Hey,please stop talking about me behind my back!!!

Yeah I would agree with this.

Good tactical battles require that:

1. The AI be competent at fighting in tactical combat

2. Even matchups (which GC2 often did not have - it was prone to having very big mismatches rather than relatively close matches)

3. Tactics play an important role in deciding the outcome

This in turn would influence ship design, which the AI then also would need to be competent at. Going by previous games like Elemental, at first, the AI will not be that good at designing, but will get better in subsequent patches.

Joeball123, I agree with you about the tactical combat. It won't affect whether I by the game (I already have) or whether I enjoy the game, but it would certainly add to my enjoyment.

Part of this is that I like to play long games, the maximum sized galaxy with lots of habitable planets, etc., and I like to set the victory conditions for conquest only. Having tactical combat would add intermittent changes in play, making the game more fun.

I'm thinking there's going to be some tactical, in whatever form, involved in combat. Just from bits and pieces surrounding the AI updating its own behavior and tactics/strategy through Stardocks server.

That excites me no-end.

Skynet is coming.

It's here.

Oh my god, could you imagine how douchy Skynet would be if it was based off the behavior patterns of us gamers?

Heavens ta Betsy...the trolling alone...

The quality of the trolling would increase exponentially based on the computer's patience.

(Wow, I just added so much to the discussion.)

Is there such a thing as an impatient processor?

Personally, I'm on the fence for tactical combat in GC3, but what I would really like to see is a more in depth Tech Tree with regard to options (both offensive and defensive) for ships.

This is one area I feel Space Empires IV excelled at.  There was such a variety of weapon types and areas of research that no game has come close to emulating.

In comparison, ship design felt very simplified in Gal Civ 2, and I hope it is an area they improve on. 

Of course the downside to this is the more options you have for your ships, the harder I guess it is to have an effective AI (for either tactical or movie style combat)

+1 to all the people WANTING tactical combat at least in space.

It would add strategic depth and people who are against it on the grounds of "strategy" seem to forget tactics are a part of strategy dang it!

This thread's refusal to die despite it already being said there isn't tactical combat is impressive.

Agreed. Maybe reposting the official word from the last interview will help:

"We don’t want to turn it into something like Masters of Orion, where you have like fleets of thousands of ships and you have to command every ship in the fleet and tell them what to do every turn because that would be... I know there are plenty of gamers who want that, but at some point that’s what your game becomes about. When it comes to games like this it’s always about what percentage of your time are you spending on what? In Galactic Civilizations, it is about your civilization. You are building fleets, designing ships, running planets, you are not telling which ship to fire at. That’s not what the game’s about.

 At the same time, I always found it, in hindsight, the fleet battles in GalCiv II felt a little hollow. You design these ships, and you do all this cool stuff, and then you don’t really have any control over the battle. I don’t know about you but it always struck me as a bit of a missed opportunity, and that’s something we hope to make use of this time."

That article isn't stating there won't be tactical combat in GalCiv3; it's just saying the combat won't be like that in the MOO series. That's fine with me, as I have little desire to micro-manage battles. 

You can still have tactical combat without needing to give commands to every single unit, however.  Birth of the Federation and Armada 2526 are both examples of this, as are the Total War games (to include a land-based example).  It rather sounds like tactical combat in GC3 will be more like that, which -- if that turns out to be the case -- I'll be more than happy with.  :) 

Yes please.  Tactical combat would be fantastic.

i honestly don't understand how you get that when he says that the game isn't meant to be about telling your ships who to fire at. It seems more likely there might be something that lets you influence a battle aka Endless Spade, rather than Total War style combat.

I think it's because a lot of people see the combat system in GC2 as a flaw that is holding a lot of other aspects back in how much depth they can have.

C'mon Zy,...Motie,...Cher;

Crush these childrens dreams with that ever popular 'know-it-all' retort "This aint no idiotic shoot-em-up!

The rest of us know you want to.

The problem with your statements is that you're really only giving examples of the extremes ends of the spectrum:  mostly hands-off (like Endless Space) versus micromanaging every single ship (ala Master of Orion).  Believe it or not, there are varying degrees of control one can have in tactical combat between those two extremes. 

To again mention my earlier examples, combat in both Birth of the Federation and Armada 2526 works by having you give orders to ships of the same type (cruisers, destroyers, dreadnoughts, etc.); in addition, Armada lets you select from a short list of formation types for your fleet. 

Now it's certainly true that both games' battle systems aren't without their flaws.  However, they're good examples of how a space 4x game can allow the player to "control" combat, but without forcing them to give individual orders to every single frickin' ship (which I agree would be a major pain in the butt). 

If GalCiv3's tactical combat system is anything like what I've just described (and Stardock has indicated the game will include some form of tactical combat), that should strike a decent balance between macro- and micro-managing battles. 

Where? As far as I know, there hasn't been any conformation of tactical combat (implied or otherwise). They've only said, that there'll be improvements to the combat.

You were the one who said Total War initially, not me.

Fair enough, otherwise. We'll just have to wait for more info I suppose.

New beans from Brad.

"This time there's somewhat more sophistication with concepts like accuracy, evasion, rate of fire, sub light speed, and fleet formations. All stuff we'll get into as we go forward. But the effect is that players will tend to focus on particular strengths and when at war you'll want to look at what strategies they're employing in their ships and fleets"

Many Bothans died to bring us this information.

Link?

Star Wars #6 (book? chapter?) -- the third one released. When the Rebel Alliance is planning the attack on the second death star.

I wasn't asking about RotJ, but for a link to where it was said, that Bothans (allegedly) died to bring us those (supposed) informations from Brad.