Mach, dude. What do you think the games are about? The space battles? They're a very small part of the game, sure they could take up a bit more of the stage and it sounds like they're going to, but The devs don't want them to detract from the empire management aspects. Personally I'm fine without any tactical battles at all. Keep it simple, Ship with strength, A and defence B battles another ship with strength C and defence D and let the dice roll. It works and it's still fun. If you want to add a little tactical element to the game, perhaps allow tactics from the map screen instead, so you see that an enemy ship is heading for one of your star-bases. If you intercept it head on you'll fight a pretty even battle, but if you use a faster ship and go around behind your enemy and attack from there you get a slight bonus in the fight maybe. Something like this is what I would like to see, not tedious moving of each ship during the engagements themselves.

Again? Really?

*sigh*

I for one don't want tactical battles. I find them boring. I found them boring, after the initial 'Oh cool', in MoO too.

Something just a little more sophisticated the Endless Space (great game) and i am happy. And to be honest, i dont even need that. Combat in GalC2 was OK, too.

Also i don't need tactical combat to immerse myself, so please speak for yourself.

What was said in that interview wasn't new information. It was just reiterating what the devs have said for months, both on the forum and in interviews, so I really don't understand why you are suddenly worried about it.

Please speak for yourself.

I like tactical combat. In fact, several of my favourite games have it. However, I don't want it in every game, because I would find that boring and monotonous. I also don't need it to find a game fun and entertaining.

I'd expect the ship roles to be able to emulate something like that, yeah.

If I had a nickel for every tactical battle thread...

OT; I don't want to sound like a holier-than-thou jackass, but I don't think you know why people like this game.

Tactics are a very small part of the series, the main emphasis being placed upon grand strategy and management, alongside planning and inter-player interaction. Honestly, this is why I like GC2 over every other TBS, and why I paid a hundred freaking dollars for the third one without even seeing screenshots of it. Stardock did such a great job with the strategy, I love them for it, and I can put faith in them to deliver once more.

 Having excessive tactical elements like space battles would detract far too much from the strategic aspects of the game and sully the experience for people like me who value the latter. I'm fine with some basic tactics, like fleet formations or whatever, but a full-blown tactical battle simulation would crap all over my experience. If you want a tactical battle simulator, go play Masters of Orion or Sword of the Stars; Galactic Civilizations is about thinking, not reacting.

All of this is my opinion of course :3 

Both battles (how they work and are calculated + shown in cinematics), and not at least warfare on the strategical level, is going to be more interesting then in any other space strategy ever. That's my impression so far.

If Stardock wasted their time doing something like this, that would be less time spent on the rest of the game. Even the "option" you want takes away from our fun. Deal with it.

Then of course there's the issue of "optional" combat being complete bullshit and everyone knowing it, but that's pretty obvious and doesn't need to be discussed again.

Gal Civ 3 is not going to be a game for you then. If tactical battles is the best part for you I would strongly suggest looking elsewhere.

Depends. Is there an infinite budget, staff count, and time to build the game?

If so, there is no harm at all.

If not, the resources to build x+1 combat modes has to come from somewhere. Since the strategy layer of the game is the game right now, it's going to come from there.

There's a reason why tactical focused games like Age of Wonders 2 have more simplistic empire & city systems than GalCiv does: AoW is focused more on the tactical combat. It does that well. The other stuff gets less attention and is there to support the combat, which is fine.

GalCiv (like Civ) is focused on the strategy layer, so those systems are more complicated and get more developer attention. Pulling people away from that to build a tactical combat system that's robust enough to appease the people wanting it will be to the detriment of everything else. That's just how development works in a world of limited people, time, and money.

OK. I already get and agree with most of what is being said here, with one where I disagree.

What I agree with:

1) Time for development is critical, especially when a total re-write is being done.

2) Keeping the nature and flavor of the game must have first priority in a total re-write, and this takes time and effort.

3) Modernization of the game mechanics is key to extending the popularity of the game -- that is, incorporating use of new hardware capabilities gives the game a fresh new feel.

4) Adding depth to the many features of the game adds substantially to the game's appeal. This is being done, we are told, with diplomacy, alignment, unit capabilities (both combat and non-combat), some added depth in combat, colony control, empire economy, start of game functions, perhaps some existing features we have not heard about yet, and even some improvement in combat. These also take time and resources.

The management, I think, has done a good job of evaluating what can be done within a reasonable time and will, I expect, stick to their plan.

What I don't agree with:

The idea that tactical combat has no place in a strategy game. My opinion is that when a strategy game includes tactical combat, it can, and must, be done in a way that adds depth to the game without impacting the game's main focus. We already have an example of this with the addition of the Ship Designer and fleets in GC2. It was seen by many fans as an added complication that could only degrade the appeal of the game, but the devs did a real good job of implementing it, and the result was an increase in depth to the game.

Did you know that the GC for OS2 series gave us control of individual ships when invading a star? It may not have been particularly robust, but it was what the technology could support at the time. It was, however, somewhat like the tactical combat many of us have been asking for. That got lost at least by the time GC2 for Windows added fleets and planet level attacks and invasions.

Another example is the CIV series of games, which is definitely a strategy set of games, which includes tactical combat. It also does it well, maintaining strategy as its main focus, and providing the brief bits of tactical combat to alleviate the long stretch of long, hard, repetitive strategic maneuvering. It adds depth to the game. And, yes, this is also true of MOO2. None of these games are Duke Nuke'ems, and the tactical combat portion of these games is not the end-all do-all of these strategy games. But it does add depth to the Civ series and to Moo2.

To round this out, I think we all agree that the devs must focus on the re-write, and that they can't spend much time adding huge new features, I see this as a given. What I would like the devs to keep in mind, however, is that there is a demand for full tactical combat as a feature that adds depth to the game in future work such as expansions, DLCs, or even GalCiv4. And what I see on this forum makes me think I am not alone in this wish.

If I ever see a game where auto-resolve and manual tactical combat are properly balanced, so that I do not feel I am risking a worse outcome by using the former, I will eat a sandwich using ham solely taken from flying pigs.

And until that time, adding tactical combat is basically screwing over the people - arguably the more important part of the customer base - who prefer GalCiv's combat as it is.

Maybe nobody has said it in this thread, but people have said it. The phrase "shoot-em-up" is kind of a joke around here because of that sentiment.

It's pretty silly. Games like AoW 2 are clearly strategy games, despite having tactical battles. MoO 2 is clearly a strategy game. Civ V is clearly a strategy game.

There's lots of ways to do this and still wind up with a strategy game. Saying it'll make it into not a strategy game is a weak argument.