I am thinking that they are thinking more of a baulders gate style system

Well, there goes my faithful recreation of Pyrrhus's assault on Argos.

Wasn''t Frogboy talking about "continuous turns", saying that sins of a solar empire combat was like a continuous turn system ? here and here (reply 9)

I prefer tactical combat with tiles, I remember a "tileless" system in HoMM4 which was pretty bad imo.

I think tiles make the situation more clear and easier to plan ahead - for example when you know how many tiles you can move, you know which enemy units you can reach, and which ones can reach you after your move (unless the battle system is "realtime with pause" as suggested earlier instead of truly turn-based). The new screenshots may look more realistic than the old one with tiles, but I agree with Epaminondas73 that they look pretty chaotic.

I remember a NON-tile based system in Total War, and it was pretty good imo.

The rules of combat will be handled in turns, but from what I understand movement will be more-or-less in real time if you choose it so.

If it is like Baldur's gate or better Icewind dale 2 (almost the same difference) that would be great for me but I think it would be wise to consider a Mechwarrior 3D zoom in zoom out style. It would appeal to the younger consumers and make Elemental unique as it allows 2D or zoom in and turn it into 3D. Taking control of a unit in battle in a first person mode would really appeal to the Hack and Slash consumer while still retaining the old school strategy turn based consumer as one can choose not just play old school way.

One thing I would real like to have is a screen that logs the combat actions realtime (damage, attack roll, Critical hits, etc).

Also one of the things that I did not like about the tactical screen in Age of Wonders was that the trees, rocks water, mountains, etc did not seem to matter in much other than range attack. If one tried to use a unit that could hide itself or use invisibility magic it seem to not work. Trying to use the high ground to get the advantage only seemed to work in town battles but not in other parts of the map.

It would be nice to be able to have the same up close and personal feel for RPing, specific quests, dungeons, Merchants, etc. as well.

For what its worth the tactical battle screen is what got me hooked on Age of Wonders. I just loved having a completely different screen and feel to my battles compared to what I had for the rest of the game. Being able to see my favorite units up close and personal and in action also made the game much more enjoyable. I enjoyed it so much that many times if the battle was very fun for me I would replay it a few times using different tactics. I spend many hours at times with just one battle trying to challenge myself and the limitations of the units I choose.

I ... doubt there will be a "First Person Hack n Slash" option for the Tac Battles, unless you just mean Camera Perspective, then sure. I am relatively certain that the Tac Battles will be more or less 3-D with lots of Zoom/Camera options.

Well for me that works just great anything with the flexibility and massive options for unit, hero creation is enough to take me to the moon. I just thought when I saw the screen-shot that maybe Stardock was attempting to do some sort of first person skirmish battle option in the tactical screen. I had never seen it mixed with turn based games and thought they may be attempting to do an "arena" style option for the young ones with the typical Hack and Slash mode.

Well, I remember I tried to play one of the Total War series games, and the combat was too complicated for me. I had no idea how to control these hundreds of soldiers to achieve good results. So if the combat system in Elemental is similar, it's not a game for me (I know there will be an option not to control my units in battle, but I think it will be better to do it to fully enjoy the game).

You have bad eyes Epaminondas. Here is a bigger screenshot:

I see these screen shots and my hopes go way up, I can't believe that there will actually be a fantasy based TBS game that allows for so real armies in 3D that can be played on normal computers (not high end ones) and I will still have the option to control the whole battle, not just auto resolve. One thing though I know it is still early but the units need more "color flavor" everything is gray except dragon and the giants. ... yes I know "patience grasshopper"...

One has to be concerned about the tactical combat.The issues are Stardock have no experience in making games with tactical battles and they are going to be added in just a few months before the game is shipped.

I expect a very simple tactical battle system in Elemental.Do not expect MOM,MOO2 depth.

It had tiles, they were just a lot smaller than before.

The battlefield was divided into parts, but they were too small to count as "true tiles" for me. It wasn't possible (at least for me) to determine precisely to which tile a unit would be moved.

I always played it with movement shadows on, so they were pretty obvious.

It's because of their armors. It looks like that most of the units [on that screenshot] are wearing the same armor type. [Probably some heavy iron plates or something like that.]

Huh....why do you think so? We gonna have a tactical combat BETA [4], and if it won't be good enough, we can make our complaints about it. Constructive feedback = the devs are happy.

Well, I want to be able to paint my Crummy Armor Red, or my Iron Armors Red.

I want Blue legions, Green Legions, Red Legions, and Yellow Legions

I prefer a simple system. Disciples I & II had a very simple one, but it was quite enjoyable (and the battles didn't take as much time as in some other games). I don't want it to get too complicated, like the Total War series.

Total War system was only modestly complex, and very intuitive.  Especially when you got the "feel" for how much punishment certain units could take.  If the combat system gets significantly dumbed down you run into the problem of it being pointless to include it in the game.

Personally, if I can get the "feel" for the combat system the way I did with total war, I will be a happy guy.  There is nothing like just sitting there and praying that your outnumbered spear wall can hold against the enemy infantry long enough for that cavalry that you sent out earlier to crash into their flank.  And then the unpleasant feeling you get when that first unit begins to rout, and then the enemy breaks through and rolls up your line as everyone gets swept away in the panic.

Except now that panic can be caused by a massive dragon.

The only time consumer in TW was travel.  If they have an engagement range setting that changes the expanse of the tactical map, you could set up for those large, time consuming battles, or do point blank bloodsport instead.

Not much is going to be as brain dead fast as Disciples though.  I never did make it through the campaign.

Yeah, it would be cool. I've made a suggestion about this a while ago.

I actually like the idea of battles being something like Baldurs' Gate, where you could pause the action anytime and give orders to your squads, and even queue them. This makes combat strategic and maneagable for us "slow" thinkers, but still makes it thrilling.

I really hope tactical battles get to the final version of the game (as opposed to simply watching them develop like in GalCiv2).

By the way, being a retired tabletop Warhammer player, it would be cool to see squads with captains and standards. Maybe this is too much to expect, but it could be an idea for the modders out there.

I think a "phase-based" combat (a phase of giving orders, then a phase when all units move and fight simultaneously for a fixed amount of time, then an orders phase again and so on) is a better idea than BG-like pausable battles. In multiplayer it can be annoying if the opponent pauses the combat every few seconds, and if the pause is disabled in MP it becomes an RTS, which TBS-lovers like me don't like.

While constant pausing in MP can be kinda annoying, I don't like this phase-based combat idea. That being said, an optional real turn based mode is a must have, especially for MP.