Will we be getting turn based or real time tactical combat ?
I presume we are getting tactical combat in the series finally.
How about a hybrid?
No direct control, but general orders. Like 'first division, advance to optimum weapon range', or 'cruisers, stay out of range of their guns' and maybe 'retreat once you lose X% of HP'. It'd give us the interactivity we tactical gamers crave without completely alienating the pure grand strategy crowd.
Endless Space kind of went into that direction with their battle cards system, but they didn't take the concept as far as it could go.
The combat system needs to change from GalCiv 2, lets face it; the paper/rock/scissors mechanic is outdated and just not enjoyable. Tactical combat will simply add another layer of strategy to GalCiv 3 that is badly needed.
Oh my god...if there's a card mechanic in galciv3...
Yeah I definitely don't want to see an Endless Space style system. Worst combat system I think I have ever seen. Really the dream combat system would be something like what they did in Sword of the Stars 2. Too bad that game was mostly none functional in almost every way besides having great graphics, and tactical combat. If GalCiv3 could deliver a functional amazing 4X experience with combat that approaches that level of depth with directional armor, and multiple planes to simulate 3D battle space that would be awesome. For those that don't like it I assume some kind of autobattle option would be there.
I've edited my post a bit to get my point across better. I'm not looking for a card system exactly like Endless Space had (although I do think it did a tolerably good job), but something like putting the player in the fleet admiral's position, rather than giving them direct captaincy over every single vessel in the fleet.
Giving orders to ships not individually but by division or class, passing out formation and engagement range orders rather than manually positioning everything. That kind of thing.
Sots 2 FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! But whatever you pick I'm sure to be happy camper! ie GCIII!
So kinda like what I've mentioned before:
More of a "playbook" instead of some magical card system.
Tactics, maneuvers, etc. They could all be something player created.
Hoping for no real time at all - just about any turn based option I would be willing to give a shot, but haven't yet seen a real time combat engine I like. I don't want any RTS in my TBS.
I've been having a lot of fun with the Total War series' approach of a turn-based strategy layer and pauseable real-time tactics (although Rome II has turned out to be a bit of a stinker ). It still retains the good old TBS feel on the strat layer while allowing for something that has a somewhat more fluid and open feel than turn-based combat without making things dependent on twitch reflexes.
Not sure if it's the right thing for the GalCiv series, but the combination of TBS and RTS (or pRTT, rather ) can work pretty well.
I'm happy with turn base combat which you can control. Even if its like programming your dudes in Dominion 4.
The problem with the card system in Endless Space is that there are plenty of researchable cards which are free and unlimited in use. So each battle is an annoying card spam. If cards were limited then you and the AI would have to use them sparingly.
Personally, I'm not sure a card system would do it for GC3. The one thing you could say about the combat resolver in GC2 was that if you and the AI brought evenly-matched fleets it would be a fair fight. Of course, that almost never happens.
The thing I worry about more than tactical combat is that if I bring three fleets and the AI brings only one that evenly matches one of mine, it's going to get massacred, and it won't matter about tactical decisions. Of course it's usually the AI with the numbers advantage, so maybe nothing to worry about, huh.
I'd like to see some Tactical combat but truthfully a lot of other strategy games have tried this and the results haven't been that great. Maybe they can borrow some code from Sins for this game
Can we just keep the combat like Sins please. Who the fricking hell wants to click a button per each players turn in Multiplayer games. totally lame.
WEGO is my vote. Allow the player to plot out his orders before the battle begins, but once it starts, the fleet's commander is on his own.
No need for tact combat in GC. If you get your ass kicked, you go back and design better ships!
must i once again +1 both !?!
well i just did. Ofc it would be a work-load for the guys at stardock, to offer some realtime battle mechanics, but the addition would bring the game to a whole new level. Hell, even if "just" some fleet realtime battle. I know as mentioned by some, "planetary-battle-take-over" as real time strategy would be heavenly, but i have no doubt everyone here who types that knows; the massive amount of work that would go into that. Maybe it could evolve to that some day. But, for now, just even some realtime fleet/space battles ....could & would be farking fantastic... and you all know it would
I would like tactical fleet battles and tactical ground battles, but I want them to be turn based. No reason they have to be in real time.
Any experienced TW fan will tell you that the tactical AI is the number one problem of those games...it is extremely tricky and can singlehandedly destroy all the hardwork put into the rest of the game...if SD can pull it off, more power to them, but it is definitely very risky...
For all it's flaws, the card system of endless space is a better and safer model to pursue...those who've played the disharmony expansion will note that it is a lot more than just cards as you also have formations and target selection strategies...you also have heros and hero abilities which are important at the competitive level...I see no reason why SD couldn't pull off a similar system that doesn't come off as too simplistic...
Egads, Endless Space...
I play that game off and on. I think my biggest beef with it (I made peace with the card idea before purchasing) is that using AUTO is a no-go simply because I would take much more damage and lose more ships with it where in MANUAL I wouldn't lose one ship, take much damage and destroy the enemy fleet in the process. Choosing the same options, etc., doesn't provide the same results.
Just to clarify, auto-resolve isn't what I would want. I want a full on cinematic battle viewer so I can watch my admirals and fleets do their job.
I loved Master of Orion II. I hope someone makes a worthy Master of Orion IV ... let's just forget III. Anyhoo, I didn't mind the tactical combat in MOO ... but that was MOO. GalCiv isn't MOO. GalCiv is GalCiv.
I did and do wish for something a bit more than GC2's combat viewer ... I wish different technologies could give different weapon ranges and firing rates on weapons, not just simple weapon strength versus armor/shields/anti-missile defenses protecting hitpoints.
And on that note, I think Brad said it best here:
http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/88762/Galactic_Civilizations_is_not_Master_of_Orion
Galactic Civilizations is not Master of Orion Easing up on the demands Published on October 8, 2005 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals Back in 1992 I was in college and was writing a computer game called Galactic Civilizations for IBM's OS/2 operating system. I hung out on Usenet's comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic and almost like a collaborative design team, the users on that news group, where I was (and still am) a regular put together the features for this game. I had started a little company called Stardock Systems in order to help pay for school and this game was being done under that umbrella. IBM was very kind and sent me some software and tools and "red books" to help me write it. I also had bought Teach Yourself C in 21 days in order to program it. The game also started a tradition that lasts to this day -- open betas. Users who pre-ordered the game could participate in the beta program and tell us what they wanted changed or tweaked in the game. The betas were released in late 1993 and 1994. But unknownst to us, we weren't the only ones interested in making a space-based strategy game. Another new company had been started called Simtex and they had made a game called Master of Orion. It was released at Christmas 1993. Because they were separated by OS platforms, the two existed side-by-side. One might argue that we made the wrong choice in choosing OS/2. After all, Master of Orion is considered a classic while Galactic Civilizations on OS/2 was a technological footnote. But in reality, could a game written by a 20 year old college student in his spare time have gotten the kind of coverage that Galactic Civilizations received if it weren't for OS/2? The publicity Galactic Civilizations received helped build the momentum that takes Stardock to where it is today. Or put another way, Stardock exists today, many game developers in that time have long since vanished. Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations wouldn't tangle again so directly until 2003 when Galactic Civilizations for Windows and Master of Orion 3 would face off. Since I made the original and was designing the new one, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Master of Orion 3 was made by a different company - though on a much higher budget. This time they were both on the same platform and during development, there were heated discussion by fans of each (which typically involved people on moo3.com slagging GalCiv). Since GalCiv had an open beta, and anyone who's been in one of our betas knows how crappy our games are until the very end, the MOO fans could rightly point out how ugly GalCiv was looking. We were competing against something that had no open beta, just a few choice screenshots that looked, admittedly pretty good. Then Master of Orion 3 shipped and things changed. Regardless of ones feelings on Master of Orion 3, it was not what fans were expecting. What I think many fans wanted was Master of Orion 2 with some tweaks and better graphics. Master of Orion 3 was many things but it was not Master of Orion 2 with some tweaks and better graphics, it was very different. Master of Orion 3 actually sold better than Galactic Civilizations -- a lot better. 3 years of pre-ordered ensured it had a massive foot print at retail. When it came out you could find rows and rows of Master of Orion 3 boxes and then would have to dig around to find a box of Galactic Civilizations. Still, the game sold well with nearly 100,000 sold in North America either directly from Stardock or through retail via Strategy First. Some unknown number (probably around 50,000) was sold overseas. Not too bad. The reviews of Master of Orion 3 and sales (when compared to its budget) made it unlikely that Atari would be doing a Master of Orion 4 any time soon. GalCiv, whose budget was about 1/10th of MOO 3's, was ready to do a sequel with a bigger budget and a more vigorous marketing strategy. So what about all those Master of Orion 3 fans who wanted MOO 2.5? If my email inbox along with forum posts are any indication, they would have Galactic Civilizations II be that game. But it isn't. It's not supposed to be. The forums really only give a taste of the nit-picking that MOO fans submit but it's there. Whether it be demands for players to do orbital bombardments without having to invade the planet to demands for tactical combat ("I should be able to select which weapon fires on which ship!"). That isn't to say we won't put in good ideas when we hear them. But Galactic Civilizations has always been a strategic game. It's never been a game about tactics. It's literally a class of civilizations. You're building a civilization and you want to see how it is able to compete against other civilizations. Ship design was added for the sequel not to be more like Master of Orion but to help extend the clash of civilizations story-arc: Players can take different weapons and defense technology paths and it would have become ridiculously complicated to stick with the "Technology gives you Ship X" methodology that GalCiv I gave you. We had to have a way for players to choose what types of weaponry and defenses to put on their ships. The 3D engine made it too tempting not to let people visually design their own ships. Fleet battles in Galactic Civilizations II carries forward the clash of civilizations vision as well. Because fleet sizes are limited by ones logistics ability, it forces players to decide whether to focus on a few huge ships or fleets of smaller ships. Ultimately, the game revolves around whose civilization can adapt best technologically, culturally, industrially, and militarily to a given random galaxy with a given random mix of aliens controlled by carefully designed AI algorithms. Master of Orion is not designed to be a clash of civilizations in this sense in my view. It's a clash of militaries. In MOO, at any level, cranking out the ships was rarely an issue. In the original, fleets of 30,000 ships was not uncommon. The game down to being able to design the most effective ships and match them to your own tactical battle strategy the best. The end-game typically revolved around a genocide run with each player zipping into a system with a massive fleet (held back by how large a USHORT was -- 65,535 ships in a group) and wiping out the planet. The player with the faster ships could annihilate faster and thus win the game. A fairly well known story about me and Master of Orion involves the birth my first son. I played Master of Orion 2 in the delivery room on a laptop while waiting for my son to be born. Hence, I know when MOO2 shipped because I was playing it on November 30, 1996 when it was still very new. Or put another way, I'm a MOO fan too. But that doesn't mean I want to clone it anymore than I want to clone Civilization (which, after all, has a very similar title). At the end of the day, we have our own ideas on what makes a fun game and want to pursue that. And I can sympathize with Master of Orion fans who, ten years after MOO 2's release, are still looking for what they see as a "true sequel". But please stop trying to push MOO on us. We don't see being different from MOO as a flaw.
Back in 1992 I was in college and was writing a computer game called Galactic Civilizations for IBM's OS/2 operating system. I hung out on Usenet's comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic and almost like a collaborative design team, the users on that news group, where I was (and still am) a regular put together the features for this game.
I had started a little company called Stardock Systems in order to help pay for school and this game was being done under that umbrella. IBM was very kind and sent me some software and tools and "red books" to help me write it. I also had bought Teach Yourself C in 21 days in order to program it. The game also started a tradition that lasts to this day -- open betas. Users who pre-ordered the game could participate in the beta program and tell us what they wanted changed or tweaked in the game.
The betas were released in late 1993 and 1994. But unknownst to us, we weren't the only ones interested in making a space-based strategy game. Another new company had been started called Simtex and they had made a game called Master of Orion. It was released at Christmas 1993.
Because they were separated by OS platforms, the two existed side-by-side. One might argue that we made the wrong choice in choosing OS/2. After all, Master of Orion is considered a classic while Galactic Civilizations on OS/2 was a technological footnote. But in reality, could a game written by a 20 year old college student in his spare time have gotten the kind of coverage that Galactic Civilizations received if it weren't for OS/2? The publicity Galactic Civilizations received helped build the momentum that takes Stardock to where it is today. Or put another way, Stardock exists today, many game developers in that time have long since vanished.
Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations wouldn't tangle again so directly until 2003 when Galactic Civilizations for Windows and Master of Orion 3 would face off. Since I made the original and was designing the new one, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Master of Orion 3 was made by a different company - though on a much higher budget.
This time they were both on the same platform and during development, there were heated discussion by fans of each (which typically involved people on moo3.com slagging GalCiv). Since GalCiv had an open beta, and anyone who's been in one of our betas knows how crappy our games are until the very end, the MOO fans could rightly point out how ugly GalCiv was looking. We were competing against something that had no open beta, just a few choice screenshots that looked, admittedly pretty good.
Then Master of Orion 3 shipped and things changed. Regardless of ones feelings on Master of Orion 3, it was not what fans were expecting. What I think many fans wanted was Master of Orion 2 with some tweaks and better graphics. Master of Orion 3 was many things but it was not Master of Orion 2 with some tweaks and better graphics, it was very different.
Master of Orion 3 actually sold better than Galactic Civilizations -- a lot better. 3 years of pre-ordered ensured it had a massive foot print at retail. When it came out you could find rows and rows of Master of Orion 3 boxes and then would have to dig around to find a box of Galactic Civilizations. Still, the game sold well with nearly 100,000 sold in North America either directly from Stardock or through retail via Strategy First. Some unknown number (probably around 50,000) was sold overseas. Not too bad.
The reviews of Master of Orion 3 and sales (when compared to its budget) made it unlikely that Atari would be doing a Master of Orion 4 any time soon. GalCiv, whose budget was about 1/10th of MOO 3's, was ready to do a sequel with a bigger budget and a more vigorous marketing strategy.
So what about all those Master of Orion 3 fans who wanted MOO 2.5? If my email inbox along with forum posts are any indication, they would have Galactic Civilizations II be that game. But it isn't. It's not supposed to be. The forums really only give a taste of the nit-picking that MOO fans submit but it's there. Whether it be demands for players to do orbital bombardments without having to invade the planet to demands for tactical combat ("I should be able to select which weapon fires on which ship!").
That isn't to say we won't put in good ideas when we hear them. But Galactic Civilizations has always been a strategic game. It's never been a game about tactics. It's literally a class of civilizations. You're building a civilization and you want to see how it is able to compete against other civilizations. Ship design was added for the sequel not to be more like Master of Orion but to help extend the clash of civilizations story-arc: Players can take different weapons and defense technology paths and it would have become ridiculously complicated to stick with the "Technology gives you Ship X" methodology that GalCiv I gave you. We had to have a way for players to choose what types of weaponry and defenses to put on their ships. The 3D engine made it too tempting not to let people visually design their own ships.
Fleet battles in Galactic Civilizations II carries forward the clash of civilizations vision as well. Because fleet sizes are limited by ones logistics ability, it forces players to decide whether to focus on a few huge ships or fleets of smaller ships. Ultimately, the game revolves around whose civilization can adapt best technologically, culturally, industrially, and militarily to a given random galaxy with a given random mix of aliens controlled by carefully designed AI algorithms.
Master of Orion is not designed to be a clash of civilizations in this sense in my view. It's a clash of militaries. In MOO, at any level, cranking out the ships was rarely an issue. In the original, fleets of 30,000 ships was not uncommon. The game down to being able to design the most effective ships and match them to your own tactical battle strategy the best. The end-game typically revolved around a genocide run with each player zipping into a system with a massive fleet (held back by how large a USHORT was -- 65,535 ships in a group) and wiping out the planet. The player with the faster ships could annihilate faster and thus win the game.
A fairly well known story about me and Master of Orion involves the birth my first son. I played Master of Orion 2 in the delivery room on a laptop while waiting for my son to be born. Hence, I know when MOO2 shipped because I was playing it on November 30, 1996 when it was still very new. Or put another way, I'm a MOO fan too. But that doesn't mean I want to clone it anymore than I want to clone Civilization (which, after all, has a very similar title).
At the end of the day, we have our own ideas on what makes a fun game and want to pursue that. And I can sympathize with Master of Orion fans who, ten years after MOO 2's release, are still looking for what they see as a "true sequel". But please stop trying to push MOO on us. We don't see being different from MOO as a flaw.
Personally - I want tactical combat but I also want more depth from the GalCiv Franchise.
Maybe there could be an option for "Standing Orders" think Gratuitous Space Battles for the standing order options and just watch as combat unfolds.
As for those who want Tactical combat - include it as an option at the start of the game.
... except as I recall, he did at least grope around for a chance to clone MOO by trying to see if he could buy the MOO franchise to make a decent MOO IV.
This is really really simple. If your going to throw in the massive time sink ship building like galciv 2 then we better have tactical combat. It was beyond belief to have this massive shipbuilding timesink that even if it "wasn't your thing" you felt compelled to play around in at least to get the aesthetic tolerable. And then to top it off all that investment of time you got to play rock paper scissors for hours on end which was about as interesting as beating your head against the wall. A mistake that somehow the endless space folks seemed just gleeful to repeat.
"hey our best fundamental game mechanic is just barely more interesting that tic tac toe" not exactly a winner.
If you focus on the ships, on building them, on choosing their layout, on the tech system and ships working hand in hand, etc. Then you better have a combat system that interests the player for a payoff; If you focus on ships make all aspects of that focus interesting: tech tree, design, combat.
Anyone in this thread who says they don't want tactical combat but the lego ship designer is fine, or the tech tree should have interesting unique ship weapons just need to go diaf.
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