Tactical Combat

Or why this prevented GC2 from beeing the best 4x game ever

from GalCiv2 Forums

Without any thought whatsoever to complain or flame this game ( which i find absolutelly delicious and have tons of fun with ) i am painfully missing the tactical combat phase i first saw in master of orion. Without it, ship or fleet combat is simply a battle of numbers, or better yet, an extension of the superbly implemented economics : Build economy, build your fleet, build a better and bigger fleet, crush your opponnent's smaller fleet. In the end, it's the battle of economics, whoever can sustain the bigger ships wins. It's kind of comparing Command & Conquer with Starcraft. Production vs Strategy.

Therefore i have a number of suggestions, feel free to flame / comment :

- First thing should be actual control during the combat phase, which can be real-time ( with timer settings ) or turn based. Either way, it would be great if we could control each ship, choose what to attack and with which weapons ( i'm dreaming, but targeting specific components would give me a hard on ). The ability to concentrate fire, evade or run would be lovely.

- More weapon settings. Right now is laser vs shields, gun vs armor, missile vs chaff. How about adding range and rate of fire? Accuracy settings! Cooldown maybe? For missiles, limited no of salvos ( reloading needed at star port ). Repair bots? Anything that would make a ship design really stand out, instead of just be a battle of numbers.

I am not sure if this has been proposed / discussed already ( did not browse the whole forum ) and i can already identify some problems with my proposals :

- Designing AI with competent tactics
- Military rating close to useless
- Balancing issues

However, taken all that into account, the combat part is simplistic and the only disapointment of the game. If i would be able to manually control all battles, imagine the tactics, the hit-and-run, the sniping, the concentrated fire, the joy of destroying a much more powerful fleet with just micro-management.

Doubt it that would be implemented, but one can only hope for.

Cheers
warfare
8,666 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
This has been and probably still is being discussed to death. We will not see any tac combat in this iteration of GalCiv, however, perhaps, just maybe in a sequel.

Try this thread I dug up in a forum search:

Official Tac Combat thread
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do have to disagree that combat is simply a matter of economics. You can have a great economy, but without the technology your ships will be outgunned, without factories you can't produce ships. I can agruee that combat is simply a matter of who has the best technology. The next guy might say its all about military production, who can build the fastest. Its ALL these things, your empire must be balanced somewhat.

As far as tactical combat, as mswaim stated, this topic is old and well debated already. The number one reason I've heard for not having tacctical combat is really in all the things you want to be able to do. things an AI player will not be able to do effectively. That is, tactical combat will swing the balance of the game in favor of a human player. The AI would wind up being prdictable and easier to beat, i can only imagine all the exploits that would develop.

Hey, maybe for tactical combat the game switches to Asteroids or something. And, for battling a starbase it can use Star Castle. Of course Space Invaders or Defender would be good for planetary invasion. just some ideas.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Captain Yar,

Go back to Star Control 2. In fact, I'll join you, that game was SWEET. . . excuse me, I'm gonna go fire up my copy of UrQuan Masters for a nice nostalgic all-Shofixti vs. all-UrQuan battle. . .
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Tactical combat will just give players yet another advantage over the AI. The AI doesn't really need any more disadvantages than it already has.

I know many players love this (I enjoy it as well) - and I won't complain if its in GalCiv 3. But I won't complain if its not their either.

~ Wyndstar
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This feature must be in GC3. It'd be very simple to keep the auto-combat option in the game and allow the player to choose which option they want to use. The only thing that keeps me from fully enjoying GC2 is the lack of combat stimulation.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Why not do what they did in Birth of the Federation, just give the player a choice of four to six things to do?
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The military side of GC2 is weak at many levels.The Frog has already said tactical combat will be in CG3.