What's the big deal about having the OPTION?? How is that such a bad thing? You wouldn't have to click auto-reserve ever time, there could be an "always use auto-resolve" checkbox in options. THINK people, it's not going to HURT you, it's just adding an OPTION. SHEEEESH

You know auto-resolve really sucks, so you feel forced to use every tactical battle, every time.

You know, like in Rome Total War? If you're used to win every single battle where you outnumber the enemy 2 to one, only losing a few units, and then you hit auto-resolve and... Lo and behold! Significant defeat! Your faction leader dies!
And the alternative is to make every turn last an hour by fighting every last battle...

No. Thank. You.

Unless they design a way that the auto-resolve resolves based on your average skill.

And what if the auto-resolve worked exactly like combat does now in GC2?

Look i'm not asking for this in GC2, nor do i expect it, i'm just making a point that i wouldn't dislike it one bit. Alot of people feel the same way. And it's not b/c i, or others, are bad at strat games (i consider myself to be very good actually), but i also like absolute control. And i don't like to loose. EVER.

1. Having heros or leaders or whatever would be nice, but I don't seem it happening. Each ship already gets extra hitpoints. If you want to you could rename one of your units that has a lot of experience points; make it feel more important.

2. I personally am glad there is no tactical combat. It is impossible not to find exploits in the AI. This takes away the "I outsmarted a decent oppenent strategically feel". I don't want it replaced by, " I don't have to outsmart my opponent because I know in tactical combat that the opposition has no chance". Yes I know that there would be a on off switch. That I would feel obligated to use. Especially if you allowed to post on the metavarse while using tactical, I could not compete if I didn't use tactical combat. That's all I'm going to write about this topic even though I have more ideas.

3.I always like different gizmos

I hated tactical combat in MOO2. I rarely ever turned the option on. The only downside to that was I didn't get to design my own ships without it, which then meant I had to sit and watch the auto mode play out every time.

GalCiv2 has the best of both worlds...ship design without tactical combat. Leave it as is.

I don't think tactical combat would work for a game like this without great resources but perhaps a retreat option after you lose 50%, 60%,....90% of your fleet would be nice before going into battle as well as a few other options. It would be cool to give the order to try and capture an anlien vessel for research as well. What do you guys think??

Totall disagree with #1 and #2. Tactical is ugh abuse friendly. Not only that I certainly don't want more micromanagement controlling my ships and ground forces. Go here and conquer is good enough.

Not sure what you are asking for with #3. Ecm and the like is already in.

i'll toss my vote in the "not to include tactical combat" side ( just in case someone was keeping a statistical stat of how many ppl want / not want it).

things i want to see in future updates from MOO2:

1. Obstacles in Space (blackholes and unstable nebulas). I think this is something that would be nice in gc (it would add natural barriers & borders. Would be a nice way to add new random events (ie. A black hole forms in your backyard, or 2 planets in so and so solar system collided making an asteroid belt. It could also make the survey module more useful in end game because it can be used to navigate thru the obstacle.

2. Some form of hero system. could be just like moo2's or more like civ4's great prophets, but i just want someone to blame my poor management & tactical skills on.

3. A more robust fleet / ship governor (i would like to be able to upgrade my ships or my fleets from one screen). Having to disband a fleet and then move them to separate sectors just to upgrade ships is kinda annoying.

4. Cloaking technologies!! I want my Klingong Bird of Prey!!! (would make more sense to research down the sensor tech tree) as is i leave that tech tree alone.

5. Counter-Espionage. I dont like other civ's stealin my tech damnt or let them know what im doing period!

Something I would like to see that comes from Civ 4:
1. basically the Civ4 tech tree structure (multiple paths to different technologies, multiple requirements to research certain technologies) it would make trading techs more useful and more tactically challenging.

Great game! great as is but that's my wish list for gc3 or at least the next expansion/update.

I'm sure tactical combat isn't going to happen in GalCivII. I would love to see multiplayer instated though. I think that might happen in a future expansion.

The cited reason for not instating tactical combat was that it would be an unfair advantage for the player versus the AI. I do, however, wonder if tactical combat will possibly be put into a future sequel.

There is a possibility of Stardock doing a sequel to the great Master of Magic game of which tactical combat was a vital component. I think if they get the rights to produce a sequel that they would have to work out an effective AI in tactical combat for that game. Meaning, after doing MoM they might choose to do another GalCiv and add the tactical combat basing the AI off of what they learned with MoM. Just a theory.

I think if tactical combat was added then there would certainly be an addition of a greater variety of weapons.

However, personally, I'm not sure I'd be in favor of adding tactical combat even in a future GalCiv game as the game functions very well without it.

I've played many RTS games and sure tactical combat for GC2 would be nice, but only if the AI's skill is as good as its skill of managing turn based battle, and we humans have no way to exploit it; otherwise, leave thing as it is right now.

This game would absolutly suck with tacticle battles. In order for them to even have that, that would cut deeply into the resiources to make this a great, if not the greatest game ever.

Why in gods name would you want to add hours of meaningless battles to a game that on the larger galaxys can take days to finish.

Agreed, this has already been beaten to death in other threads. In summary, the two biggest issues are:

1) The development resources are not trivial, and it would involve design changes to the existing ship components, which whether you realize it or not will affect those of us who aren't interested in tactical combat as part of GC2. GC2 is not Stardocks focus for 2006. If any one game is going to be the focus, it would be Society. However, there's one other announced game (Political Machine 2008) and a hinted at game (MoM2?) that will also eat into developer time this year.

2) The amount of work to make a non-exploitable AI for tactical combat is off the charts, and Brad, the guy that would probably have to write the AI, doesn't like tactical combat, so it wouldn't get the love and attention he's given the strategic AIs.

You could upgrade the ships... granted that you can't use a planet to do it.. but you could certain upgrade the design

I know you can upgrade the designs, but can you refit the ships? I guess if you upgrade the design it automatically prompts you to spend money to refit all the ships?

I know you can upgrade the designs, but can you refit the ships? I guess if you upgrade the design it automatically prompts you to spend money to refit all the ships?

You certainly can upgrade existing ships after upgrading the design, click on a ship and in the interface's information window there is an upgrade command.

As for diplomacy not being useful, I would have to disagree. I often play the part of the black market arms dealer, research a great number of techs, and then discriminately trade with the weakest reces for some extra scratch. Also, there is the option to form alliances, you just need to get another race to a particularly high mood first.