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.

Not that discussion again, please! Dead horses and suff. Not only dead but decaying.


I'd like the UP to work a little more like in Alpha Centauri. At least allow us to buy votes from others during the meetings or something. Better yet, allow to vote a "leader" who can then bring forth issues to vote on. Actually, there are a lot of things you can change with respect to the UP, which would make the game feel way more alive with all the wheeling and dealing. Sure, adapting the AI is hard but still... I'd pay premium for an expansion that does nothing but beef up the UP considerably.

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.

All the points the OP presents have been discussed many times. This forum seriously needs an obvious search function - not that anyone would use it or it'd prevent this!

1. Would be nice but it's very fluffy to me - units that get xp works well enough.
2. Tactical combat is long, tedious, boring, and repetitive. It was fun in MOO2 on rare occasions til you had fleets of 50 ships fighting enemy fleets of 1 to 50+ ships.
3. I think some extra modules could be added and will be. Some stuff from MOO2 was too easily exploitable.

What I'd rather see from MOO2:

1. Specialized citizens for each race. It was cool when you took planets in MOO2 and got specialized citizens. They took a while to assimilate, you could move them around, and you could get interesting bonuses out of managing them.

But GC2 isn't MOO2 so it doesn't really matter.

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

MOO has been invocked many times in this conversation. While you do not want to make a clone one must remember there were many good things about MOO 1 and 2 and GC should take from that to enhanse the game. A tactical combat option would not be that big a drain because all you are doing is allowing changes in orders of attack and maybe work something like MOO 3 for the starship combat. ( I liked the MOO3 ship combat but the rest was messed up and the inability to upgrade......) As to an auto resolve being worse how could it be worse if you use the same attack sequence? Either way a tactic option would be easily incorperated with the hero options many people seem to want.

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 agree, I really miss tactical combat from Moo2 but the drawback is it would be exploitable - so how about tactical combat a la the original Homeworld since Gal Civ II is already in 3D. Combat like Homeworld would make more sense in this game.

I realize this would be a HUGE undertaking for Stardock, but it would be an awesome new feature that I would gladly pay for in an expansion pack.

Also, I would welcome the return of hero fleet leaders and governors the way MOO 2 had.

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??

If I want Tactical combat, I'll go dig a copy of Starfleet Command 2 out of the bargain bin somewhere. GC2 is great as it is.

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.

4. Elerians.

LOL Damn right!

Is a Galaxy so devoid of Space Hotties really worth fighting over?

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.

sigh you think peoeple would research these threads before posting them...isnt this the 6th one this week?

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.

ANOTHER tactical thread.

*sigh*

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.

1. Random Races - Adds more of a surprise element for each game.

2. Spies - With all the tangible starbases out there, espionage would be a hoot. Plus, with the size of the tech tree, research would be much easier for some races if they simply . . . stole it.

3. Wormholes - While they had an exaggerated presence in MOO3, the wormholes of MOO2 allowed you to expand your empire in many different directions quickly, so if you're stuck in a corner, you're not entirely doomed.

4. REFITTING SHIPS! - No more throw-away ships, simply refit them with upgrades to your designs.

5. A full-out zoom - This would help, especially on the larger maps, to get a feel for your empire without having to pull it around. MOO aided this by having a full-screen master map screen.

6. An income indicator on the main screen - GalCiv2 presents your total treasury, but neglects income, requiring you to open your finance ledger to notice it.

7. More interactive diplomacy - Diplomacy in GalCiv2 is pretty disappointing; essentially a big bartering board. No treaties here, just war or peace. No non-aggression pacts, no alliances, no research pacts, nothing (that I've seen). While GalCiv2 does have some interesting facets other than that (like giving up ships and individual planets more easily, or having fellow races complain about their neighbors) it just doesn't come across as very useful to 'deal' with other races. The way it's presented also seems to lack the splendor of chatting with other races like MOO 1/2 did with a huge opening presentation and stuff.

There are some others, but these are all basically nitpicks.

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.

4. REFITTING SHIPS! - No more throw-away ships, simply refit them with upgrades to your designs.

You could upgrade the ships...

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

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.

Tactical combat would be great, as would a civilopedia. Don't care about multi-player or espionage [less spying would be appreciated].

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?

for the person who didnt understand number 3, I was talking about adding more things to combat than just atk, def and hp.
also when saying ecm pulse, I meant emp device not another def thing.

they are things that can work for autocombat aswell
examples:
-a emp wpn than neutralize the enemy for 1-3 turns but can only be used once per combat(can only be put on medium-large hulls), the a.i will be programmed to use this on the ship with highest hp+def or hp+atk.
-a device that makes it so theres a chance the enemy shots will be reflected back onto itself(endgame device and has low chance of working).
-a cloaking device that makes the ships who were attacked invisible only for the first turn, that way these ships always get the first attack(although it will take alot of space)

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.