Retreat!!!

I agree. The lack of any control over the battle is pretty annoying. It would be nice to be able to cut your losses and live to fight another day.

I'm undecided about agreeing or disagreeing.

If you could though, if you failed that percentage chance to breakaway, you should be destroyed for "turning your back" to the enemy.

It would be nice to be able to cut your losses and live to fight another day.

I could agree as long as the following existed.

1) Your ships are faster than the enemies.
2) You have more movement points left than the enemy ships and number 1 still applies.

If not than I do not believe you should be allowed to escape from a foiled battle for the following reasons.

1) Sensors - have you invested the money to be able to scan the fleet your about to attack, for that matter if you have spent the espionage bucks you would or should probably already know that your paltry lasers and new shields are not going to be much of a match for their photonic torpedos and their old deflector technology, ergo you wouldn't attack unless it was to hope that your noble sacrifice gave you time to get your better but slower ships into the action?

2) Espionage - If your not going to use it fine, just don't expect to have the knowledge readily available that shows that your ships and planets are ripe for the pickens. One can always cross their fingers and well... attack first.

Basically, no escape unless you are technically superior in a facet that allows you to escape and than only if you can outrun the enemy both physically and via sensors.

Whatcha think on that?

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

Can't agree more! I can live without tactical combat, no big deal, but at least I should be able to tell my fleet to flee. Besides, the system where one side always dies effectively destroyes the whole experience concept.
In my humble opinion adding just few control options to combat - such as targeting priority and retreat command would make this already wonderful game even more great. Please!

It would make sense if Espionage got buffed that little bit.... well, not espionage per say, but the removal of the current ability to see what weapons and defenses other ships have without having spent a penny on espionage.

I think you shouldnt have a clue what weapons/defenses a ship has got without having spent the funds on infiltrating that race - the weapons/defenses when clicking a ship would just be a question mark.

Given all that, your idea is perfect Suralle. Movement points and engine quality would also be required to have the % chance to escape.... even then you could fail and get shot up the exhaust and blow up instantly. The factor of difference between your engine speed and movement points compared to the enemy fleet would influence the % modifier for successful retreat.

Great, we've got it sorted..... now let's just code it in.... damn! We're not the developers... thats sucks!

such as targeting priority

This is one thing I dont understand as a request. Could you perhaps go into a bit more detail here?

As far as I can see the game does what the human would do in any given situation i.e. Attack the biggest potential threat (highest attack against your ships) with the lowest defense. I find it hard to produce a situation where I would want to do anything else than that therefore the game just removes that level of micromanagement and the need for me to sit and do the calculation every time.

Perhaps I am missing something?

Basically, no escape unless you are technically superior in a facet that allows you to escape and than only if you can outrun the enemy both physically and via sensors. Whatcha think on that?

Absolutely. It shouldn't be a free pass. Just a chance to get the H*** out of dodge based on reasonable technologies.

@Spearthrower

By targeting priority I mean to tell your ships what to attack first, this is discussed plenty in other threads. Imagine situation where an enemy fleet, consisting of troop transport and escort ships is heading toward your planet. And you have conciderably smaller force defending it. Isn't it logical to attack this fleet and tell you ships to take out the transport, even if they are killed afterwards? So there should be options to tell your ships to attack first the biggest threat, the most tough ship, the ship with least HP or similar stuff. It's up to designers how it's easier to implement, _if_ they will implement it.

Sorry, double post. But I pushed Submit only once.

That's the first time I have actually seen a cogent reasoning behind the ability to target ships in battle. The problem with your example currently is that it would make it near impossible to invade without losing transports as they tend to be put on a cargo hull with 1hp. The counter I suppose, would be to put them onto the larger hulls and whack loads of defenses on them.... then you'd be really stuck what to attack given the choice - attack the transport, potentially not kill it and get creamed by its escorts. I dont know and I think theres a lot that would need to be worked out before anything like that could be implemented.... but thanks for actually providing a working example!!! As for the rest you said, I still say that it makes no sense to attack anything but the thing you are most likely to destroy and which hurts you the most (other than special case scenarios like Transports)

I think I like the idea of retreat. It isn't a revolutionary tactic, and all the restrictions and ways to manage its effectiveness seem like good ideas.

What hasn't been discussed is how much we want to chase the AI ships across the galaxy. If we can do it, they can do it. Right now, the AI conveniently, if unrealistically, piles its ships up and leaves them there for me to demolish. It'd be a pain to have to chase them down, although certainly realistic.

Again, I think I like a move in this direction. To do it right, the AI would need to be encouraged in some scenarios to spend more development $s on engines and sensors.

There are other options which I sorely miss as well when I watch the combat....

In addition to the ability to retreat, i'd like to see a compass rose system on the combat screen where you can issue general directives by right-clicking, such as :

Target (-> strongest, -> weakest, -> non-combatants, -> specify (allows you to click on one enemy ship))
Disable (-> engines, -> weapons, -> shields, -> point defenses, -> life support, -> sensors)
Board (->capture, -> sabotage)
Retreat (-> full engine, ->full weapons, -> full defense)
Self-Destruct (->kamikaze, ->destroy ship)

Issuing general orders like this would not really be full tactical combat, but would certainly add life to the combat element of this game and make it far more interesting and enjoyable (for me at least).

I think you shouldnt have a clue what weapons/defenses a ship has got without having spent the funds on infiltrating that race - the weapons/defenses when clicking a ship would just be a question mark.

My favorite ability is being able to click on an enemy ship and seeing where they're headed! I've got some really good sensors!

Honestly, I think weapons/defenses is something you can *kinda* figure out based on sensors as you can see what they have on the hull of their ship and even if you don't have that tech you can scan for how much power they use. Maybe something that's not *quite* as accurate on their power unless you've got the tech in what case you know what you're looking at?

It does make sense to be able to retreat, but you would have to create an entire tactial combat situation. Like Birth of the Federation for those of you who are star trek fans. At the moment with the current setup it would be wothless because as soon as the battle starts it's already decided, the viewer is just there for you to see what happend. But it is a good idea if there were tactical combat.

Spearthrower -> If you want to use cargo hulled transports, don't put them in a battle fleet. First send some seriuos force to clean the skies, then walk in with transports. Dunno how AI could handle this tho. And yes, armored and shielded battletransports would be tough nuts, but they are expensive and long to build. Still it would make game more interesting imho.

Torrenrift - > alas, there is no component damage or boarding in this game. Maybe in GalCiv III ...

CraftyMule -> You don't have to chase enemy ships down at all. You don't need to kill enemy ships, you need to invade enemy planets. Destroy let's say half of enemy fleet ships and scatter the rest - the path is clear.
By the way - from here comes an idea: fleets cannot retreat as fleets, all remaining ships will be scattered - how's that?

Targetting the transports and allow ships to attack it first would make a nonsense of fleets. If you're flying with a transport do you

a) Fly in a protection formation about it

or

Use it as a scout thus allowing it to be hit first.

I don't think B makes any sense, and I'm sure the enemy fleet WANTS to target the transport, but I'm sure the fleet protecting it has other ideas.

Attack the biggest potential threat (highest attack against your ships) with the lowest defense.

Although I do not want tactical control in the game I can see a valid point here and basically its this:

I have a front line battleship (as evil) with evil based offensive weapons giving me a 36 Laser Attack and an 18 Missile Attack (Total of 54) with so so defenses, nothing better than 3 or 4.

The enemy has 3 or 4 cruisers that have gun weapons strictly speaking, which I only have a defense of 3 for. A much more serious threat overall than the 7 or 8 little tiny fighters with a high laser (say 3) and no defense... why would I want to bring to bear all that evil energy onto a tiny ship from my one or two capital ships? Yes, I can destroy them with one blast... so the hell what, the cruiser I should have targetted and disintegrated in the first blast even though the offensive/defensive spread is less overall just whacked me for half my hitpoints along with its still little surving buddies who can really only do 3 or 4 pop points, why are they attacking me when I have little fighters too? Because the overall offense to defense makes my capital ship the greatest target... so its either follow the rules in GC2 as they currently stand or ask for a change. Personally, given the amount of time I think a tactical controlled game would take vs what we have now I opt to follow the rulez for once.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

IE:
I take into combat a ship with medium fire power and no defenses so that it can be the cannon fodder I need (such as a medium hulled job) while my big ones finish up everything else.

W/R
Suralle

CraftyMule -> You don't have to chase enemy ships down at all. You don't need to kill enemy ships, you need to invade enemy planets. Destroy let's say half of enemy fleet ships and scatter the rest - the path is clear. By the way - from here comes an idea: fleets cannot retreat as fleets, all remaining ships will be scattered - how's that?

Mostly I use a combined focused military, influence (influence resource bases only) and technology strategy, so I do some planetary invading focused on their prime planets for production and influence, and have my ships hunt down their ships and bases. Then I build on their resources, and watch their empire crumble to dust. It is key to keep space clean from their pesky ships when doing this, though.

The benefits are that I keep my population near capped, so I have $s to push my research ahead. Also means I can leave my core planets undefended--no support cost for a home fleet and no Fleet Management Centers (or whatever they are). Plus, if you demolish their fleet and bases, the AI cuts out almost all Social and Research spending trying to rebuild its fleet, sealing its doom. I love getting that "our military is in shambles, you have won, take all our stuff you evil bastard" message.

I actually like the system as it is. I would hate for the enemies to be able to retreat everytime they were losing a battle, because they didn't plan well enough to build up a proper defense. (Same goes for me, if I screwed up, I want to lose.)

I do like the idea of specific targeting of certain ships...

It shouldn't be an issue of them just destroying your transports because it would be foolish to put transports in a fleet with escorts. The only reason you'd want to really put them together were if there was a strategic setup to the fleets (which would really detract from the rest of the game in the long run). But since this isn't the case you should always have an escort fleet leading the transports... because what's the point of having escorts if they allow interceptors to get within range of the transports... and what's more, if you don't effectively screen for the transports you deserve to lose them.

In "real life" (I know ugly words) armies, fleets, air wings rarely fight to the death.

Once the screens are killed, it makes sense to retreat the larger capital ships, even if you would "win" the battle. If any change like this is made it should be based on speed of the ships involved, and the AI should be taught the importance of impulse/warp/hyper tech.

I am glad most here agree with the retreat idea. The nice thing about it is that your ability is based on the tech match ups of the civilizations and the specific ships in the battle. That way, it does not guarantee a successful retreat everytime. Just the decision to retreat adds an added bit of chance and stratagy.

One comment was made, however, that does concern me. The battle calculations are done BEFORE we view it. That pretty much takes any chance of adding any "real time" modifiers. At least as I see it. Thoughts?

Space Empires had a system of fleet orders. It could be added to the ship / fleet info screen (where you set Auto-Explore etc).

Fleet Orders define how a battle will be fought, without requiring tactical control of the action, e.g.:

Commitment:
1. Fight to the death (current default)
2. Fight to 75% damage
3. Fight to 50% damage
4. Fight to 25% damage
5. Run at first damage
Focus:
1. Prioritise most offensive (current default)
2. Prioritise most dangerous (i.e. most offensive against this fleet's defences)
3. Prioritise fastest
4. Prioritise non-combatants

Then, the auto-combat resolves using these settings. A user who never accesses that window won't see any difference from the current behaviour, if the defaults are left as the current settings.

And I agree that retreat should be a percentage, based on relative speed (absolute and remaining) and possibly sensors too. It should probably factor in damage as well - less chance of getting out alive when you're already 75% dead. Not sure about the added complexity of setting retreat policy as well, though.

I think that would work. I do think that it should only apply to fleet battles and not individual ship skirmishes. One question though...does the % issue reflect entire fleet damage or each individual ship? I ask because the outcome would be completely different. battle to 25% of fleet hit points will usually result in the entire fleet being destoyed save perhaps one or two ships. If , however, it was applied to each ship, you may very well gett all of the ships out...just banged up a bit.