Erm, MOO2 was gaming heaven and Galciv 2 was pretty damn close. I had 2 main beefs: No Tac combat and the planetary invasion visuals, which were not up to par w.r.t. the rest of the game (and lets not forget the automated exploration and the fact that the AI could be pretty retarded when it came to developing planets, ok that's 4, but these were minor ones). Nothing else comes even close, that's why its the Goddamn spiritual successor...phew, of MOO2.

@ Charon, that was a nice piece, really put things into perspective for me. Man, just thinking about MOO3 makes me want to vom. Draginol was very diplomatic about it, but MOO3 was a festering sore on the arse of space based gaming. Such a wasted opportunity, what a way to kill a franchise. Anyway back to galciv: I get it, its not supposed to be MOO2 (even though it is 90%+ the same thing ) it's something else, leaning towards CIV in a number of ways and Draginol is correct in that MOO/MOO2 were just competing militaries and I'm willing to entertain the idea that this is what made tac combat a greater necessity in such a game and why its not as necessary in a more strategic civilisation building game such as Galciv.

However, I am willing to bet a tidy sum on a hypothetical situation If tac combat had been included for Galciv3 I'm sure you would have all lined up to say what a brilliant idea it was, what a logical progression  

I'll add you to the tac com support list I got

Nope I don't see it. I just bought GC3 for $99. How long dose it take to show up?

Pitty Galciv hasn't got a startrek shell, GalCiv would be a great precessor of birth of the federation.

Technically, the beta for GalCiv came out before MoO. However, as far as the actual game-release is concerned, MoO came out first.

True. Especially considering, that the original GalCiv was inspired by Civ. Heck, the best way to describe GalCiv to this day is "Civ in space", in my opinion.

Same here. I like tactical combat a lot (most of my favourite games have it), but I don't want it in GalCiv. Why? Because I don't think every game being the same is a good thing. Also, there are already more than enough space 4x games catering to the tactical crowd. So leave one of the few space 4x games catering to the strategic crowd in peace.

I thought fleet battles weren't due 'til October ?

We tried to acquire the rights to Master of Orion explicitly so we could make a true Master of Orion game. That would have had tactical battles to die for.  But Wargaming.net (World of Tanks) acquired it and I presume (hope) they're working on a new MOO.  

I like tactical battles too but GalCiv isn't the place for them.  The fleet battles in GalCiv III, however, are far far more sophisticated than what we in GalCiv II.  But we don't want players having to give individual move orders to individual ships.  

That isn't to say we won't, over time, provide more options for user interaction during battles. We just don't want players feeling obligated to micro manage their ships in order to play the game at the higher levels.

Well i do think the way they do planetary improvements could be improved. 

Schaef, I think we will have a 'disabled' AI till October. Brad is the AI genius who writes the code. I do believe they want most of the features resolved and in game before he sits down and writes the code for each AI faction. 

I think he did a great job for GCII and it has been hailed as a really great AI (as compared to every other 4x game at the time). 

I am really looking to see how Brad makes each faction come alive in its pursuit of its goals, (Drengin war, Terran Diplomo, Altaria Tech, and others along their own lines)!

Great news!

I think the best way to describe the new ship combat is rather simple:  Admiral of the Fleet.

You decide which ships to bring to the battle, then will have the ability to issue general orders to the fleet (full attack, cautious probe, full retreat), possibly during the actual combat.

But you're not issuing specific orders to control individual ships. The captains of your ships are all AIs which follow your General Orders as best they can.

Quoting FROOKIE,

reply 26

However, I am willing to bet a tidy sum on a hypothetical situation If tac combat had been included for Galciv3 I'm sure you would have all lined up to say what a brilliant idea it was, what a logical progression  

You just lost your money. I doubt i would have preordered if i had read TC on the feature list.

For some years now i find TC combat tedious, boring and just a waste of time. Even in AoW3, where it is really good, i wish i wouldnt be forcved to use it due to the AI loosing troops left and right when i am choosing autocombat.

You can send me the money now, but i am OK with store credit.

I understand why tactical combat isn't going to be added. That said, I wouldn't mind a few changes to combat.

1) Have a time constraint on combat. By that I mean it isn't endless rounds until a ship/fleet wins. It could be set at say 10 rounds per turn (just throwing a number out). After that, both ships/fleets turn is over. This allows reinforcements to come in. This would also make it very hard to kill a starbase or starport with a puny ship. If you are dinging something at 1 hp a round, you shouldn't be able to destroy something that big that easily. So if you have a lot of firepower, boom, gone in one attack. If you don't, it will take more attacks/turns to kill the ship/fleet/base/port.

2) Combat stance. For example, I may want to have some skirmisher ships with long range and high speed. They would attack at long range and retreat. If the other ship/fleet is faster or has some kind of traction beam or other tech, they can negate that. Something similar to Endless Space but without the stupid cards. I am not saying it has to visually go to a new screen like ES for battles, but the idea of fighting at range, hit and run, closing to point blank or just retreating would add depth IMO.