What about combat?

Unfortunately, NOT. GCII is mainly focus on its AI and high level strategy. Tactical battles like ship and ground battles are simply resolved automatically. You don't get to control the ships or troops in battle.

It really depend on what you look for in the game - strategy planning or tactical battle. If you're looking for tactical battle, you'll be disappointed.

Personally, I perfer a "well balanced" game like Imperium Galactica II: Alliances which have both strategy and tactical battles for all groups of sci-fi players.

Maybe if there is large enough demand of a better tactical battles in CG, it will appear in CG III (if there is one)

it will appear in CG III (if there is one)

I really hope there is a GC3 and I can only hope they add Tactical Combat. Do not get me wrong, I still love GC2 D.L. and can't wait to buy D.A., I believe Tactical Combat would add another level that would make the game even more irresistible.

Just my opinion of course.

Totally agreed with Quixen. CGII is a great game.

Will be better with tactical battles. If we (supporters, customers, players) of CG can generate enough demand for it and the developers listened..maybe there is hope for it to appear in the game.

More complex ship/ground battles will appear in GC3 Iam sure.

Iam tad dissapointed that ground combat does not get any love at all with DA. Or so it seems with latest beta. New graphics for ground battles would atleast be a start

After all ship combat has gotten through many different kind of combat resolving mechanism in the past. I was hoping with DA that land combat would get bit more complex also. Why not add Ground Troop designer idea or something, I would love to design my own shock troops and tanks

Heh, a ground troop designer would be pretty nice, but that'd be a LOT of code to go through. After all, look at how many permutations the ship designer's gone through...and with ships, at least, you're dealing with largely static entities. With a ground troop, you'd have to deal with special animations - wheels, tracks, turrets, bouncing motions, leg motions, the lot. It'd be pretty tricky to get something like the ship designer to work with moving ground troops, especially since most animations are done from outside software packages that may not easily mesh with program routines within the game.

In short - it'd be a cool idea, but it'd be pretty tricky to execute. About the only way I could think of would be to have simple vehicle blocks with basic, utilitarian detail and the animations used on it, then adding items onto the blocks as needed.

Of course, if you don't need quite as much variety in ground vehicles, you could always go the route taken by, say, the Earth 2150 games or somesuch...but somehow I don't think that'd be what you guys are hankering for.

As for tactical combat...well, personally I don't mind just watching the battles myself. I tend to stick to larger strategic issues than the tactical battles. (In the Total War games, for instance, I pretty much always use the Auto-Resolve function...I don't have much confidence in my tactical abilities.) Mind you, I'd love to see some nice camera controls so the battles would seem more cinematic, but on the whole it's all good for now.

I've played Rome: Total War, and it quickly made me sick of tactical combat. I actually enjoy the fact that GalCiv 2 has no tactical combat. I would even go so far as to consider that a feature. A game you can play without having to worry about tactical combat. GalCiv 2 is a nice shelter against it.

I used to be absolutly hooked on GC2. But then I started to think. "What's the point of even having combat if all your doing is rolling a dice and watching your own ships float around like... well I just don't know". GC2 could have, at the very least, have the battles look 1/10 way decent.

I've played Rome: Total War, and it quickly made me sick of tactical combat. I actually enjoy the fact that GalCiv 2 has no tactical combat. I would even go so far as to consider that a feature. A game you can play without having to worry about tactical combat. GalCiv 2 is a nice shelter against it.

Absolutely right. Besides, were there a fully developed tactical aspect to the game, I'm sure my system couldn't handle it all. One thing I love about GC2 is the deep level of gaming you get, as great graphics, but can run it on a system that's a few years out of date.

Months ago, Frogboy stated on these forums that he would like to see tac combat implemented on some future iteration of GalCiv[3?]. It would not be in any version of GalCiv2 and it would only be included in this future game if the coding were up to his standards. Tactical space combat was the subject of his discussion, with no mention of improved ground combat.

The inclusion of space tac combat on his wish list gave all us tac supporters something to cheer about and silenced [only briefly] the "no tak kombat klub".

I remain convinced that if Stardock sets out to include this feature in a future version of GalCiv, they will succeed, and a large majority of players will be pleased.

Im not sure how tactical combat came into this discussion since I know from a previous post I made that the devs are not considering adding it for GC II.

What I meant is more in the line of more advanced weapon system like range, tracking speed and a bigger and better done battle field so the battles looked more epic and was more fun to watch.

I mean space combat is a big part of space sci fi so its rather sad that the devs are putting so relatively little effort in it.

I don't know about tactical combat being implemented in GC3, but i'm sure there will be a GC3. With the record sales GC2 produced for Stardock, and the projected sales for DA, i can't imagine Stardock wouldn't make a GalCiv 3 for the simple fact that it would make them money.

Though i beleive Stardock has AT LEAST one game slated for development before they even start on a GC3. Some sort of fantasy game if i recall. And that's not even counting the publishing of Sins of a Solar Empire. But still, i have no doubt there will be a GC3, i'm sure Brad has been jotting down GC3 ideas for months now.

Though i beleive Stardock has AT LEAST one game slated for development before they even start on a GC3. Some sort of fantasy game if i recall. And that's not even counting the publishing of Sins of a Solar Empire. But still, i have no doubt there will be a GC3, i'm sure Brad has been jotting down GC3 ideas for months now.

Yeah, dont get your hopes up... GC3 is a certainty, but we still have to suffer through this "Society" (MMORTS) thing that SD is enamoured with (not slamming it...Im sure its an interesting concept and many people are looking forward to it...just not me or anyone else I know...Im interested in GC and expanding the depth of combat, and am speaking accordingly), that will likely take a ton of develpoment time and a massive amount of support thereafter before they get around to any GC3 goodness. Not to mention they can still coast on another expansion or two to GC2.


I wouldnt look for any work on GC3 to even *begin* in earnest, for another year or two at the earliest( and thats me being optimistic). Sins of the Solar Empire might be a great tide-me over though...its sounds sort of like "Space: Total War" (if ONLY you could design your ships in it a la GC2, it could be the perfect game )


As long as we're fantasizing here though, my "perfect" game would be a ToTal War like 4x/RTS hybrid, where the turn based campaign portion is GC2(just as good and deep with the same quality AI), but with a "space sim battle mode" like "Nexus: The Jupiter Incident"(top notch graphics, physics,waepon facing and damage locations) and some sort of Tactical ground invasion mingame like in Pirates, with persistant armies and Commnder (hero units) that could be upgraded RPG style. And of course every unit (ships and ground units) customizeable( in appearance and ability) like in GC2.

Since that games really 2 or 3 games in one, Id be willing to pay 200 bucks for it. Im serious as a heart attack...tell me youre making that game, ill pre order it right now. It would complete me. You could maybe sell it in Modular fashion...the basic 4x game, but with "plug ins" to expand the space and ground combat that would otherwise be auto-resolved .

I used to like the 'and the kitchen sink' approach to making games, but I've started to hate games that attempt too much. Moving ships around in every tactical combat, moving armies around in every invasion, detailing the life stories of all your officers and the social histories of your civilization all becomes a bit too much.

A lot of what interests me about games these days is clever abstractions. Can you make systems that are simple yet deep, that are tractable for the AI and quick to play?

In answer to the original question, there aren't a lot of new bells and whistles to the combat system, but the system has changed quite a bit, so it's interesting to think about how to design your ships accordingly.

I've got the same opinion about tactical combat : it's fun until it gets boring, then the full game is boring. My personal preference would be for a pseudo-tactical combat where everything is automatised once the battle start (maybe with some initial orders).

Moving ships around in every tactical combat, moving armies around in every invasion, detailing the life stories of all your officers and the social histories of your civilization all becomes a bit too much.

I might agree with you if it werent for the damn ship designer in GC2. I now spend so much time designing my ships (out of love for it and the immersion and roleplaying factor), forming attachments with them... yet have so little to do with them, and then the games over.


Do I want tactical battles in Civ 4? Hell no. Do I want to play with my battle cruisers that I lovingly design from scratch in GC2,in a more expandeded and immersive fashion? You betcha. And does ground combat need to be much less random and cursory? A thousand times yes. Talking Pirates level minigame here, not a Dune style RTS.

So I dont want to see it in all games, or in all turn based 4x games. But I DO want to see it in a really good Empire-creating space strat game that lets me design my own stuff (i.e. GC2)