Tactical combat. » Forum Post by Ashbery76

i'm going to -1 on tactical combat, GalCiv has always been about strategy not tactics for me, more about fleet composition than learning the best way to mess with battle AI.

Also we already have overreaching strategy games with tactical battles, its called total war, you can also try KOH, MOO2, EAW+FC. Adding tactical combat to GalCiv would just make production times longer and add more things that could go wrong.

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I definitely want to see some kind of tactical combat from Galciv3. That doesn't mean I want GalCiv3 to be like MOO or SotS or any other game. I think there is a lot of different ways that you can take tactical combat. I'd just like to see GalCiv3 delve a little deeper than GalCiv2's "movie combat".

There are lots of different ways you could implement tactical combat:

1) Full Tactical turn based control (MOO2 style) - Choose every movement, choose every weapon that fires, choose your target

2) Full Real Time battles (Total War, MOO3, Imperium Galactica 2) - Choose every movement, choose your target. Weapons mostly fire automatically.

3) Limited turn based - Choose movement, perhaps target. Weapons fire on their own.

4) Simultaneous turn based - Both sides choose movement and targets, End turn, and the battle plays out in real time with weapons firing automatically.

5) General tactics (Star Trek: Birth of the Federation style) choose starting tactics for various groups of ships. No direct control over movement, weapons firing, or targets.

But, you see what I mean. In the end there are lots of options, and I'm sure lots of opinions on what people would like to see in GalCiv3. Personally, I just want to see SOMETHING.

+1

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Quoting chuck1es,

reply 75

Wouldn't galciv3 still be a strategy game even if we had dancing bears instead of ships?!?

Yes, but there is a difference between strategy game and tactical game.

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For me Moo2 and GalCiv are the classic 4x games. I always thought Moo2 did combat better and GalcCiv did everything outside of combat better. I've always wanted a game that had the best of both. So for all those against tactical combat. Did you not like Moo2? I think most people will agree that once you got huge fleets full of dreadnaughts it was a pain, but I still enjoyed most of the battles. With the logistics in galciv and todays tech you wouldn't have those huge fleet battles that take so long and could become so tedious.

Ideally I want combat that can do these things.

Auto resolve. I haven't run into many games where auto resolved sucked, but I guess some of you have. That is on the creators IMO to make it work well.

Options to watch the battle play out with no input from you, like the combat viewer in GalCiv2.

Option to control the combat directly Moo2 style. Boarding shuttles and capture!

Battle recorded so I can replay...and maybe this is asking too much but also the option at the end of a battle to save a copy to share or view your epic fights.

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Actually, I'd be more happy with the "movie combat" if the weapons equipped actually mattered and were distinct.

Lasers, projectiles and missiles have the same engagement envelope with roughly the same characteristics.

Meant I honestly didn't care which direction my weapons research went. There was no need to care. Pulled me out of the game's immersion.

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Another option for what you could argue would be "Strategic" combat but not "Tactical" combat would be something similar to "Gratuitous Space Battles".

Basically you have your starting fleet, and your opponent has his. You have NO CONTROL over the actual battle itself. However, the battle actually plays out realistically, instead of randomly and chaotically like GalCiv 2.

The two fleets fly towards each other, launch their long range weapons first. Fighters swarm into the middle, then the mid-range cruisers engage, and finally your heavy ships duke it out.

You can give very loose instructions to your ships, such as to stay in long range if possible, but that's all. Once you start the battle you have no control.

The game has a wide variety of long, medium, and short range weapons, so it's more complicated than simply the rock paper scissor of GalCiv2.

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Quoting TweetyLeaf,

reply 78

Quoting chuck1es, reply 75
Wouldn't galciv3 still be a strategy game even if we had dancing bears instead of ships?!?

Yes, but there is a difference between strategy game and tactical game.

?!?

Reply is odd...

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Quoting Murrdox,

reply 77

I definitely want to see some kind of tactical combat from Galciv3. That doesn't mean I want GalCiv3 to be like MOO or SotS or any other game. I think there is a lot of different ways that you can take tactical combat. I'd just like to see GalCiv3 delve a little deeper than GalCiv2's "movie combat".

There are lots of different ways you could implement tactical combat:

1) Full Tactical turn based control (MOO2 style) - Choose every movement, choose every weapon that fires, choose your target

2) Full Real Time battles (Total War, MOO3, Imperium Galactica 2) - Choose every movement, choose your target. Weapons mostly fire automatically.

3) Limited turn based - Choose movement, perhaps target. Weapons fire on their own.

4) Simultaneous turn based - Both sides choose movement and targets, End turn, and the battle plays out in real time with weapons firing automatically.

5) General tactics (Star Trek: Birth of the Federation style) choose starting tactics for various groups of ships. No direct control over movement, weapons firing, or targets.

But, you see what I mean. In the end there are lots of options, and I'm sure lots of opinions on what people would like to see in GalCiv3. Personally, I just want to see SOMETHING.

But isn't want we want is better combat. Not just tactical combat. Yes there are many ways to do tactical combat, but might there also be way to do better combat that wouldn't even be called tactical combat. Example civ5. That game's combat has a lot of elements like flanking and units with different range and even carriers. It has a fair amount of tactical depth, but it's not what you would call tactical combat.

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Quoting nomotog,

reply 83

But isn't want we want is better combat. Not just tactical combat. Yes there are many ways to do tactical combat, but might there also be way to do better combat that wouldn't even be called tactical combat. Example civ5. That game's combat has a lot of elements like flanking and units with different range and even carriers. It has a fair amount of tactical depth, but it's not what you would call tactical combat.

Yes, you're correct, and I could see Civ-style combat "working" in a way in a Galciv type game. At a very basic level, what Civ does is remove the distinction between tactical and strategic battle. The overworld is both your empire development, troop movement, and battleground all rolled into one. You could look at Sins of a Solar Empire as being sort of the same way.

But I agree, "better combat" is what we want. To me personally as a gamer, that means:

1) Giving me more tactical choice for my ships besides lasers, missiles, ballistic and shields, armor, chaff.

2) Giving me, as the player, some kind of control over the battlefield beyond simply troop movements.

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If everyone who is against tactical combat will just sign an agreement that they also don't want a ship designer and any real focus on ships weapons/systems/etc in the tech then I will gladly give you my vote. You could reduce ships to a few 3d models representing class and combat to a simple game of who has greater numbers. The problem in galciv 2 was that the majority of the game game centered on ships and ship combat , except the combat itself.

Seriously if your anti-tactical combat you should be first in line to ask that these things be gone and the game focus more on true strategic level mechanics.

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Quoting Jam3,

reply 85

If everyone who is against tactical combat will just sign an agreement that they also don't want a ship designer and any real focus on ships weapons/systems/etc in the tech then I will gladly give you my vote.

The thing is that building certain type of ships was a blast for me at least. Because what you did fit into those ships gave you upper hand over certain enemies.

If you guys have ever played eve-online, the fittings mater so much in there that almost half the battle is resolved before it starts. Another almost half the battle is decided when you think "Is my ship good enough to attack that ship".

I think the same goes with GalCiv2 with lesser extent and should be the way to go in GalCiv3 also.

In Galciv2 i built a sensor ships with nothing but sensors on them to get as much info of the hostile fleet movements to decide what i do and where. I also built "fast striking squads to use to divert enemy movement etc etc.

That is the way of grand strategy combat i want to see and that's why i absolutely love ship building.

Real focus to weapons and much truly different options matters because what i wrote there.

+1

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If playing with legos was your thing more power to you but it had ZERO impact on the game. As to how much shields/speed/etc you could cram in a box/er ship it really was mostly a waste of time and nothing like eve all that ultimately mattered was how many rocks you brought versus how much paper the opponent had. This is not a choice its an illusion and theres a huge difference. And for all of us in the pro tactical battle camp this illusion is one we see right through.

Those on the other side want to have your cake and eat it; you want the illusion of gameplay and not to be bothered with a tactical level of the game. Acting like you want some pure strategy game is dishonest unless your willing to throw away the lego bricks and all the trappings that go with it, you either want a game or you want a toy. Will Wright ended his status in the game community with this for pretty much the same dilemma with Spore.

+1

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If I'm honest I'm not sure I want to micromanage an invasion force or a fleet in tactical combat. That being said, it just isn't enough to sit and 'watch' a battle take place. There has to be some in-between. Maybe the option of auto-battle vs hands on manual control of every move. If tactical control is in, however, I think it should be real-time like in TotalWar. Perhaps that battle model is a good one to emulate.

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Quoting Jam3,

reply 87

If playing with legos was your thing more power to you but it had ZERO impact on the game. As to how much shields/speed/etc you could cram in a box/er ship it really was mostly a waste of time and nothing like eve all that ultimately mattered was how many rocks you brought versus how much paper the opponent had. This is not a choice its an illusion and theres a huge difference. And for all of us in the pro tactical battle camp this illusion is one we see right through.

Those on the other side want to have your cake and eat it; you want the illusion of gameplay and not to be bothered with a tactical level of the game. Acting like you want some pure strategy game is dishonest unless your willing to throw away the lego bricks and all the trappings that go with it, you either want a game or you want a toy. Will Wright ended his status in the game community with this for pretty much the same dilemma with Spore.

That's very harsh text if you think that one ship with powerful sensors wasn't a good ship to build in galciv2 strategically...

I like tactical combat, one of my all time favorite games is Silent Storm 2. Is that tactical combat enough for you ?

I mean come on dude, do you honestly think that i wouldn't be all over the tactical combat of galciv3 IF they would spend so much resources on the game that its on the AAA category and actually manage to implement very, very good tactical combat AND grand strategy ?

Its sadly often that the companies need to choose where they will allocate resources and i for one, sadly do not believe GalCiv3 will sell GTAV or Skyrim numbers, or even close, to justify very long and large production that would actually get us the both aspects.

Its sad, but its also true.

EDIT: Stardock dudes can correct me if i'm wrong here of course and this assumption is not disrespecting the effort you guys there will put into the game. On the contrary, but i do try to be realist of my expectations.

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MottiKhan

Join Date 04/2007

+152

Quoting Jam3,

reply 87

If playing with legos was your thing more power to you but it had ZERO impact on the game. As to how much shields/speed/etc you could cram in a box/er ship it really was mostly a waste of time and nothing like eve all that ultimately mattered was how many rocks you brought versus how much paper the opponent had. This is not a choice its an illusion and theres a huge difference. And for all of us in the pro tactical battle camp this illusion is one we see right through.

Those on the other side want to have your cake and eat it; you want the illusion of gameplay and not to be bothered with a tactical level of the game. Acting like you want some pure strategy game is dishonest unless your willing to throw away the lego bricks and all the trappings that go with it, you either want a game or you want a toy. Will Wright ended his status in the game community with this for pretty much the same dilemma with Spore.

You're way off the mark here. Ship design is strategic. The type of build you use for a particular purpose is strategic and can mean the difference between winning and losing the game. Your ability to build a particular ship is dependent in part on your economy, technology, manufacturing base and political type/will. An early decision can have consequences that you'll have to live with for the rest of the game.

When a ship makes a right turn and how/when it fires are tactics. You're given a ship by the strategist and you make it work to the best of your ability. So you want a shoot-em-up. That's not what the GalCiv series has been so far and I hope it's not where it's going.

A few tactics might be a nice addition as long as it doesn't detract from the strategic game.

There's no illusion here.

Here's a "dummy's" explanation for those of you who get the two confused...

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/strategic-planning-strategy-vs-tactics.html

+1

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I'd hardly call tactical combat a "shoot-em-up"...

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Quoting MottiKhan,

reply 90

That's not what the GalCiv series has been so far and I hope it's not where it's going.

And i hope you're wrong and they will add tactical combat (in any form).

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We're all getting perilously close to flamin' each other.

We should just agree that I'm right and move on.

+3

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Quoting Murrdox,

reply 84

Quoting nomotog, reply 83
But isn't want we want is better combat. Not just tactical combat. Yes there are many ways to do tactical combat, but might there also be way to do better combat that wouldn't even be called tactical combat. Example civ5. That game's combat has a lot of elements like flanking and units with different range and even carriers. It has a fair amount of tactical depth, but it's not what you would call tactical combat.

Yes, you're correct, and I could see Civ-style combat "working" in a way in a Galciv type game. At a very basic level, what Civ does is remove the distinction between tactical and strategic battle. The overworld is both your empire development, troop movement, and battleground all rolled into one. You could look at Sins of a Solar Empire as being sort of the same way.

But I agree, "better combat" is what we want. To me personally as a gamer, that means:

1) Giving me more tactical choice for my ships besides lasers, missiles, ballistic and shields, armor, chaff.

2) Giving me, as the player, some kind of control over the battlefield beyond simply troop movements.

The more I think about civ5's combat, the more I think it could actually work work. Maybe even better then it did in Civ5. I am just musing right now, but it allows for a lot of the details you want from a tactical battle without having to include an tactical mini game. That is what tactical combat is. It's a sub game inside another game.

You know you could have each of the three weapon types having their own range. (Missiles long range, drivers normal range. beam point blank.) The different defenses could have new affects besides just countering a particular weapon type. Like armor is the basic defense. Maybe shields have the ability to stay at full defense even when your damaged. Other defenses that get weaker when your damaged. EMC defenses could extend to friends in adjacent squares. (You could do all kinds of components that give bonuses to ships near by you.) You could play around with movement. Maybe fighter craft that actually move across tiles occupied by enemies to strike craft hiding behind the lines. (Maybe your enemy has a command ship giving all kinds of bonuses to their fleet hiding behind a line of ships. Sneak your strike craft through the line and swarm it.)

You could even merge space combat with ground combat. Use transport ships to drop troops on a planet and then have your ships in orbit firing down on enemy units on the plant. Maybe beam weapons are so precise that they can damage the enemy unit without damaging the tile, but a mass driver destroys the tile along with the unit.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. All the different things you can do with it and how well it just nestles right in to the other aspects of game.

Of coarse the main thing I want is more in depth combat. By any means necessary. The how is lees important.

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There are far more interesting things that can be done at the strategic level than decide whether or not to get +1 to your lasers for ship combat that numbs your brain. I never said those things had nothing at all to do with "strategy" and good lord this is not an argument over what is strategic and what is tactical. Ships at both tactical and strategic levels in all of these games are an important element but they really shine when it matters in some form of tactical battle. And if you leave that out then the strategic elements they do provide become mostly meaningless and somewhat blurry as to whether there a) strategic or tactical, meaningful in any way at all c) fun.

I am actually kind ok if the game doesn't focus in any significant way on ships. Think of all the interesting things they could do at the strategic level with exploration, diplomacy, etc. The last thing we need is alot of focus on lego building of ships and +1 syndrome and tech trees mostly full of ship upgrades. I am not saying it needs to be removed completely just not a primary focus if there is no tactical game that gives you a payoff. Just abstract the ship system and focus on other things.

And yes if your acting like there is some massive strategic game play from deciding how many lasers to put on your ships versus missles your being a bit disingenuous or are kidding yourself because you do like the "toy" aspect of the ship building in galciv2. The sensor boat example is one tiny example of how it did matter strategically in galciv 2 but still there is no reason to force person to decide how many sensor points to put on a ship to add to that strategic element it also makes the ai worse, have one sensor ship type and end it there.

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What i'm trying to say here, if someone would actually finally get my point is that, i think they need to add strategic elements to the game and not tactical elements.

Like Jam3 said, +1 does suck.

What i want to see is the actual improvement of choices, in this case ship modules etc, that have a drawback.

Those drawback would force you to make hard decisions on what to put on those ships and how to build your fleets.

If they add characters to the game, those would affect obviously.

Absolutely everything should have a drawback that makes planning and your decision making the crucial point of if you win the "tactical battle" or auto-resolve or whatever.

The decision making before the battle should be enhanced so that the strategical choices player makes would matter more.

I'm in no means against some control over battlefield when in battle, but i absolutely do not want to see badly implemented shallow tactical gameplay that ruins the whole game.

Happened to a lot of 4x games.

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psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

I suck at GC2. I suck at Civ4 too.

I'm just bad at these games. I like them alright, they're not my favorite but I enjoy the strategic gameplay on it's own, but I'm not any good at them. I never have been.

I can win though, pretty easily. I do it by exploiting the combat system.

Some of you seem to think that tactical combat results in an AI that can be exploited and thus makes the game too easy, but an automated system does too or none of you could ever beat the GC2 AI when it was cheating. I shouldn't even be able to beat it at normal, I'm just too lazy about optimizing my output to keep up.

Where I beat it was in determining how best to minimize my casualties. I built fleets of ships, designing them specifically with durability in mind for the primary target, and damage for the rest. One ship that would survive, the rest of the logistics taken up in sheer damage. It worked great. I rarely lost ships, they gained loads of experience, and I was able to routinely fight back superior forces even though I was always way behind in research.

A bad AI does make it easy to exploit a tactical combat system, it's quite true. It's not any different from how the predecessor is though. The system was simple enough that it was in effect, bad AI. It did the same thing every time, and thus in being predictable, could be countered. The same was true of the previous stack based combat from GC1. It always worked the same way, and was thus easy to exploit for a tactical advantage over the AI, which didn't really understand the value of it's ships and how they would be selected. It would routinely sacrifice damaged ships of great value for no reason.

Good tactical AI is work, but so is good strategic AI. I would not expect a bad tactical AI from Stardock, not with their recent experience. I wont expect it to out-think me either, but without tactical combat it will just change what the AI has to out-think me on.

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I'm personally for more of a "gratuitous space battles" approach. (I still remember putting MOO2 on Auto in a big fight and checking up on the computer every five minutes or so to see how the battle was going...)

That said, I'd like battles to have a bit more choice. I'd be cool if a typical mid-game fleet-to-fleet battle took two or three game turns, with different options available to me each turn:

Hiring two pirate ships I spotted in the system as reinforcements.
Telling the spy I inserted in the fleet to disable the flagship for one turn.
Moving my fleet into the local asteroid field, because my shields can take the punishment better than his.
Sitting still and spreading out mines, to hamper my opponent's fast fighter ships in the next engagement.
Hiding my damaged ships inside a gas giant while they are repaired.
Bribing an enemy subcommander to report his ships as heavily damaged, affecting how the enemy commander will place them.
Dedicating one task force to diverting asteroids from the asteroid belt, so they might slam into my opponent's home planet unless he blocks them somehow.
Blasting propaganda towards my opponent's planets, in an attempt to incite civil unrest.
Making raids on support ships so that the enemy's ammo supplies will be limited.
Sending a ground force to Endor the nearby moon and disable the shield generator which is making my life difficult.
Activate a one-shot alien artifact that provides superior ECM for two turns.

You know, something to keep each battle memorable and distinct.

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MottiKhan

Join Date 04/2007

+152

Quoting chuck1es,

reply 93

We're all getting perilously close to flamin' each other.

We should just agree that I'm right and move on.

LOL! I don't even know what your opinion is, but when you put it that way, it makes perfect sense.

+1

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The weapons simply need to differ in their use. That'll likely make the tac-hats much happier and keep the strat-cats fat 'n lazy.

Even if it's simply engagement envelopes. Implementing that would require at least a basic form of tactical choice before starting the movie. Probably end up with a number of rounds per combat and seperate choices per round.

Like, damnit, Endless Space.

+1

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