all games or aspects of a game, alot of games are challenging at first, but sooner or late you always find some way to easily beat the AI, which I'm sure you're completely aware of all this. IMO it really comes down to taste and what is fun, and a half decent challenge. But one possible solution to your problem would be to have a no tactical combat option at the beginning of a new game, which means once you start the game you can not play tactical combat, you would have to start a new game with the no tactical combat turned off to play tactical combat. Maybe 3 options: tactical combat, no tactical combat, tactical combat and no tactical combat combined. kind of like a difficulty level (if it turns out there is a challenge difference, hopefully not to much of a difference). Of course having a super challenging AI would be the ultimate, but maybe we may never get that until we have computer software programming difficult code themselves.

And just a thought here ( I don't know what type of tactical combat you are thinking of for GCIII... turn based, real time or other), maybe having the attacker and defender play out their turns at the same time, that's if it is a turn based combat. This may give the AI a little more control of the outcome as it does in GCII, only it will be the outcome of each individual combat fight sequence, but player has some input before each individual combat fight sequence.

Another thing that can be controlled during a combat fight sequence is radio communication interception and code breaking, that can be researched, and some races are naturally better at. This would allow the knowledge of enemy moves, targeting and such, that improves as you increase down the research tree. You could also introduce shields that in the beginning of their infancy of research they are a bit faulty, in other words they don't provide 100% protection 100% of the time, they flicker. And again some races are more advanced, as is assumed in the real world, so they start off with better shields. This has the potential to make the AI more challenging. I don't know if these are good ideas, but they are ideas.

I think all this real time and 3D stuff and so on belongs to this mainstream wave where everything has to be as realistic as possible. More realism doesn't really mean a better game, but that probably doesn't bother the EQ30 gamer sitting behind his playstation playing the game Spider Man Hyper Ultra X2, which he only bought because spider man looked cool at the back of the game case.

How true, but I would say that I would want the level of detail to be sufficient enough to be able to differentiate my ships and even design and weapon-wise. and only good graphics would enable this.

And that's why I was asking for homeworld-style: There I could pause at any moment and think through all commands I was about to give.

I never paused unless i needed to pee or get a drink, it seems kind of sacrilegeous to do so. Admittedly i did lose more ships than i wanted to on each level, but, still clocket it. While i do like the idea of having a truly 3d RT tak scenario for GC3, I'm not sure it would be appropriate for the steady pace of a turn based strategy game. dont shoot me, but MOO2 got this one dead right. the Tak has gotta be turn based.

Another thing that can be controlled during a combat fight sequence is radio communication interception and code breaking, that can be researched, and some races are naturally better at. This would allow the knowledge of enemy moves, targeting and such, that improves as you increase down the research tree.

You know this would tie in nicely with the espionage improvements that stardock is planning for GC2. Like it. The bit about the shields is also interesting.. How about this for a continuation. Early tech level weapon types have a chance of blowing up mid fight and end up taking a chunk of the ship with them... Its too much isn't it? thinking about it: the whole shields thing is realised a different way due to dice rolls and critical hits.

Early tech level weapon types have a chance of blowing up mid fight and end up taking a chunk of the ship with them... Its too much isn't it?

No, it's not a bad idea, but I think the percentage of them blowing up should be very rare, because it can get a bit annoying if your ships were constantly blowing up... you know, how some devs like to over do it.

I registered here just so I could vote in the poll. Voted for tac combat. Disapointed that frogboy is so dead set against tac combat philosophically. The comments about turning the game into "just aqnother wargame" or similar he made as to being why he does not want to have it. The game already is a wargame. Most games are. Adding tac combat would deepen the immersion as some here already wrote. Add more variables, more interesting things that would keep the game playing "fresh" for many players.

The worst change I thought in from MOO2 to MOO3 was the removal of tac combat from the game. MOO3 has many other defects that take away from the enjoyment of the game. And some definate improvements over MOO2 also, and I might have been able to put up with them. With the tac combat replaced by what MOO3 did to resolve fights, the one thing that might have caused me to overlook MOO3's tedium was no longer part of the game.

I can see how implementing tac combat would probably be too much of a change for an expansion or a patch in the current version. Too many things would have to be changed. Looking forward, with fingers crossed, for some form of tac combat in the next version of the game.

I like the system someone else described where each player gives their individual orders to their units, then clicks an end turn button. The combat then taking place after the last player clicks end turn in simultaneous mode for that turn. Repeating the process till the combat is resolved. That does away with some of the player advantage over the ai in MOO2 tac combat where the player went first and fired one weapon at a time, basing their next move on what that weapon had accomplished.

For the current GalCiv2, would it be possible to improve the combat system with the addition of new options like those many have already mentioned, such as: retreat options, targeting certain types or subfleets with certain types or subfleets of your own, organising your fleet in ranks or layers? Small changes that would give a player more play options before the fighting begins than just sit and watch?

I registered here just so I could vote in the poll. Voted for tac combat. Disapointed that frogboy is so dead set against tac combat philosophically.

You might think that and its understandable.... But apparently frogboy voted FOR tactical combat. Some one can see the way the wind is blowing...

Don't mistake defending the lack of a feature in a current product with being philisophically opposed to the feature. To be fair it's not your fault it's hard to tell the difference the way some of them write .

Basher 1 :"Galciv II lacks TC, so it sucks"

What do you expect the developers to say?

Alternative 1 : "You are right Galciv sucks and is an incomplete game "

OR

Alternative 2 : " TC is bad for our game because blah blah , AI can't handle it , blah blah it's tedious, blah blah it's a strategy game not tactical, blah blah historically, indidivual battles don't matter..." and this gets more and more extreme untill

" hence TC is the spawn of evil! "

The real reason however is closer to "It looks like an interesting idea and certainly we considered it, but we ran out of time and budget to do it"

So when sequel time or expansion time rolls around, suddenly people who earlier seemed philisophically opposed start backpedalling all of the sudden. And such features suddenly become realistic candiates for inclusion the spawn of evil status not withstanding. Partularly so, if it turns out that enough people still want it..

You might think that and its understandable.... But apparently frogboy voted FOR tactical combat. Some one can see the way the wind is blowing... Don't mistake defending the lack of a feature in a current product with being philisophically opposed to the feature. To be fair it's not your fault it's hard to tell the difference the way some of them write .

Thanks. It's good news (to me, anyway) that he is seriously considering tac combat for inclusion into GalCiv3. Hopefully they can find a way to do this that satifies their desire to keep up ai quality.

hey meisen, I also registered just to start this one single post about tac-combat, so you're welcome.

From the poll it seems that people generally simply want more options: bei it through tactical ombat, for example: I know I am going to loose this battle, but I really want to just take out those troop transports, no matter the cost!

Or be it through more diplomatic actions, for example: See, the drengins are attacking me, but they don't know that I've set up a conspiracy against them which triggers as soon as they attack. And that conspiracy makes it so that all other civs make a trade-embargo in such a case against the drengin and so they will be broke before even the first ship reaches our outpost. (But then *I* don't know that the drengin spies have sabotaged all my communications and I only *think* that something will be triggered)

But such things are rather boring for most people and it's much more thrilling to at least try to take those trooptransports down. (or disable the engines of their main ships of the fleet, so that their invasion is delayed, or ...)

It's the variations that make games interesting enough to play over and over. The more things one can choose to do, the more directions the game can go. Examples like you just gave are what keep drawing people back to play a game again and again. I look at computer games as interactive entertainment and player decision making are what make them fun for me.