maby if you controle the biggist ship in your fleet.
the invasion battles need work to.

this thread seams to have died so i'm reserecting it

died again  , this is the last time I reserect it

Hm, this is just the feature I (as sort of an Master of Orion 2 fan) really miss in GC2 - not to say it's a bad game, it certainly isn't .

But as far as I remember, in some article that previewed GC2, it was already said that tactical combat wouldn't be in before GC3 (just like kryo said above). Which is something I can live with very well - I'll just play around with GC2's ship editor and play a bit more MO2 while waiting for it...

And for how I'd like it to be implemented... well, the way it is in MO2 is the best I've seen so far, though the way it's done in Birth of the Federation is also somewhat nice (and I really liked that replay option - but what to say, that's in GC2 already ).


Oh, btw.: *resurrect* ??

I hope we have carriers and fighter/bomber wings that can be assigned to capital ships.

Right now capital ships have big guns, big engines etc.
But it would be great if they can launch fighters and bombers.
These could be launched against enemy bomber wings, fighter wings, capitol ships to strike at certain weapons, types of point defense etc.

Uhh? Tactical combat? MOO2? What...?

I think I agree with G.W. on the division of firepower issue, just as long as it's not implemented in the same game as the Dread Lords.

My main complaint with GC2's combat system would have to be in fleet movements. Say I want to send one big ship and a bunch of little ships to a target, but the little ships can only move half as fast as the monstrous one. How about supply or refueling modules, to help nudge along the littler ships in the fleet? Or carriers. Anyway I guess I'm on the wrong thread for that.

What exactly is tactical combat? Or is it being defined here? Help us noobers out, maybe get some posts here...

Ah wait, does tactical combat mean real-time strategics (StarCraft style?), or turn-based battle control (like uh... chess)?

Here's a mindblowing combat system to play around with -- Carnage Heart style. It might add a lot of value to the unit customization offered in GC2, even if it isn't as meticulous as the real Carnage heart system. Imagine adapting intelligence for each unit with instructions to be carried out in (almost) any given combat situation... Riveting, yet automatic battles, WITH a powerful emphasis on the player's tactical expertise.

Could be applied to other areas too perhaps -- Auto+Custom Survey/Colonize/Explore/Etc...

Hey Uhlek! Sweet, another Starflight lover!

Starflight happens to be my favorite game of all time BTW.

Hmmm... Now that I think about it I think that I would rather see planetary tactical combat before any kind of space battle implementation. A space battle is generally a short affair, while a ground invasion takes far longer than one week.

Also, planetary battles don't happen nearly as often as space battles, and are much more meaningful. With ship to ship tactical combat you run the risk of the novelty wearing off and eventually becoming boring and repetitive; ground battles much less so.

It would be nice to have some kind of involvement (no matter how minor) in space battles though. Perhaps something like an aggressive/defensive stance slider, or something else relatively simple?

I'm not all that much in favour of tactical combat added to the game, unless GalCivIII would work very differently.

With target selection, it would make the concept of escorts less meaningful. You see a fleet of three escorts and a troop transport making its way to a planet of yours. You sortie a single fighter, engage, target and kill the 1HP transport and then get shot back in return. It is because of target selection rules that escorts make sense.

As other said before, tactical combat could also become a chore to do but one you couldn't avoid possibly because the AI doesn't 'quite get it'.

Tactical AIs are also a lot harder to implement correctly, especially is Stardock is intent on sticking to their trend of providing an AI that relies on thinking rather than cheating to provide a challenge. Even modern games such as Company of Heroes relies on cheating (no fog of war for them) to some degree as well as a bonus to their resources if you crank up the difficulty a bit higher. Asking Stardock to provide a better AI for what is essentially a feature while even the games focusing on this aspect haven't gotten there yet is not something I'm willing to do.

That said, I do think the space combat could use some more depth. For space combat, the inclusion of modules that enable special rules to the vessel they are installed on might be a nice addition. For example, as I understand it, weapons will be fired seperately in Dark Avatar. A module that allows one re-roll of that value during a salvo might be a nice gimmick. It would re-roll every time a weapon fires until it beats the original roll. It then substitues that number and turns off for the rest of the salvo. Just a quick idea on top of my head and I'm sure many more modules like these could be cooked up if need be.

For ground combat I'm not so sure on whether to change it. True, a planetary invasion taking one week is a little quick. On the other hand, you're not always outnumbered that badly (1-10 tops?) so a quick strike might get something like that done in a relatively small amount of time. They could, however, run one combat turn per week instead of running it all the way through but I'm not sure whether that would give so much added value to the game.
I'm not won for using tactics in this aspect of combat as it usually ends up being a gamble. You could interpret the random advantage numbers as different tactics if you wanted to, and you get to pick invasion tactics as well.

In short, a few more trinkets to ponder on during the design phase might add a lot of value without needing massive investments of time and expertise in what is essentially a feature.

Just my two cents.

Jeff: Awesome. Glad to meet you. I agree on Starflight -- I'm still waiting for a mind-blowing remake of that game, crammed with cutting edge graphics, ridiculous challenges, tons of features, and all without sacrificing the original impossibly titanic fully explorable universe... Well, I can dream. I've been looking for Starflight in every game I've played since then, I guess. Unless you're a PC Starflier -- did you play the other Genesis EA sci-fi release, Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday? Ahh... the good ole days. We should get together and nerd it up for a couple dozen hours.

SleekDD, I'm not sure I'm reading your post right at all, but I *love* the idea of "tactical modules!" If I understood it correctly, this would be like an extra tab in ship construction where modules could instruct the ship to carry out various orders such as "attack transports (or constructors/colonists/etc) first," or "protect (those ships)" instead. Perhaps all modules, or just advanced ones such as better crew training (Yamota ), should be available only after they've been researched on the tech tree.

Then they could be placed into a special, uhm, "un-area" of the ship, unless it could be more fitting for these modules *to* take up space (space for extra or special provisions, weapons and ammo, fuel?).

I think invasions do need improvement, but nothing unreal. Taking more than one week may not be necessary though -- technology seems to excluse the possibility of a drawn-out resistance, in most cases... But some defense against invasion tactics is defeinitly in order; in GC2, once a troop transport reaches a planet, only one soldier is necessary to devastate the planet through a mass-driver invasion (which I'd say qualifies to some extent as orbital bombardment -- maybe I should be posting this on that thread... sorry). I've never researched planetary defense yet, but I'm hoping something either is, or will be available there to provide a possibility of damage reduction from invasion tactics (Mini-Soldiers on the defending side also?).

Interesting sutff -- but pass me an e-mail (I set it to "visible" on my profile) or I think this thread could get clogged. Or set up an Off-Subject post, I dunno. I'd say everything on my mind about it here since I'm posting off the subject again anyhow, but I unfortunately don't currently have time.

Edit: OK, it doesn't seem to be working (yet?), so my e-mail is Lz_erk@yahoo.com. (Lowercase "L" should work, I don't know if yahoo e-mails are case sensitive.)

Here is my idea for tactical combat. I'll call it GalCiv Fleet Tactics.

My idea is to introduce new tactical elements, while keeping complexity for the player to a minimum and keeping GalCiv grounded as a strategy game.

Fleet Tactics will introduce one new technology thread, a 'weapon class' and a 'role' feature. I'm also going to give the ship sizes an update, with Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Very Large and Huge.

First, a new combat statistic of 'manuverability' will be needed. Manuverability is a single, sub-light (re: combat) stat, encompassing both speed and manuverability for simplicity. Thus, a ship with 10 manuverability can be thought of having 10 speed and 10 manuverability. Manuverability will effect how easily a ship can dodge incoming fire, and can be enhanced by 'Manuvering Engines'. These sub-light engines are only useful in combat scenarios and would have increasing levels of power like other engines in the game. Manuvering Engines would have a static size, but much less impact on a large hull v. a small one. A single set of Manuvering Engines on a small or tiny hull might double the manuver stat; while on a huge hull the manuver stat may increase by only a tenth or smaller. Additionally, hyperspace engines can add a nominal amount of manuverability (maybe 10% of a Manuver Engine) and this too would have a greater impact on small hulls than larger ones. This means that hulls would not only have a base manuver stat but also a static multiplier for the purposes of increasing Manuver based on hyperspace and Manuver engines. Manuver Engines would get its own technology thread seperate from hyperspace engines.

Each hull class will have an innate manuverability number. These numbers can be anything, but for simplicity for now I'm going to use a 0-10 rating.

Huge = 0;
Very Large = 1;
Large = 2;
Medium = 4;
Small = 7;
Tiny = 10;

As would be expected, the higher the manuverability number, the larger the chance to dodge incoming fire. This chance to dodge is increased or decreased based on the raito of the manuverability of the defending ship vs. the manuverability of the attacker plus any weapon class modifiers. Simply put, a more manuverable ship can line up a shot (or shots) easier on less manuverable ships; while less manuverable ships can't dodge this aimed fire as easily.

Moving on to Weapon Class. This would not need to be a technology at all, simply a one click setting in the ship designer that will modify what 'kind' of weapon mounting it is. There are only three weapon classes: Anti-Fighter, Normal, and Anti-Capital Ship.

An Anti-Fighter weapon has these stats: 1/2 damage, defender defenses doubled, Rate of Fire (ROF) of 4/1 (4 times in 1 round), defender manuverability bonuses 1/2. However, defenses are resolved in a special way: for each shot that hits the defender; the defenses of the defender begin go down for purposes of combat resolution. The first shot that hits takes the defender down to (defense*1.5); second shot is (defense*1); third shot is (defense *0.75); and fourth shot is (defense*0.25). However, if more than one Anti-Fighter weapon mount is on the attacking ship, these bonuses continue: fifth shot the defense will be zero, and successive shots will begin to do damage or miss. This makes a 'flak frigate' a very useful and interesting ship design. Note that this process only lasts a single round. In a new combat round everything is reset and the defending ship starts with doubled defenses again. One last thing: the Anti-Fighter weapon mount is effective only on Small and Tiny-class ships. When engaging Medium or larger size ships, defenses are doubled no matter how many shots hit and damage is still 1/2. This accounts for Medium and larger sized hulls having a better infrastructure to support defenses: larger capacitors for recharging shields (or a more comprehensive power system for recharging the capacitors, take your pick); more/faster/more powerful point defense; heavier armor on a stronger structure.

A Normal weapon wouldn't be much different from the way weapons function in GalCiv now. The only difference is that full manuverability bonuses apply to normal weapons. Thus, a Normal weapon on a fighter is quite a powerful anti-fighter weapon, since the high manuverability of a fighter allows bonuses to hit slower ships and cancel or almost cancel manuverability bonuses of ships of the same speed. Once again, it comes back to smaller more manuverable ships can line up an accurate shot easier than a lumbering hulk.

An Anti-Capital Ship weapon has these stats: 2*damage, defender 1-to-1 defenses 1/2; ignores other defenses; rate of fire 1/4 (1 time every 4 rounds); defender manuverability bonuses doubled except on Large hull sizes and above. Ok, 1-to-1 defenses are the defenses that are specific to the weapon type being used: Beam v. Sheild; Gun v. Armor; Missile v. Point Defense. These 1v1 defenses are halved on the defender. Ancillary defenses that would normally add the square root of thier vaule to defense are ignored. Now the idea of having a 'torpedo bomber' or any kind of bomber becomes a very viable and dangerous thing. Also note that trying to use an anti-capital ship weapon on a fighter is basically impossible due to the manuverability bonuses being doubled. However, once you hit a Large-hull size, the sheer size of the hull becomes a liability. It could be a very manuverable large ship but it is still huge compared to the weapon profile making it more likely to be hit. Anti-Capital ship weapons have thier own manuverability statistic of 5 for purposes of combat resloution--note that a manuverability of 5 only applies to Medium-size ships and smaller while still doubling the manuverability bonuses of the defender. here again is some balance: a Medium-size ship makes an effective and survivable 'flak frigate' even verses bombers.

Ship roles: here is were alot of ship design plans will come into play. A ship role defines the primary purpose of the ship in a fleet setting, and what kinds of targets the ship will advance on first. I think the role categories could have a few presets but allow for new roles to be defined by the user. Note that these roles can be re-defined once the ship becomes part of a fleet; but if this is properly set at design time it will be less necessary. Keep in mind that a fleet in enemy territory that finds itself short of anti-fighter craft may wish to assign a multi-role ship (such as a frigate or destroyer mounting alot of normal weapons) to anti-fighter duty. While not specifically an anti-fighter ship it is better than nothing in a pinch. Here are some likely presets:

Anti-Fighter: Primary Target - Tiny and Small-size hulls. Specific primary target: any small or tiny ship mounting Anti-Capital ship weapons or weapons to which the ship has no 1v1 defense. Secondary Target: anything else.

Attack: Primary Target - a ship of similar hull size or smaller and combat power with equal or lesser defensive ability. Specific primary target: any ship mounting weapons to which the ship or fleet has no 1v1 defense. This is most similar to the way combat works now.

Anti-Capital Ship: Primary Target - Large, VLarge, and Huge-size hulls. Specific primary target: any hull mounting weapons to which the ship or fleet has no 1v1 defense against or the largest/most powerful ship in a fleet.

Escort: Primary Target - ships of equal or smaller hull size that are a threat to Anti-Capital Ship platforms. If there are no ships of equal or smaller size, then look for ships of progressively larger sizes.

Evade: Try to disengage from combat as quickly as possible.

User-defined roles could be created from the following: RoleName; PrimaryTarget; SecondaryTarget; TertiaryTarget.

The specific primary target is innate: generally the ship or fleet will target the greatest threat to the ship/fleet. The greatest threat could easily be determined by a short 'pre-resoultion' compairson of power--with the enemy ship most likely to deal the most damage in that round being the primary target based on role. Thus, an Anti-Fighter ship would target bombers first as they are the greatest threat within the category of their role; then target any space-superiority fighters. Anti-Fighter-role fighters essentially become space-superiority fighters, making sweeps of the combat area until all fighter threats are eliminated but focusing on bombers first. However Anti-Fighter-fighters can be countered by Escort Fighters. Fighters assigned an Escort role become cover for bombers seeking to deliver thier payload to capital ships and would engage Anti-Fighter ships first of similar combat power.

Since each ship engaging a different ship but of a similar or lesser size may make for some frustrating engagements, all ships of a similar size and role could be considered a group in itself that attacks a single or group of targets in one round: a pair of anti-fighter frigates could focus thier fire on a single fighter at a time, with the cumulative hits of their weapons wearing down the fighter defenses until it is destroyed and the next fighter is focused on and brought down, etc. Three destroyer Escorts could engage the same anti-fighter frigate until it is disabled, then focus their fire on the next one in succession, while a single anti-capital ship capital ship could enage the enemy fleet center piece with heavy fire. This ensures that each threat is handled in a logical manner taking down targets in the most logical manner possible. There could even be some transparency to the way this happens: a capital ship with numerous weapon emplacements could target anti-capital ship weapons only at large-hulls and above, while targeting Normal weapons at medium and small hulls.

Alright, moving right along to hangar bays. Carriers may be dead, but here is an idea that I think is useful with little added complexity. While hyperspace equipped fighters are possible, I've often had huge ships that can move 20+ spaces per turn which a tiny sized hull just cannot match. Here is where hangar bays come in, and they come in a few flavors: small, medium, large, and huge. What hangar bays do is 'support' a specific number of smaller ships in the fleet. If the ship mounting the hangar bay has a greater move speed then smaller ships in the fleet, the smaller ships (up to the number that can be supported by the hangar bay) are considered to be stowed in the hanger of the larger ship so as to ignore the slower hyperspace speed of fighters while still making them available in combat scenarios. When the fleet enters combat the ships have no need to be launched; they will already be available. Basically it just adds a simple mechanic to move smaller ships around and ignoring the galactic hyperspace move number since the sublight manuver combat statistic is really more important for these ships. Hanger bays would likely be triple the size of the largest ship that it can house, and would not be effected by miniturization (meaning miniturization would actually become a multiplier for hangers to cancel out the way miniturization is handled). Additionally, the base, non-miniturized hull would be used for calculation of this number--a small hull is a small hull miniturized or not. Triple size accounts for space to house the ships, ancillary support equipment and 'personal' space (persons/pilots working inside the hanger during launch and recovery operations) as well as a hangar door of some kind.

Small hangar bay: 1 Small Hull OR 2 Tiny hulls.
Medium hangar bay: 2 Small Hulls OR 4 Tiny hulls.
Large hangar bay: 4 Small Hulls OR 8 Tiny hulls.
Huge hangar bay: 1 Medium Hull OR 8 Small Hulls OR 16 Tiny Hulls. Keep in mind that stowing a Medium Hull inside of a hanger would be much more difficult than stowing many smaller ships (While (small hull*8) is much greater than a single medium hull, this simulates the difficulty of supporting such a large ship inside of a hangar bay.)

This would be a transparent feature. The user just configures fleets to take the most advantage of hangar bays--a fleet with a Medium hull, 4 small hulls and 8 tiny hulls with a ship with a Huge hangar would mount the slowest hyperspace ships first. Thus, a slow medium ship would be stored allowing the fleet to move at the faster hyperspace speed of the fighters; however if the fighters had a slower hyperspace state they would be mounted to allow the fleet to move with the faster medium ship hyperspace stat. Of course, all of this is moot if the ship(s) with the hangar bay(s) are the slowest ships in the fleet anyway.

A few final notes: weapons and armor would lose the size modifier due to hull size. Everything would have a single static size. Weapon modifiers (Anti-Fighter/Anti-Capital Ship) would not increase size at all: anti-fighter weapons are lower power, faster firing with targeting computers to match taking up the same size as a Normal emplacement; while an Anti-Capital Ship weapon has a heavier and more powerful warhead or charging unit but doesn't need very advanced targeting to hit a large, slow target. Due to certain defenses being ignored by anti-capital ship weapons, capital ships will need to mount more defenses to be viable; thus tossing out the size modifier on defenses as well.

And here is something else: disengage combat. Lets say a patrolling fighter group is set upon by a maurading VLarge ship. For the sake of arguement, lets assume the VLarge ship has no anti-fighter weapons but the defenses of the ship is strong enough that the fighters cannot damage this ship (the fighters are just that--fighters. No anti-capital ship weapons). If 10 successive rounds of combat are resloved with 7 out of 10 rounds resulting in a miss due to manuverability (and in this scenario it is more likely 9 or 10 rounds would go as a miss on the fighters) the fighters would be able to disengage (end combat) and escape to hyperspace. This would end combat--the attacking VLarge ship could always re-attack, but chances are that the fighter group will take no losses and escape to hyperspace every time. In addition, the fighters would NOT engage the VLarge ship with weapons that cannot penetrate the defenses; instead 'standing off' (staying out of range of anti-fighter weapons which was already state the ship does not have). With the low sub-light manuverability of a VLarge ship, the fighters could easily stay out of range of any anti-fighter weapons the ship has--imagine a modern day naval ship trying to 'catch up' to a helicopter to get into weapons range--30kts just doesn't match 130kts. It won't happen.

However in this scenario, the VLarge ship has no reason to attack a fighter group anyway, especially if it has no anti-fighter screen. It could even be dangerous if the fighters have a few bombers or multi-role fighter/bombers in the group.

I think this would be a comprehensive add-on to GalCiv and while I'd like to see it as a new combat expansion only for GalCiv2 (it would work for GalCiv2 and Dark Avatar), I'd be just as happy to see any of it in GalCiv3.

This system combines both tactical and strategic elements in a neat package allow for complex and robust fleets fairly simply (for the user) and some very interesting combat possibilities.