First post. I am really enjoying GCII; but, I do really miss the tactical combat of MOO and MOO2. I still fire up my old computer occasionally and play a game of MOO2 or MOM or X-COM.

To me the payoff on designing your custom ship was actually controlling it in the tactical battle. In addition, MOO2 allowed you to attempt to withdraw damaged ships before they were totally lost. I liked some aspects of both combat systems but overall preferred MOO2. MOO had no control over the number of ships in a fleet resulting in huge fleets of ships which became no more than stacks of numbers. MOO2 fleets were much smaller, the ships gained experience so there was value in upgrading them (I actually cared about some of my small ships and worked to preserve them), and the total number of ships allowed was limited by the number of star bases. Bogged a little in the end game but by that time my fleets were usually so overwhelming I just auto resolved the combat.

Just my two cents. Look forward to the incorporation of the best of both MOO tactical combat systems in GCIII .

P.S. I still think Ascendancy's R&D 3D tree is one of the most elegant technology system presentations I have ever seen.

STARDOCK: GalCiv2 is missing tactical battles. It is an incomplete game without it. WHY are tactical battles missing????

Including tactcal battles should NOT be a paid upgrade. It will be a patch for a sorely crippled product.

MOO2 was -is- a FAR BETTER game than GalCiv2, seriously.


Un-be-lievable.....

...why is it that people tend to behave as if stating something more aggressively will give them impression that it's more representative of what everyone feels?

i definately do not miss hands-on tactical combat. SleekDD's comment about the role of escorts is very insightful. i'm glad there's no plan to change GC2 ("a sorely crippled product" indeed, *scoff*). perhaps there is some compromise. there are certainly instants when i'd like the ability to prioritize targets of different sorts, to retreat a ship or my whole fleet, etc.

without completely reinventing the wheel, i could imagine some of these being implemented. for example, you could prioritize a target at the cost of a turn for the units so prioritized. if you wanted your detachment of fighers to take out a trasport at all costs, you could instruct them to do so; however the enemy escorts would try to intercept them and shoot them down. this could be represented in the game by allowing the escorts a free shot before you got your chance at the transports (at which point they'd have a turn to fire at the same time you do). retreating could subtract movement points from the next turn (and if attacking units are genuinely faster, they might chase you parsecs sectors away and still catch and destroy you).

if i wanted complete tactical combat i'd play a fighter sim.

developing the AI for good, RT tactical combat would be a massive undertaking. i loathe TB "chess" style combat, and i usually just leave the AI to handle it (even if it means more losses than i'd otherwise have). i don't even watch most of the time.

why is it that people tend to behave as if stating something more aggressively will give them impression that it's more representative of what everyone feels?

If you can answer this question in terms of a roughly reproducible process, you should be able to win high elective office and/or earn fat money helping others do so.

there are certainly instants when i'd like the ability to prioritize targets of different sorts, to retreat a ship or my whole fleet, etc. (snip)

Seems like tactical combat to me
I think that when someone with half a brain mentions tactical combat in GC2 they don't mean "complete/RT tactical combat", as it is clearly not the scope of the game. It's about making combat more tactical, with features like the ones you mentioned - it's still tactical combat, whatever negative charge the term gained around here.

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....

I just wanted to say that RogueIdea's post was totally awesome, and I would soil myself at the opportunity for exactly this level of tactical control being available in a game like GalCiv II/III.

Maneuverbility differences between ship classes so that fighters are harder to hit and can hit slow enemies more easily. New combat thrusters that affect this stat. Different versions of the same weapon class for use against fighters vs. cap ships. Roles for ships that determine what they target, and combat can stay automated while being much more dynamic and tactical since we get to specify these sorts of orders ahead of time and watch our ship play them out.

This sort of system would make the game more tactically interesting without bogging it down with too many combat phases to play out manually, and it could be a popular option because it's the same sort of feature as the ship editor: something cool to tinker with and design your own custom "thing", in this case your custom ship and fleet orders so that they can intelligently protect themselves and engage enemy ships.

Unfortunately GalCiv doesn't focus too much on the "ship" part of a space strategy game, but rather on economics and colony development. It's more of a civilization building game. It's mostly eye candy when it comes to ships. Space Empires is way ahead in that department, it's got great ship design and tactical combat. Different focus.

I never wanted tac combat in GCII, just better animations.

Mass drivers (AKA prjectiles that are fired from a gun) that float and bob around and change direction?

Weapons which can pass through friendly ships?

I'm hoping that DA addresses these issues.

First off, well done Stardock for a great strategy game. Tac combat could take it to a whole new level.

One game that (IMHO) strikes a really good balance between strategic and tactical elements is the Total War series – most lately Medieval II: Total War. In the off chance that you’re not familiar with it, the tactical combat zooms in to the unit level – battalions/ regiments of say 100 men that are controlled as a group – and gives a huge level of tactical depth. However, if you don’t want to fight the tactical battles, there is an auto-resolve feature which resolves the combat instantly.

Anyway, my point is that this is the model of a game which covers the strategic and the tactical well, and which I’d like to see in a Sci-Fi “4X” game. Picture GalCiv II’s strategic elements with Homeworld II combat aspects. (and no mining or ship-building to worry about!).

It’s a tall order, but I’m surprised someone hasn’t done it already.

Anyway, my point is that this is the model of a game which covers the strategic and the tactical well, and which I’d like to see in a Sci-Fi “4X” game. Picture GalCiv II’s strategic elements with Homeworld II combat aspects. (and no mining or ship-building to worry about!).

It's not *exactly* what you seem to be looking for, but you may want to check into Sins of a Solar Empire.

(and no mining or ship-building to worry about!).

But mining is one of the Xs in 4X    which GC doesn't really have (except for those resources that were misteriously planted in space just to give you bonuses which feel completely artificial...). As for ship building, that's another lacking aspect of GC, you just have a frame where you dump components and that's it. Even the hull types, hull sizes, required logistics, tonnages, dimensions, don't really have a realistic correspondence - for example, ships' lengths and widths are practically the same, and with very "basic" gfx they almost look like something out of comic books, not really cool looking ships which was to be expected from a game with a rep for having good gfx.

For GalCiv III - As others have stated: I would love a 3-D map turn-based strategic game with Homeworld-style RTS tactical battles along the same line as the Total War series.

GalCiv II and DA's biggest draw for me (and why I spend more time playing this than Civ IV) is designing my own ships and seeing them in combat. It would be even more fun to "captain" those ships in an RTS style battle as in another of my favorite games of yor: Homeworld.

BTW, DA is a great improvement and it will happily occupy too many of my free hours in the months to come. Thanks for all the hard work.

An official tak combat post? wow, things have moved one some since I last showed my smiley here! And as far as I can tell there seems to be none of the old tak guard here... never mind, init.

Tak combat will not be in gc2, period. Which is a shame seeing as I was doing my level best to push the idea in the early days of GC2. The game seems incomplete without the option to be the adhoc admiral now and then, but far from a broken game as some people insist. At the risk of sounding like a pompous old old windbag, I do believe we should be concentrating on how tak should develop in the future sequel of gc2 and refrain from castigating the present game.

As a fan of Moo2 (Master of Orion 2), a return to that kind of tak combat would be ok, but seeing as we're in the 21st century we should expect more . And I have a few ideas and opinions I'd like to put forward:

Fleet admirals who gain experience points. these points can be used to purchase special abilities such as firepower bonus, fire twice per round, increased logistics and movement (more ideas welcome). Naming them and putting a pic on them would also be a touch.
System overlords/governors with cool bonuses would complement the admiral idea really well.

Real time or turn based combat? Originally, I have said turn based combat is more more appropriate for GC2, but nothing gets you fired up like real time combat.
I'm undecided on this point and would not mind either implementation of tak.

Carriers and death stars and boarding boats and troop ships and monsters and death rays and hard 'terrain' and flanking and battle computers that allow you to fire twice etc etc etc. Any idea that would enrich the combat aspect of the the core gc3 game would be appreciated.

Oh and for those who say that AI can never beat a decent player if tak combat is implemented in a game: Thanks for stating the obvious, AI can never beat a decent player at any aspect of the game, irregardless of bonuses. so why don't we just give up playing the game altogether? Er.. hold on, no-one actually said anything like it in this thread...yet, but if they do, heres my rebuttal. init.

@ ToS Iceman - last I heard, SE 5 was as buggy as hell, has this been remedied? and whats your evaluation on the game?

Long live Tak combat!

Yep, it's buggy, but there's a balance mod that's pretty good, and there's an official patch coming soon. The game system is very much the type of game I like. Ship design, tactical combat, planet environments, production based system, solar system layouts, huge and intrincate techtree, a more "realistic" design... it has some crappy stuff too, like the races pics    some planets with below abs zero temps   
GalCiv has the better AI, some (not all) nice gfx - mainly UI, and more diversity in terms of gameplay. The problem is in a *space* strat game you want to have a solid ship design/combat system. And even though the various vic conditions are very nice, you can't really say they're equally useful, you eventually will go for the mil vic most of the time (the others might even get in your way, so much so that they can actually be disabled). The design generally works, but it is based on mostly unrealistic mechanics, which for me is a turn off. There's a lot of "cheese" potential in DL too, and even though you don't have to use it, still. It has a somewhat steep learning curve, and I don't particularly like the economic system, with the sliders and all. It does have a lot of options, but that sometimes gets in the way (of the AI). Some interesting features need work, like the political game, the alignments.

I'm not comparing the two, they're not very comparable. I just like complex rules systems and realistic game components. IMO a sci-fi game requires that. But that's just MO.   

Cheers Iceman. Guess I'll wait to see how things develop with the patch and community before going in. Not really wanting to make an investment in another 'indie' game unless i get some really decent noise from real players. The thing is, I played Sword of the stars recently and it was an absolute shite bomb. What a waste. Its so deplorable that it has managed to make the world a dumber place by the fact of its existence
Anyway i is off to play some DA. I'm liking things so far, some of the old problems have been resolved. poor AI planet management is almost a thing of the past, except of course for the poor little minor races, which is probably why they're minor races, init .
enemy ships are good too, but thats been true for a while now.

later peeps

Another moo2 fan here. The only time i hated the combat was when the fleets got to huge. That problem was solved in galciv2 with logistics. I still want big fleets just not ones that takes hours to finish the battle.

A lot of good ideas here. Only thing i would add is options options options. If you make something with turn based or real time combat make sure we can turn it of and have a quick auto resolve button available that we can click any time. I loved taking control in moo2 and would like to see more ground combat control as well. Some would rather not take such direct control, gives us the option to do it or not to do it.

ROE and Doctrine is a good way to go as well as researching tactics that add offense, defense, etc to the engagement like Hearts of Iron doctrines. Also from Hearts of Iron is the concept of leaders with ratings that are assigned to fleets and have specialities, say fleet engagement, spotter, planitary assault

I'll admit first off that I haven't read the whole thread so forgive me if I'm being redundant. I still think that MOO 2 is the best game ever made. GalCiv has done some amazing things and is becoming a great game in its own right, but for me the ability to research such a wealth of combat-specific technologies and then implement them in my ship designs was a huge amount of fun. And then to actually have battles come down to your actions - adjusting shield facings, choosing your targets, conserving your missiles for the right moment - the number of potential battle scenarios was virtually infinite! It's true that huge MOO 2 fleets brought the system to a standstill but that potential problem is already fixed in GalCiv with the Logistics fleet size restriction. At long as that number doesn't get too big you will never have an oversized battle. If you can implement an equally good combat system (or top it, I mean come on it's been ten years!) you may very well produce the new BEST GAME OF ALL TIME! To quote Sam Gamgee in a wildly inappropriate manner: "Isn't that worth fighting for?"

Hi all, this is my first post. Actually my second post as I already responded to this thread and then edited, now it's gone. Anyhoo, for any of you kids out there who have never played (or heard of) Master of Orion 2, it is the spiritual predecessor of Galactic Civilizations. It is also the best game of all time. In all honesty GalCiv is great in its own right and in most respects has surpassed MOO2, partly by respectfully 'borrowing' from it and other great games of the past. What sets MOO2 apart is the incredible combat system. A sizeable proportion of the tech tree was dedicated to ship technologies and you were able to design your ships from the ground up. Every aspect of the ship was under your control. In combat you actually fought the battles, choosing your targets, adjusting shield facings, deciding when to launch your missiles and fighters, etc... The etc.. part is vast, the number of combat options virtually infinite. Seriously, it was awesome! Granted the battles bogged down near the end but GalCiv has already fixed that with logistics. Keep that number low enough and the fleets will always be manageable. If Stardock can implement a combat system that matches, let alone surpasses MOO2, GalCiv could become the new BEST GAME OF ALL TIME, and people will still be talking about it and playing it ten years from now. Incidentally if you have a chance to pick up Master of Orion 2 please treat yourself. Under no circumstances should you buy or even accept as a gift Master of Orion 3. That is officially the WORST SEQUEL OF ALL TIME.

Also MOO2 had multiplayer, which was a blast. I played it months after stopped playing the game against the AI and I was challenged every time.

However the turn based combat kinda made the multiplayer component a bit tedious at times. But a game like GC II with richer tech tree for combat and with tactical real time combat and multiplayer would indeed be the best 4X game ever.

I got to say RogueIdea, your ideas are GREAT!   I really hope that GalCiv 3 will have some of these things...  

Here is my Tactical ground combat basic idea for GalCiv3:

Tactical Ground Combat

Planets are divided into territories/provinces the number of which is based on the planet’s class, each territory must be battled for. The planet is under the control of whoever controls 70% or more.

The attacker must choose where to land his troops and attack, then progressively take the remaining territories. Reinforcements could be brought in on additional transports and added to his ground forces, or dropped in on the defenders territories to take more land.
The attacker could perhaps build fortifications to help strengthen his planetary hold once he has at least one of the territories.

The defender must place defending units into the territories to defend them, or attack the enemy where he has positioned his troops. If the defender can destroy the attackers fleet above his planet he could bring in his own reinforcements to help removed the attacking troops.

On the battle field of a territory we would see a large map with many small towns and cities, forests, mountains and all other kinds of terrain based on the planet type and population. The troops would move across this land and gain bonus’ from them etc. Think of a Civ IV(or even Romance of the 3 Kingdoms) like map that represents the terratory.

Realistically, if a planet is addaquately defended, it should take months to completely conquer. Of course you should be able to choose to have all this automated if you want and just check to see your progress on a planet by seeing how many territores you currently control.

The original GalCiv came out in 1993, so no, it's not. GC2 integrates some ideas from MOO, Ascendancy, and a number of other 4X space games of the last decade and a half but it's "spiritual predecessor" is pretty obviously GalCiv1.

Personally I'm really tired of MoO fanbois trying to turn this game into that game. I like this game better than that game. Tactical combat demands multiplayer, because AI's never going to be able to handle it as well as one might like. Turn this game into MoO with MP and tactical combat and it becomes useless as a single player game, which is the only thing that matters to me. GC2 is the best SP 4X game of all time, I'd hate to see the designed compromised in the name of turning it into a MoO clone.

Pleasw, whatever you guys do; do NOT make it turn-based tactical.

I like turn based tactical, but I also like a pause option in RTS like they used in games like IceWind Dale 2.(that was a squad RPG)

Turn based or pauseable tactical allows for more depth to battles, you can really utilize strategy better than just watching a mess of units all smashing eachother.