As you will all know about 80% of the battle-tactics in Endless Space 2 are never used by anyone ever, since there are just a couple superior ones you simply need to have and the others cant simply keep up.


In fact if i happen to not find "by any means" and "evasive maneuvers" in a game i dont know what to use my 5 tactic slots for. I mean i will always fill them with something but honestly i will never use those "placeholders" and having an additional tactic slot should be a big deal. Additionally, no tactic (not even the best ones) are perfect. There always is this 1 line i would rather have on a different range etc.


I've got an idea that would not only give the possibility to get an abundance of interesting tactics but will also deepen battle-strategies and open up possibilities that are not present in the current game.

Want your additional action point with a full-slug-fleet (triple-short)? Sure! Why not?

Want to make all your Fighters accompany your ships and also a dmg-buff for your weapon-modules? Go for it!


Here is how it works:


Step 1: Get rid of the predone battle strategy-cards in the military tree and instead give us "effects" and the new "tactic points" for research. (we will also need some base tactic points and base-effects too but the rest should be researchable (pls dont make "effects" on find only (like atm with "by all means" and "evasive maneuvers" because building a strategical setup around a random curiosity drop is just pathetic)


Step 2: Let us create our own battle tactics via a battle tactic-creator where we will be able to pick the ranges for all lanes and also 1 or several effects. These effects will cost tactic points. (would be awesome if we could Name our tactics too!)


Example:

1st some effects to toy around:

- "evasive maneuver (long range)": +5% chance to evade attacks on long range (tier 4 effect); -1 tactic point

- "evasive maneuver (medium range)": +5% chance to evade attacks on medium range (tier 4 effect); -1 tactic point

- "evasive maneuver (shortrange)": +5% chance to evade attacks on close range (tier 4 effect); -1 tactic point

- "agressive": +2% damage on all your ships; -1 tactic point (tier 2 effect)

- "fatigue": -2% damage on all your ships; +1 tactic point (tier 2 effect)

- "by all means": pay 1 influence per CP on fleet and gain +6% damage on all your ships (if u cannot afford the influence u wont get any buff); -2 tactic points (if this effect is reflected by "mirror" and your opponent cannot provide the required influence the enemy fleet wont get a buff (tier 4 effect)

- "mirror": reflect an effect of your choice onto the enemy fleet; tactic point cost/gain for said effect is halfed (tier 3 effect)

- "full reserves": gain an action point; -20 tactic points (tier 5 effect)


I imagine that you start out with 5 tactic points and reach a maximum of 10 through research ( u can also add tactic points to "deeds" and "quests" so one might be able to go above 10). For my examples i will assume 10 tactic points and all, above-listed effects researched.


now some possible combinations:


1st Example:

6 x "evasive maneuver (long range)" + 4 x "evasive maneuver (medium range)"; -10 tactic points (so all 10 available tactic points spent) results in a tactic that gives your ships +30% evasion at long and +20% Evasion at medium range (a recreation of  the "Evasive maneuvers"-tactic (aka "go full-slugs if you are lucky enough to find this tactic"-tactic) essentially)


However i could drop the 4x "evasive maneuver (medium range)" and instead get 4x "agressive;

+30% Evasion at long range and +8% damage on all ships;


or i add another 2x "evasive maneuver (medium range)" (which would increase the cost to 12 tactic points) and then bring it down to 10 tactic points by adding 2x "fatigue" resulting in the following tactic:

+30%Evasion on long range, +30% Evasion at medium range and -4% damage on fleet


(Evasion will need a capping (maximum +30% from battle-tactic (with antimatter-engine your ships would get to a whooping 40% evasion at said range) to not make it OP)


OR (since this tactic is perfect for slug-only-fleets) i could also drop a "mirror" on 6x "evasive maneuver (long range)" thereby giving the enemy fleet 30% Evasion at long range but adding +3 tactic points to my pool which i can then use to get rid of "fatigue" and instead add 1x "agressive";

endresult: +30% Evasion on long range on both fleets, +30% Evasion on medium range on fleet and +2% damage on fleet 


2nd Example:

5x "by all means"; -10 tactic points results in a tactic that lets u spend 5 influence per CP on fleet and grants all your ships +30% damage; another recreation of a tactic (the "by all means"-tactic)


However i could drop in 10x fatigue and add another 5x "by all means" and get:

pay 10 influence per CP on fleet and get +40% damage



3rd Example

1x "full reserves", 10x "fatigue" => get an action point; -20% damage (essentially the current "full reserves" tactic)


However i could get rid of the damage debuff by just mirrowing "full reserves" =>

both fleets get an action point after battle



Besides the abovementioned necessary cap on Evasion one can get through tactics i think its also necessary to add a cap on the total number of effects (also counting multiples of the same effect) one can use (30 seems reasonable) to not overstack effects into ridiculousness .... "pay 2k inflence per CP and..." XD


The effects are basically ingame already. All that needs to be done is to "extract" them out of their corresponding cards (like i did with some above already).


Only problem i can see here is how to teach the AI to use this generator. I mean the AI already fails at picking the predone ones on a regular basis XD. Its probably best to just give them a couple predone ones (but good ones pls!!!!). I think this addition to the game would improve space-combat quite a bit and i cant wait to toy around with my selfmade tactics ingame!


Cheers!

Genitor


Edit1: changed some values on evasion (i recalled incorrectly XD)