I wonder how many people noticed it's a poll for galciv 3 not galciv2.

Seeing as how they most seem to be arguing about Galciv 2, probably not very many.

Tactical combat won't be added to GalCiv II. The poll is with regards to a future sequel (ala a GalCiv III). Also, there would be an option to make it totally optional. So people who don't want to tactical combat need not worry.

Sounds great. Tactical combat would really come into its own in a multi-player setting, imo.

Also, I am a big fan of the Combat Mission series of tactical combat simulations. It's a hybrid turn based system that breaks the game up into one minute turns. IMO, it's a very solid system of working with large numbers of units. A nice series of games if wwii is of interest.

IMO, the total war games had a nice system of interfacing tactical combat with an essentially strategically oriented game. Being able to auto-resolve certain battles as well as take control of the really critical ones made it a great title.

Really looking forward to what stardock can crank out for the third iteration of this series. Especially since I'm nowhere near ready to retire the 2nd title yet.

It may be old and out of date, but look at IG2:Alliances. It has tactical combat that works pretty well. It's not overly sophisticated (kind of like the game itself, especially the AI, which sucked badly). The game can support tactical combat with an option but I'm glad the devs are going to wait for the third installment of the game to incorporate it. It seems like a hell of a lot of grief to reprogram the game to accept tactical combat with unique ship designs, variable weapons, shields, and movement effects, as well as damage accumulation, adjustment, and visual representation. I shudder (and I really mean that) to think of how many lines of code and how many new graphics would have to be programmed to change GC2. Let 'em do it for GC3 (or whatever) and at least get paid for it.

I wonder how many people noticed it's a poll for galciv 3 not galciv2.

I for one noticed.

I wonder how many people noticed it's a poll for galciv 3 not galciv2. I for one noticed.

No comment.

What exactly do you mean by "weaker"? Do you mean fewer ships? Or, a good number of ships, but the ships are inferior to the ships of the other AI players? I suppose it could be both.

hi again Toranaga Sama,

anyway, determining how you stack up to an opponent is a pretty subjective thing. there have certainly been a few times when i was pretty sure one player or another was far weaker than they turned out to be. likewise, plenty of times i felt impending doom only to knock down an enemy in short order.

art of it certainly depends on your play style. however, i'd say to determine how you'll fare against an opponent in a war, it's important to pay attention to a few factors.

obviously, where your militaries are at now is important. however, if your military is a bit behind you can invariably make up for that if you have enough money set aside; just rush-build new ships, or upgrade old, out of date ones.

you weekly economic income also bears significance, simply because rush-building and such is something you may need to do over an extended period during the war.

industry also matters for how many ships you can crank out without having to rush them. but with enough money, industry becomes somewhat moot (i'd say if you've got a few planets with insane industrial capacity, you're in good shape. they can crank out your capital ships, while your weak plantes rush-build cheap fighters or transports).

the last most important thing is obviously your level of technological development. i think weapons technology is the most important thing to pay attention to. defenses can be researched relatively easily, but getting past the first few levels of weaponry can be pretty intense. and since you typically can't trade weapons techs from the AI ever, you're kind stuck with what you got.

but like i said, it depends on your style of play i feel. having an overwhelming culture can even help: as soon as your enemey starts moving population off their planets to invade you, their culture will plummet. even besides that, having a strong cultural influence will be a problem for other players because of the resources they need to spend on keeping their planets from flipping over to you.

i'd say the best way to get a sense of the whole game, besides playing it of course, is the wiki: https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Civilizations_Wiki or Link there ya go.


* * *

no, i hadn't noticed it was for GC3. roman numerals are the bane of a dyslexic's counting ability. now i'm 100% satisfied i voted for tactical combat.

There were many posts about tactical combat on this forum and in the end I must say:

There's no use argueing about the pros or cons. It's a matter of taste, either you like TC or you don't. The no-camp may have many good arguments, but that certainly doesn't change the desires of TC fans to have this game feature, and vice versa.

Whatever....I can't accept the phrases of people saying things like "a decent TC is impossible to create", that's just rubbish. The goal is not to have an ai that beats 100% of all human players, the goal is achieved when it offers a challenge to most people. In the end it depends a lot on how much time and money the developers can invest into such a feature. With the proper commitment a good ai for TC is possible. If time and money is missing, you probably leave your hands off of it.
Ultimitly it will be the devs decission if it is worth to include TC in GC3, depending on the customers demands and stardock's own ressources and interests.

I would rather have the ability to train my crews in certain tactics befor the battle and get on option to chose woch tactic to use than to have pure tactical combat option....

Just my 2 cents

oh yeah, as far as evaluating your ships:

"weaker ships" is also kind of subjective, and it isn't just about ships. i've played games with lots of cheap, disposable fighters making up my military. i usually perfer building medium+ sized ships wtih lots of defenses.

i'm not sure if you're playing 1.1x or 1.2b, because the combat rules are different. in 1.1x, your ships are more effective when they're faster and pure offense (at least, that's my feeling). you don't need a lot, and in fact fewer ships work better if you've got a weapons tech researched to nearly the end.

if you're playing 1.2, it's trickier. in earlier versions, the attacker fired first. in 1.2b, both sides fire at the same time. one thing i liked to do (before i started playing with mods completely) was to pick the repair bonus and give myself HP bonuses: "that which fights and runs away... in galciv not only lives to fight another day, but also levels up and gains bonus HP (thus the point of the repair bonus, however if you're playing SD's example mod, there's a repair tech tree, making the initial bonus less significant).

so... the point is, there isn't a perfect formula you can use to design the best ships. the designs that work best are the ones that get the job done. i usually describe my tiny fighters as "cannon fodder" because i don't really care if they live or die. i've rigged my current model fighters with 2 positron torp IIs; after my weapons bonus, their attack is something like 40. even if some of them only ever fire 1 round, it's still worth the ~200 production points in my mind. when i started my last war, i had about 250 of them. i'm down to about 25. no big deal. i swithced my production to a medium sized "fleet model" ship anyway, which costs about 750 production points. however, if one of these ships levels a few times and gains a decent HP bonus, i upgrade it to a "war raptor" class, which has twice the defenses, doom rays instead of disruptors, and costs about 2K if i'm remembering correctly. i do have a huge class, but after fighting these wars i realized i didn't even really need anything larger. it's just nice for my empire's ego

when i started the war, i had my capital ships (about 25 war raptors and 5 huge "roc of domination" class ships) two or three per fleet; the rest of the fleets were composed of defenseless tiny singers with lots of offensive power. the example mod brings logicstical values up to the high 50s (and since the example mod supports mini customization, i copied it for logistics, tweaked the numbers a bit, and paid for 8 points, capping me out at fleets of 60 logistical points). so, my fleets were 3 capital ships and 22 fighers. it'd have balanced differently in an unmodded game to be sure, but regardless the arceans, despite their neutrality learning centers, were only supporting fleet of 20 logistical points. i was losing 2-5 fighers per combat, but the rate of loss was slowing as well. by the time the fleets were down to 10 fighers, the fighers' HP was usually up to 18-22 (rediculous for a figher? maybe, but i think higher HP for a leveled ship doesn't represent a "stronger" ship, but pilots better able to avoid taking the full brunt of weapons fire). it became harder and harder to kill my fighters, and all the while the capital ships i really cared about went unscathed.

besides losing about 100 cheap fighers, about 3 of my war raptors have taken less than half of their HP in damage. big deal, the war is over. the arcean empire, the second strongest player, surrendered to my ally in 5 short weeks. i don't even feel like finishing off the thalans; i'm just gonna start a new game.

but your milage may vary. in 1.1x and earlier versions, pure offense is probably a better way to go. i like the 1.2 battle system a lot more. i just wish the AI in this game hadn't fallen behind technologically. it also seems like the AI, even on maso, doesn't thoughtfully construct fleets so much as set a fleet-building rally point and let the ships fall where they may.

GC2 is BIG! You can end up with not just 20, but as many as 50 or even 100 combats in ONE turn.Even if you could somehow resolve a tactical battle in, say, 30 seconds, that would mean possibly as much as an hour for just one turn to finish.

Its not about the time taken, its all about how much fun it is. Really that is just a poor, poor argument. The number of extra choices we can make each turn. The new techs that are needed to allow for tak. The game would be much richer and more satisfying with the inclusion of tak. Nobody wants a bigmac anymore.

If tactical battle can be pulled of well im all for it pluss it would attract alot of new people to gal civ.

you got that right. A lot of people have stayed away from gc2 because there is no tactical combat, There's nothing more exhilarating than controlling what your troops/ships do, and making daring and downright crazy-assed tactics to beat hard odds is something you cannot compare to. I still think that shogun tw was probably the best tak I've seen to date. If It was even i'd win if i was outnumbered by more than a third i would lose unless I managed to find a really decent palce to make a good defence and even then I'd lose more troops than I wanted to. But the strategic side of the game was shallow: it was all about the combat it really was.

First, they must some how figure out how to marry, that is correlate the two 'worlds, that each game engine creates. That is any point on the Strategy map (Gal Civ) must correlate directly with that of the battle scene of the Homeworld engine. For example, click and start a battle near Mars will, the battle needs to take place *near* Mars with all the commensurate space terrain that the Strategy Map indicates. No small feat!! If any of you have played the Total Wars series you'll understand directly what I mean.

Pardon? Listen, the game we're playing right now is a pseudo 3D affair, its pratically tabletop. There is no need to create a separate engine to cope with the two worlds at all. The tak that I would envisage is basically a cut down version of the galaxy, which relates directly with the position of the battle. For example if it was near a planet then it should be included in the field of battle. As for the movement of AI ships: they already know how to do that so nothing needed there. There will, however be the need for algorithms to cope with the new combat options that would have to be included to make the tak fun: boarding ships, super weapons that need time to recharge, defensive screens, bomb ships, pincer movements, enclosures and all that jazz.

the poll is there to keep the stardock crew informed about the desires of their customers, not to make the game development process into some sort of democracy. thank god for that, you CAN'T make a game like that, at least not a deceint one. just be happy they care enough to ask thanks stardock, rock on!

just another person who's happy with less. I just dont get it, the whole world wants more bang for their buck and heres a whole load of you people who are happy to settle for less. Having more options is a good thing. Take my car for example: I've got the option to put it into sports mode if I want to, I rarely do because in england petrol is taxed to the hilt and every time i do so I'm poorer for it, but I am really happy to have that option. Another one is tv, |I've got a satellite as well as terrestial television because it gives me more choices...Are you getting me? Having the option to tak is a good thing. And you never know, if you give it a try you might be won over. Come on, its stardock and they aint selling shit in a shiny wrapper are they?

Tactical combat won't be added to GalCiv II. The poll is with regards to a future sequel (ala a GalCiv III). Also, there would be an option to make it totally optional. So people who don't want to tactical combat need not worry.

And this is why galciv 2 will not be remembered as a legendary game. Which is a shame as it is pretty damn close. BTW good call on the option, that will definitely keep both camps happy.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not a complete tak head, I love developing my empire and fine-tuning my planets. I keep my taxes low, my people are at a 100% morale almost the whole game. I can see where the no battlers are coming from as all they want it sim city in space. I like building sandcastles too, but I want to do more. I think that improvements in the diplomacy are necessary additions and judging by Frogboys words are a hell of a lot more likely to happen to gc2 than tak. Thats great, more options for us as players. Heroes and politics and multiplayer are all really great concepts and improvements which would add some much needed diversity to the game thats been out for some time now. BUT believe me when I say that a good tactical combat simulator would blow all these things outta the sky.

What?

GC2 is big indeed, however, no bigger than any of the mod's RTR mods created for Rome:TW. Tons of cities and dozens of battles at any given point between 16 oponents and the turns flew by.. In addition the tactical combat itself in GC2 is much much smaller than R:TW.
It's true the AI in any tactical game leaves allot to be desired. R:TW was decent but could be exploited. However, so can the AI in any strategy game. Anyone else notice you can sell Warp drive MKIII to the AI then in the same turn sell the MK II for full price? We can all make excuses but again this comes down to personal preference. Sure I skipped tons of meaningless battles or battles where I had overwhelming odds. That does not mean I didn't appreciate the beauty of tactical combat (and coincidentally a major selling point for me).

R:TW is an all time favorite of mine and I love GC2. There is nothing wrong with wishing to see what works in one game imlemented in another of your favorite games.

I would even settle for the options many have already suggested.. such as at least a minor attempt to flee from combat. I would settle for a better looking computer controlled combat I want to see the ships strafe and make bombing runs while the capitol ships lay everything to waste. Right now they all kinda swim in circles like ships missing a whole side of oars.
I guess frankly while I love the game and have been absolutely addicted to it since I picked it up; I just don't get the epic feel from going into battle.

And this is why galciv 2 will not be remembered as a legendary game.

Perhaps, perhaps not. I have issues with GC2. Of course, I have issues with every game I play. However, I'm not a developer. I haven't the skills to create a game although I can think of many different ways to make it better, like most other people. The fact is, the devs are doing the best they can. I'll use a really good example to point out the flaw in that statement, FROOKIE. Final Fantasy is not a legendary game. Final Fantasy 2 and 3 (Japanese) are not legendary. But the Final Fantasy SERIES is legendary. Why? Because each game explored new territory and opened new options, making each successive title better and better. Maybe GC2 won't be legendary, but I think we owe it to the devs and everyone making suggestions, to keeping an open mind the Galactic Civilizations will be a Legendary Series. Why? Because each game gets better and better.

Maybe I'm wrong and it's a crime. Shoot me...(Please).

Frookie: I have to applaud your latest post! You always clearly and intelligently state your opinions. You also usually do this in such a way as not to offend most people. I don't quite have your skill in this. For example: In my opinion, no matter what reasons the No Tak Kombat Klub give for not wanting tactical combat, what it really comes down to is selfishness. They would deny us what we would like so they can have what they want.

I can't remember ever seeing a tak supporter post something like " The devs have only have a limited budget and only so much time so they need to use it on tac combat and not waste it on enhanced diplomacy"[ or multi-player or heroes or better AI]. The no-takkers are always using this type of statement against tak supporters. I, and I believe about every other tak guy, would like the options for all these things in the game. The game would be richer, deeper, more satisfying and just plain more fun with the options for these in the game.

Currently, I find Galciv2 a wonderful and addictive experience. It would be even more so if many of the items from the poll were added or enhanced, especially tactical combat!

HEY I have an idea for Tactical Combat:

Remember the "Governors" for planets? Well, apply the same concept to fleets! Define a "Fleet Commander", define his tactics, then any fleets you create will have the option to have either default combat behavior or behaviors defined by your Fleet Commander.

Commander behaviors could include logics like "If Current Ship is of type (TINY to SMALL) and carries (MASS DRIVER) then first attack Enemy Ships of type (SMALL to MEDIUM) carrying (LASER) and not carrying (ARMOR), else attack (ANY)"

To accomplish the above proposed logic, two tables would be presented side-by-side to configure one "Fleet Logic" component for the Fleet Commander.

First select your "template ship" based on type and armament like so:

((Current Ship Type))
#WEAPON CARRIERS#
+Mass Driver
-Laser
-Missile
#ARMOR CARRIERS#
+Armor
+Shields
+Countermeasures
#SHIP SIZE#
+Tiny
+Small
-Medium
-Large
-Huge


Then choose which type of ship it should try to eliminate first:

((Eliminate First))
#WEAPON CARRIERS#
-Mass Driver
+Laser
-Missile
#ARMOR CARRIERS#
-Armor
+Shields
+Countermeasures
#SHIP SIZE#
-Tiny
+Small
+Medium
-Large
-Huge


Now give this Fleet Logic unit a name: "Protect Unshielded Wingmen". Fleet Logics could be saved just like custom ships, and re-used for multiple Fleet Commanders.


What do you think? I could definitely have some fun with a system like that

While it is clear that tak won't be included in GC2, I still think it's necesary to add some spice to combat in this game, because as it's now, combat feels a bit dull. Other games have a real strategic element to combat without having tak. Take civalazition: In civilazion, there's a bunch of strategical thoughts before going into battle. Here a couple of examples:

-Your troops get a defense bonus when they are attacked standing on a hill, fortification, city with defense improvements etc.
-Your troops get a considerable defense bonus when entering "defense mode" for a couple of turns (are immobile though).
-Troops have a variable speed, depending on the terrain they are marching on( Hills, Grassland, Jungle etc.)
-Different units have strenght and weaknesses against other units. Fo example the Axemann gets a 50% bonus against melee units, the spearman gets a 100% bonus against horse units etc.


Stuff like this should also be included in GC2. right now you just "brainlessly" send your ships into enemy territory, and blow everything up that comes your way. When two hostile fleets meet they enter battle mode and the fleet with the highest attack/defense/hitpoints value will statistically win. Thats absolutely all to battle imo.

Why not having the weapons in GC2 having stenghts and weaknesses? For example Beams being good at shooting down small ships, massdrivers being strong against medium ships and missles being strong against large ships. Something like fortification we already have with military starbases, even though I think they are way to easy to destroy. Why not creating areas in the galaxy where ships only can pass slowly, because of large astroid fields etc? Or Lets say, include very dense astroid fields that can only be passed by tiny ships, being too dense for larger ships to pass.
Furthermore the benefit of larger ships seem very small. It has been stated by stardock that they want all ship sizes to be a viable option throughout the whole game. The effect of this is that the benefit of having large ships is minimal, all hulls ar somewhat balanced. Give me a reason to build larger hulls pls. I don't want to go further into this, since there are other threads talking about pyramid fleets and the like. In every case there is a lot of room for stratregical features in fleet creation, giving small and large ships diffrent roles.

Ok I don't have time to write anymore since I'm in the middle of a school lesson, no time here to make big thouths right now. Maybe my ideas are not very well thought out, but making battle a more strategic case is desperatly necessary in my oppinion. This would add a damn much to game depth, and that without tak.
And to the ones crying that the ai can't handle this(yes, it would require more complicated ai), to them I say, go play pacman or something like that, that game has very low ai requirements and therefore should satisfy you.

Maybe GC2 won't be legendary, but I think we owe it to the devs and everyone making suggestions, to keeping an open mind the Galactic Civilizations will be a Legendary Series. Why? Because each game gets better and better. Maybe I'm wrong and it's a crime. Shoot me...(Please).

Don't worry I wont shoot you, but I do have something to say on this particular subject. If you want to talk about legendary series of games, I'd personally go for something like The x-com trilogy. But I was talking about a single solitary game being legendary...Here are mine: Halo, Mario 64, goldeneye and zelda the ocarina of time. Not one of these games are strategy games, but they were hugely enjoyable for me and millions of others. Its about time a strategy epic made that shortlist. GC2 is on the cusp, the very edge of greatness and the devs know it, it'll take a serious push and they will be there! Tak and improvements with AI, diplomacy, politics, heroes and yes even multiplayer would do it. But tak might do it alone whereas the others wont.

hey joeld! how you doing? What can i say, I just tell it like i see it - thanks.

Morghenes you are onto the right lines, any developement of the combat system is not something to be taken lightly...Don't get caught!

If tactical combat were to be a feature in a future GalCiv, I'd also probably be in favor of more limited control, rather than the control each individual weapon on every single ship as in something like MOO2.

I've seen Rome: Total War mentioned a lot in these types of threads as an example of successfully blending turn-based strategy with tactical combat. Personally, I found the battles in that game more annoying than anything after a while. Basically the same thing all the time (at least for me):
1) Move my line of infantry towards the enemy
2) shoot arrows at the enemy for a little bit
3) move by heavy infantry into theirs
4) flank them with cavalry while the fighting is going on.
It was just that over, and over and over again (especially playing as the Julii and dealing with all the barbarians). Then you had to deal with all the dinky little counterattacks they hit you with constantly. And I never wanted to automate the battle, because then I'd have something ridiculous happen like my army of 800 losing 100 guys and only killing 40 or so of their 200 soldiers (and then having the summary call it a victory). Gah!

And this is why galciv 2 will not be remembered as a legendary game. Which is a shame as it is pretty damn close. BTW good call on the option, that will definitely keep both camps happy.

It's not fair to expect Galciv2 to be a legendary game. It's a solid ,decent game, that adds features carefully. It certainly isn;t meant to be a genre creating game like C&C nor is it meant to wow you with super innovative features never seen before.

Of course there can be legendary games that are just solid implementations of existing features and are legendary because of great synergy , but there are very few I can think of that fit the bill. Most of the classics I can think of added at least one innovative feature (usually a bunch) and even games that don't aspire to be legendery, usually have 1 or 2 twists of existing features.

Galciv II doesn't care about game innovation for the sake of game innovation. It's Galciv I tagged on with some standard 4x space features missing in the last edition and it's good/ It's familar even to those of us born and bred on 4x games.

Kind of like Heroes of Might and Magic V really.

The problem with tactical battles IMO with games like Civ4 and Galciv 2 is it would hurt the strategic part of the game just like it does with games like RTW and MTW. On a strategical level if you got an even match there is 50% you will win the battle and 50% chance you'll lose but if you add in tactical battles an experience players will always win an even match. So instead of the battle being 50/50 you would have a 100% chance of victory with more experience of playing you'll come out with less damage. This would make the strategic parts (like empire building) less important in these types of games. In RTW and MTW you can win battles againest incredible odds so it makes little difference what you do on the strategic map. Once you build a decent army the rest of the game is just mopping up the opposition. (this is true with any 4x strategy game but with tactical battles you can mop up with a smaller army but taking more time to play all those battles)

P.S I haven't tried HOMM V yet but in HOMM IV you can clearly see how tactical battles gives the player huge advantages over the AI. The AI played even worst with higher difficulty since it used "random combat" and take great loses with neutral armies while the player could use "tactical combat" to destroy neutral units without any or little loss od troops.

I've seen Rome: Total War mentioned a lot in these types of threads as an example of successfully blending turn-based strategy with tactical combat. Personally, I found the battles in that game more annoying than anything after a while. Basically the same thing all the time (at least for me):

really dude, any improvement to moving ships to attack enemy then squinting to watch it bobble about like a limp fish in a tank and just - watch: would be better. As for your comment on Rome total war, you should go back a few years for shogun TW - The Tak in that was Excellent, the best i've seen and it was not really cheesable. The strategic side of it was pretty bland, but the fighting was awsome. Rome TW: I hear that there have been some improvement to it recently w.r.t. mods by players, so it might be worth a good checking out. I'm sure if you were played around with some more tactics you might enjoy it more, how about trying to pull off a complete enclosure, which is darn right impossible. Or implement flying wedges of carvalry to hit the flanks. It really is what you yourself make of it, don't just use what seems to work best. BTW i've yet to play RTW, so this is just conjecture, these tactics might not work.

It's not fair to expect Galciv2 to be a legendary game. It's a solid ,decent game, that adds features carefully. It certainly isn;t meant to be a genre creating game like C&C nor is it meant to wow you with super innovative features never seen before.

hey richrf - how do? The games I described above are, for various reasons legendary. There was indeed a great deal of synergy in that the seperate parts became greater than the sum of the whole, but also the way they played was intuitive and felt just right, you expected it - and it was. there was style, innovation and flair. And above all else they were fun - right to the end. GC2 has most of these attributes, but the lack of a really decent combat system and planetary invasion held it back. There are others, but these were the most important far as I can tell. Fair? maybe not, but what is these days?

The problem with tactical battles IMO with games like Civ4 and Galciv 2 is it would hurt the strategic part of the game just like it does with games like RTW and MTW.

These are just examples of poor tactical combat implementation. for Tak to be included in any version of GC it would have to be good enough to give people a challenge, any less is just pointless and would detract from the game. It CAN be DONE and done well, so I don't actually see this as a valid reason to speak against tactical combat.

HEY I have an idea for Tactical Combat: Remember the "Governors" for planets?

shanjaq - That is actually a pretty neat idea. Fleet admirals! [ Missed you on the last run ]. But I would like it to be a little deeper, how about this?

Everytime you build a fleet you get to pick an admiral and name him etc. He wins battles and instead / aswell as the ship hit point increase he gets points and with enough points he gets more abilities such as fire twice or improved defences or critical blows...whatever. This is pretty much along the heroes line, but is more appropriate to GC2. What do you think?

Why not having the weapons in GC2 having stenghts and weaknesses? For example Beams being good at shooting down small ships, massdrivers being strong against medium ships and missles being strong against large ships.

An increase in diversity indeed. Seeing as Tak will not be included in GC2, ...maybe, an increase in battle options and diversity would be much appreciated by all.

really dude, any improvement to moving ships to attack enemy then squinting to watch it bobble about like a limp fish in a tank and just - watch: would be better

I agree with you there. Generally after I see one of my ship classes in battle (just to make sure it performs alright against opposing ships), I turn off the combat viewer all together. I was just trying to say that if some form of tactical combat were to be added in a sequal, I would prefer it to be more limited than something like Rome Total War.

Basically I hope they put the tactical similator as turn based. It is too confussing to do RT fights. Plus that is where carriers could be developed. I am sooo damn tired of all the RT games when you have huge empires it does not work well small ones ok but in my opion small games are over before they start (ending about the time people get Nano Rippers and medium ships.

R:TW was mentioned as an example of the options you were given if you wished to skip the combat as well as how beautiful it looks when playing. However, there are many valid options out there of decent tactical games includeing homeworld & Star Wars EaW. Two games which look fantastic and have solid playability.

@ Pierpoint: when you're bored go fire up a game of Rome and attempt those same tactics using the numidians
you'll get crushed handsomely. I agree using the stock Roman troops was pretty boring they're the equivalent of tanks on the battle field. Though it was pretty realistic look at what caesar did with them.