I also vote no on tactical combat - invariably this ends up being a way for people to exploit a loophole in the tactical system to make up for abysmal strategy or insufficient technological development.  I'd vastly prefer to observe from a strategic point of view and watch the battle play out.  At best I'd like to give my fleet commanders instructions such as "massive aggression", "total defense", "preserve force", "maximize damage", "strikecraft attack only" or somesuch.  Basically to choose between AI profiles to be used within the resolution of the fight.  

 Edit:  while I was thinking about it, it occurred to me that it would be nice to designate certain ship types as needing protection, and others as being defenders, etc.  For example, a main carrier that is mostly hangar space might commit less to defenses - but dedicated escorts in the fleet might be able to use their defenses to aid ships "in need of protection".  That would be a cool modifier to the existing system. 

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I am hoping for a better Combat & Ship Design System (I don´t mean the optical Ship design) for GalCivIII.

I'm fine either way but I like to play large maps and end up in a lot of fights and the thought of micromanaging hundreds of tactical battles per game is oppressing, so I lean towards no tactical due to the scale of the game.

Tactical is good in a game like FELH or Eador where you mostly use hero-lead armies, it's more RPG-like, and the battles are somewhat more on a personal level.

I'll be interested to see what take on the many systems they end up going with.

I can say that I most do non-conquest victories but would certainly not be against tactical combat.

The reason I never played Gal Civ 2 was the unbelievably awful combat. I dont mean the lack of tactical combat but the almost comically horrible "put 1 point in anti lasers to counter 1 point in lasers" rock paper scissors system and  ships float around in circles like dead fish in a tank randomly firing off weapons.

Tactical combat may not be a good fit for GalCiv3 but please fix the weapons and combat movies. The ships should be in formations you pick and actually do passes/strafing runs at each other.

This system would not only be more realistic and cool looking but allow for a more nuanced and rewarding weapon systems.  Instead of just damage and hp, you could add weapon ranges, cones of fire, burst weapons. Really fast ships could attack on a slightly beneficial angle.

...and we're certainly drawing upon bits and pieces from the Master of Orion series as we look to enhance the capabilities of our combat portion in our game. - Toadman

Is that supposed to be Frogboy? 'cause being called a Toad might be an insult to such an amphibian. Being called a man might be something new and interesting, though; we'll see how he likes it.

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Just my $.02:

GalCiv II was great in its own way and if it didn't appeal to certain people that's fine. Just like COD doesn't appeal to RTS fans, lets not encourage making this something that it's not. When you attempt to be a jack of all trades you end up being a master of none and that applies to everything.

Could the fleet combat use an upgrade or set of new eyes? Sure, and I think that's exactly what we're going to get. Until we get confirmation of what we're working with its still too early to have armchair arguments on what would be better. People have voiced their opinion on what they want but I don't think we're really looking at the scope of our development team. Based solely on assumption Stardock doesn't have the multimillion dollar development budget that "some" companies do. Even if they did, look at how many companies throw large sums of money into development and either outright fail, or fall terribly short of their goals. Lets encourage them to stick with what they've done well in the past that we know they will improve upon instead of asking for a brand new model.

Some of the suggestions (even to a layman) seem outright overcomplex and fall into the category of being unable to deliver even to those that suggested them. However nice it would be to play god on every battle and choose the weapon and craft that you are attacking in the scope of things would heavily detract from the managing of an empire. Playing a "very small" map with one or two opponents would likely turn into a multi hour micromanage feast every time your tin can noticed an opponents tin can.

The rock, paper, scissors style of combat worked as well as it did for two reasons. One it was very easy (and simple) to pick up and learn for the new player. Two it lends well to playing games on enormous maps that could (and did) take several multi hour sessions to play through.

If they (Stardock) were to completely revise the combat system to cater to the fans of tactical warfare, it must meet those two objectives. Simple enough for a newbie to pick up and enjoy, and streamlined enough where it doesn't bog down the other elements of gameplay. Keep in mind that in real life (for what its worth) the head of state very seldom has any hand in the tactical choices that troops (even SF units) make. Being that this is a game (and not a simulation of being commander in chief IRL) it must be enjoyable to play.

Anyone that has coded complex systems like this (or anyone really) can refute what I've said and point out how I was ever so wrong, and please do. Keep in mind however that Stardock is developing a game for mass appeal and designing off of a product that has worked well in the past.

/end rant

Okay so that was more like $.53 but whatever....

-Aer 

If they have, I haven't seen it posted. We probably won't hear specifics until its ready to go into alpha sometime this winter.

If past test cycles are any indication, each build (there were many builds in both the Alpha and Beta test cycles) will contain what was added in that build, which was an implicit statement of where they wanted us to concentrate our efforts.

Tactical should be an option.  Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game. This single feature was what made the difference between MOO2 and Galciv2 (where Galciv2 was worse IMHO).

Don't do RPS ala Endless space, don't do real time ala Stardrive. Make the combat interactive and interesting.

People who say we can easily exploit the AI have absolutey no idea what they're talking about. Making the combat turn based with a restricted movement system makes this simpler than chess to solve properly, and we HAVE solved chess AI's. 

Turn based, 1v1 restricted movement can make the computer excruciatingly good. So good, that you'd spend a while actually thinking about how you want your ships to do battle. If you don't like this feature, turn it off.

Master of Orion 2 had both options, and I suspect this debate is the reason: You can't please everyone with one solution, so make both. 

I'm all for tactical combat.