Will we be getting turn based or real time tactical combat ?
I presume we are getting tactical combat in the series finally.
True, we have not solved the AI of anything. Sure the comp can beat me in chess no problem, but that is not due to its intelligence but due to the incredible number of moves done by people much better than me that the program has stored.
There is not a shred of intelligence in that.
While chess has a huge number of moves possible during a match, its rules are essentially simple. An average computer game has much, much more complex rules.
Would be more sensible if they had Tactical Combat AND Combat Viewer(This is where auto-resolve comes in, just that players can view the "battle" that took place in auto-resolve).
Honestly, in this era of gaming, having Tactical Combat is a must have, young gamers nowadays demand a lot of action and get frustrated or bored with games that are purely strategic turn based games. Having both will appease both the ol' timers and the young gamers. Also these young gamers will be the majority feeding Stardock to release more, better games for us....
Ok. so here's my two cents on tactical combat:
I'm not against it for many of the idiotic reasons people have brought up. My issue is in the "auto-resolve" everyone touts. Auto-resolve never(let me repeat in capitol letters NEVER) works right.
In SotSPrime they had auto-resolve which was often a better tactical choice than fighting the actual battle because to make it resolve quickly with no waiting they basically set each fleet up some distance from each other and each fleet shot at each other until the other was gone. No movement, no tactics.
In SotSII they changed this so auto-resolve simulated the entire battle, movement and all, and this resulted in turn processing times of up to 5 minutes or more resulting in mass complaints.
Then there is SEV(and many other games) where combat was in real-time, but they sacrificed things like firing arcs to make it work quick enough.
In addition tactical combat requires yet another whole different type of AI which very often has a hard time comprehending even the most basic of tactics making tactical combat worth more for multiplayer but less for single player.
Finally, and this is my own idiotic reason, as the ruler of a empire that spans stellar systems it seems pretty silly and unrealistic that I would have control of combat. The President of the United States hasn't directly commanded combat operations since George Washington and it's pretty much the same with every other major nation state.
No president decides how to develop the new colony either (where to put your buildings etc.) or where exactly to send ships to (which quadrant).
Playing president would restrict you to set the tax rate, maybe decide whether to colonize a planet (but not how) or not and to declare war.
Even nowadays, the president of the USA IS the chief commander of all forces. Of course, he would let his generals/admirals fight the battles, but he would decide what goal to achieve - to completly destroy the enemy, to just give a warning, enforce embargos etc.
Actually that's not really true. FDR was really involved in both military and domestic affairs.
The fact is it's easier to buy that than military command.
Like I said, ultimately I don't care, but I believe the single player game will suffer. Multiplayer wouldn't but tactical combat doesn't serve single player TBS games that well.
FDR?
To be involved into domestic affairs doesn't mean you tell your people "put the factory at this place over there, it looks nice". Setting tax rates is an domestic affaire.
Ok. Look. You can continue to keep bitching about the reason I openly admitted was stupid all you like. I can pettily troll with the best of them and do this all day. However, that still doesn't change the fact that tactical combat only serves multiplayer. AI tends to have problems understanding complex tactics and almost any auto-resolve solution tends to be easily exploitable, or tedious in application.
If it's done well, and if it's done right then so be it but to just add it for the sake of adding it makes no sense. There is a reason most 4x and Grand Strategy games don't use it.
It's possible I'm just not being clear, and my last post sounded kind of dickish, so i've found an easier way to explain it: No matter how good tactical AI is it is still going to be one AI vs thousands of players. It's limitations will be found and exploited easily by the community.
Personally I would like to get it without direct ship control in combat (at most a general withdraw like during the view mode in moo3). On the other hand I would like to get grouping within fleet, default behavior for ships (similar to Lost Empire: Immortals), objectives (and disengagement rules) for fleets and groups. Default role should even be added to the design.
ALSO. I would like to get a combat simulator to test the designs against known enemy designs (with the option to consider the racial abilities too).
It was funny (OK, not funny at all) in Imperium Galactica I that loosing your lead ship resulted game over (like failing the psyhic test).
How about combat similar to "Gratuitous Space Battles" or the dominion series? I want some kind of pew pew to satisfy my nerdy needs. I don't need to be in absolute control over what happens. Watching things play out is just fine.
Also I think the Ship Design mechanic in GalCiv2 was entirely uninteresting, because there was no fun in managing your fleets. Fleet compositions never mattered that much. Choose the biggest hull, put as many weapons on it as possible and mass produce. No fighters, destroyers, support ships etc. etc.
If tactical combat were implemented I think that would be the best way to do. The only part that makes me nervous is the human element.
FDR is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States of America, who lead the United States for much of the decade leading up to the Second World War and all but the last few months of that conflict, and was elected to the office for four consecutive terms, though he died before he could serve much of the final term; as such, he spent more time in office than any other President of the United States, and unless the legal code changes he will remain the longest-serving US President in history, as after his death legislation was introduced limiting the President to two and a half four-year terms in office (the extra half-term can only be served if you happen to be next in line when the current President dies; if more than half of his term remains to be served, you can only be elected to the office for up to one additional term; prior to the amendment limiting the number of terms a President could serve, you were able to serve as many four-year terms as you could be elected to, although no other US President has ever served more than two full terms and the term has always been for four years; FDR served for 12 years and a few months). Additionally, he is a relatively poor example to use when asking to be able to set the tax rate, as it is technically illegal for a US president to introduce tax legislation - that power is restricted to the US House of Representatives. The president of the United States can, however, propose a budget to Congress which may or may not be met by the revenues generated by the current tax code, and he can of course request that the US House of Representatives propose changes to the tax code.
If you would like to learn more about FDR, using Google to search for "FDR" should return a link to the Wikipedia page for Franlin Delano Roosevelt somewhere very close to the first hit.
Tactical combat only serves multiplayer? Really? What are you basing that on?
You know how much multiplayer sucks when you're playing with someone who wants to play out every single combat against the AI in tactical mode? It exponentially increases the length of the game, quickly reaching unplayable levels of waiting.
For a strategy game, an option to disable tactical combat (particularly if one of the participants is AI) is one of the core requirements. The game doesn't need it at all for MP - if it's in, it does need the ability to turn it off for MP.
as per: https://forums.galciv3.com/449479/page/2/#3411697
Hallelujah.
If you're looking for MOO2 style fleet battles...Frogboy just verified thats not gonna happen.
I'm glad to hear that Brad and the team are staying true to GC.
Well he didn't say some form of tactical combat wasn't in the game just that micromanaging every unit ala MOO2 was out. Which is good because I don't think anyone in this thread wanted that.
...-Aer
Did it really work well though?
Simple and easy to pick up for sure.
But fun? Personally, I found the simple rock paper scissors to have detracted substantially from the game. That, the Starbases, and Terror Stars were more or less worthless simply because they couldn't defend themselves and could only move 1 per turn.
The issue I have with combat is that it completely lacked depth. I could not identify with the ships that I had built - it was just, watch the battle viewer, which, combined with the simplistic rock paper scissors system, which felt, well, boring.
I agree with DsRaider, I don't care about control of individual units but neither do I want this to turn into a pointless "Battle Viewer 2.0"
Notice he didn't mention MOO3...
Actually, there are quite a few people who wanted real-time micromanagement of units.
But I'd think the people "merely" wanting more depth to battles would also be reassured with that quote, as the idea of there being carriers in any meaningful sense implies that there's going to be a system involving actual ship specialization this time.
OK, I think I am up to speed. It took my 3 hours to find out how stubborn you people are, think outside the box people.... Why not be open minds a bit, go beyond the fact that there is tactical combat, there is a method you can include that will be SATISFACTORY
Imagine a game that is Tactical, but you still maintain a nice short cinematic that will auto resolve.
Q: HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Well duh, the tactics are all in the ship designer and what modules you fit on the ship that will be tactical.
Q: Does this mean I get a shitty rock paper scissors system?
**** NO! You guys are so thick headed that you don't realize that all weapons are going to have strengths and weaknesses, including fire rate, damage, and even other factors like ship sizes (fighters) or another similar idea.
Q: Does this mean that rock paper scissors is gone?
Well, I cannot answer that yet, but it is a special part of the series and I believe that it should stay in the game where it belongs. This is what separates Galactic Civilizations with MoO (really funny name BTW, I thought Master of Orion was a game based on cows or something (no offense intended, This is what happens when your competitor lives and your favorite series dies)) Besides, you don't want to alienate your fan base do you?
Q: Well what if I am still too stubborn to accept what this game has to offer?
Well, if you are really mad about the decision they made, then go play something you would like, if you are a founder... I am sorry for your loss, but reality is that there are hundreds of fans with different taste, and I assure you that some people will appreciate what Stardock will give to us. Pat yourself on the back and go somewhere else for helping a group of people get what they want.
Q: But what if I don't want a cinematic?
disable it in the options, like in civilization V on multiplayer most of the community likes animations OFF. I can guarantee that the cinematic experience no matter how much eye candy you throw at a player it WILL lose their appeal because they may get repetitive.
Q: How would somebody win and own everybody in the game?
Well, to be honest every civilization will go for different technologies and there will be strengths and weaknesses for all of them. Find these weaknesses and wipe them out selectively, galactic wide rampages could result in disaster if everybody has a different technologies and ships. keep in mind that the more you use a specific weapon type, the opposing side will always be updating their weapon and defense to defeat you, so you need to do the same.
Q: What other factors would make the combat "interesting"?
Well I requested on a separate page of what I wanted to combat system to be like, and apparently while you were all arguing I was able to get "hints" on what the real combat system will be like. Basically all weapons will have ups and downs. Idk exactly what is in store for us, but lets assume that there will be
A) Rock paper scissors weapons
Weapon cool downs
C) Weapon Power
D) Weapon speed
E) Weapon effectiveness against sizes
F) Fighters/bomber modules with fighter assistance bonuses(weapons+???)
D) Rock paper scissors defense systems
E) Many more I don't have time to think about
Q: Why are they making the system this way?
Have you been paying attention to latest GCIII news? Apparently ship design will be HUGE considering it is top on the priority list, we got big surprises in store. so calm yourselves down and move on to new topics, explore the forums and please suggest things that would help the developers, not confuse them.
*** EDIT< FLAW IN QUESTIONS< MINOR SPELLING ERROR AND MISSING WORD***
No, they are not staying true to GC. They betrayed our traditional squares!!!
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