stasik28 wrote:
Well there's three of us now haha. But I agree with you, the cards are a fun idea at first, but it's like watching a replay of an rts, but you change the outcome by applying a spell card from Magic to "Add +2 attack for all allies on the field". You can get what I'm saying :P. But luckily, I'm just an addict for Space Battles, so setting up some cards then turning on free cam is all I need to enjoy it.

I still look forward to starting the manual battle and watching the two fleets wallop each other into the void. Fun times .

fargazer wrote:
I would like to see a fast forward for each phase - pick your card, space or other key to see result, then a few seconds to possibly change your next card. It may not save too much time in player vs player (since you have to coordinate both participants), but it would really speed up combat with AIs without losing the option to use the cards.

Note exactly the best way to do it, but I see where your head is at...



I would rather have a menu pop up after clicking 'Auto' that allows you to select your cards, and then it would calculate the battle.

I'll keep my thoughts on the matter concise, which is how I'd like combat to be.



My main gripe with the combat is it's slow when you want to go manual.



I'd like a manual option without the 3d cinematic; pick your cards, get results, next fight. repeat for the 30+ battles that round and end turn to do it again. Rather than taking an hour per turn loading in and out of 3d combat and slowly watching ships floating around adrift through space with no real movement.



I don't want the 3D combat removed (first few games it was nice, it does add something to the game), but I want an option to skip it, speed it up, or to somehow not have to have a loading screen for each combat phase. There comes a point when most players will have seen the 3D combat enough that it's a negative aspect of their playing experience (see many posts in this thread). Don't force those players to endure the cinematic just because they wanted to retreat, repair, or ensure some other cards were played but otherwise have ZERO interest in seeing the fight in 3D.



Last reason, if giving players an option to retreat/repair without entering manual combat was already up for discussion, don't stop short and just give us full access to our cards without the 3d combat screen. By all means hide the option and have 3d combat default manual combat, it looks better, but please add that option for those of us that aren't interested in the cosmetics.

Xanoth wrote:


Last reason, if giving players an option to retreat/repair without entering manual combat was already up for discussion, don't stop short and just give us full access to our cards without the 3d combat screen. By all means hide the option and have 3d combat default manual combat, it looks better, but please add that option for those of us that aren't interested in the cosmetics.

a quick 10-20 second non view battle multiplayer option might be worth making.



cards useable, 3 phases, battles done in 10 seconds

I believe battle sequence should be different for MP and SP. Personally i dont play MP games due to lack of time so my main focus is on SP and personally i want my battles more epic. For me SP battles are too short. I like the Amplitude approach on battles, its something new and fun but needs a lot more work. (and dont forget we also need proper ground combat lol)

Have anyone tried starebase orion? its for iOS, I think they solved it pretty sweet actually. When you engage the enemy you choose a option for each ship (there is a option to make it applied to all the ships in the same class) the top one is distance.



1. Charge Close 2. Medium Range 3. Long Range 4. Evasion 5. Retreat



And then there is what to engage (don't remember the order of that one, or the exact types)



1. Weakest 2. Biggest 3. Smallest 4. Closest 5. Hold ground (something like that)



And then you have two boxes where you can choose if you want to pick a enemy ship to kill first and then apply these rules

And one box if you want to escort one of your own ships.



The rest is just an show where the ships fly around doing their thing, sticking to the rules you set.



I think something like that combined with the cards would be fun and smart.



I mean, I only play Starbase on multiplayer with my friends, and it is fast and smooth to operate and if you don't want to watch the ships fly around you don't need to. you get the report in the notification bar. We play 2 games a week, and its the same micromanagement as in ES or MOO and all those other games, if not more.



Maybe have these options I mentioned, pre combat and then when combat begins instead of just a show you could pick your cards during the fights? (like now) And if you don't have time for that you could just choose 3 cards as it is now for auto combat. It would be kind of like now but with some more settings for how your ships should behave, the faster ones will engage faster, or flee faster, and the bigger ones will be slower but maybe escort something important, like a colony ship?



On top of that, if you would like to go deeper, just add range to the weapons.. bullets for closer.. etc.. or why not making it hard to hit the small ones that are fast?

If you build from that the possibilities are endless, and I don't think it would be to hard to make either, just ad higher deflect to smaller ships.. etc.

All it would take to improve the battle system in Endless Space is more control over cards and card types, and less reliance on having the entire battle preplanned before even starting it. Here is a list of improvements that I have gleaned from this forum and seem perfectly obvious to me.



1) Each phase is its own turn. You choose cards per-phase so as to counteract other cards or react to situations.



2) More than one fleet can engage in a single battle. I have two fleets orbiting the system, why can't I have both engage if I want them to? it could be beneficial too in that more fleets would mean each fleet gets its own card, but it only applies to the fleet using it. Downside is strengths get cut in half, and heroes only apply to the fleets they are in. It would stop pirates from attacking my colony ship while a fully decked out battle fleet without any room is right beside it.



3) Attack/Defence cards. Seriously, no more rock paper scissors. Each turn gives you one card for attack (including sabotage), and one for defence(including repair). The bonuses for each would just be slightly downgraded. Secondly, you can play two of either attack or defence for a small penalty to the ability you're not using. Double nano repair your ships? Well your attack strength just got slashed by 1/3.



4) Retreat option from the auto menu. Just click it and no need to choose cards. The card would still exist in manual battles but would get harder to use the closer the fleets are together.



5) Speed up the cinematics. Seriously. We just need 1)view of enemy ships using their cards 2)view of your ships using your cards 3) view of damage to enemy fleet 4)view of damage to your fleet. End phase.



I'd like to keep the current battle system as it does away with long and arduous turn based battles, real time battles where you lose track of who's doing what in your fleet, and battles where x strength is stronger than y's strength so x wins. But come on, alphas over guys time to put some meat on this skeleton.

Wow, a fellow British Columbian!



I'm with Javarino on all of the above points. I've been playing 4x for a long, long time and have been eating, drinking and breathing Endless Space for weeks now. I won't go as far as say the system is broken but the battles have become pretty boring and kind of tedious - all of those suggestions he's outlined would improve gameplay dramatically, IMHO.

Supahbeel wrote:
Wow, a fellow British Columbian!

Woot! It's surprising the response I get just from filling out the "Where are you from" section lol.

I would like to say that there are ways that the combat could be better that are within the system already.



I REALLY hate how cards are currently acquired. You just have this list of cards you start with and then get a few others with hero xp or research and I think none from subsystems? I would be much happier if only a few "basic" abilities were left as "Everyone starts with these" cards, and more were either put on the tech tree or required specific support units to be on one of your ships(want nano repair? Better put the nano repair mod on a ship). It would also help if the tech tree wasn't so spartan and....kinda meh balanced. Lasers seem to basically always be the weapon of choice, and very little changes that. Even more so with how alpha strike fleets can be so powerful,.



Really though I would like to see more "unique" weaponry. I know that since we can't target and control combat it sorta limits the design, but 7 tiers of machine guns really isn't exiciting, even to design. Even if i was auto resolving Moo combat, i enjoyed trying to make plasma webs, stasis fields, tractor beams, disruptors, those spinny thingys, and a bunch of other unique weapon based designs work. At the very least some offensive weaponry that can debuff or disable enemy ships might be a fun place to start.

Eji1700 wrote:
I would like to say that there are ways that the combat could be better that are within the system already.



I REALLY hate how cards are currently acquired. You just have this list of cards you start with and then get a few others with hero xp or research and I think none from subsystems? I would be much happier if only a few "basic" abilities were left as "Everyone starts with these" cards, and more were either put on the tech tree or required specific support units to be on one of your ships(want nano repair? Better put the nano repair mod on a ship). It would also help if the tech tree wasn't so spartan and....kinda meh balanced. Lasers seem to basically always be the weapon of choice, and very little changes that. Even more so with how alpha strike fleets can be so powerful,.



Really though I would like to see more "unique" weaponry. I know that since we can't target and control combat it sorta limits the design, but 7 tiers of machine guns really isn't exiciting, even to design. Even if i was auto resolving Moo combat, i enjoyed trying to make plasma webs, stasis fields, tractor beams, disruptors, those spinny thingys, and a bunch of other unique weapon based designs work. At the very least some offensive weaponry that can debuff or disable enemy ships might be a fun place to start.

I like the idea of more weapon types, but you have to admit that the combat system as it stands couldn't really hold up to that. I'd rather see your idea of mods having more of an influence on battle cards, but keeping the same weapon types. Say adding a mod that gives you a battle card so your lasers destroy a certain amount of anti-missile flak, for a damage decrease, but allowing your long range ships a higher hit chance. Stuff that makes better use of the current system by adding cards instead of just percentage increases. Maybe weapon overclock could do more damage but only be available on fleets with the proper mod installed, allowing you to specialize close range fleets.



At the same time, you'd need stack modifiers to prevent one ship from superpowering the entire fleet, and then we're just going in circles around the issue of changing the system. Still its a good idea Eji, I'd like to see it implemented. Anything to make combat more interesting .

Supahbeel wrote:
Wow, a fellow British Columbian!



I'm with Javarino on all of the above points. I've been playing 4x for a long, long time and have been eating, drinking and breathing Endless Space for weeks now. I won't go as far as say the system is broken but the battles have become pretty boring and kind of tedious - all of those suggestions he's outlined would improve gameplay dramatically, IMHO.

Well there's three of us now haha. But I agree with you, the cards are a fun idea at first, but it's like watching a replay of an rts, but you change the outcome by applying a spell card from Magic to "Add +2 attack for all allies on the field". You can get what I'm saying :P. But luckily, I'm just an addict for Space Battles, so setting up some cards then turning on free cam is all I need to enjoy it.

Biaslemon wrote:
I quite like the combat system, its unlike any game I've played before and it does mean that as long as you play smart you can defeat a force much larger than your own, it is a bit limited granted but im still not sick of it yet :P

lol - camo + repair + repair

heh yea, I've been playing it kind of badly since the patch. Because I'm one to just go down one tech tree and maximize the effectiveness of one weapon type, usually its kinetics (Warhammer, what have you done to me!) but since the AI go a mix of all 3, and have defenses of all 3, while my fleet only counters one of them, I usually melt haha. Been playing a bit less, might start a bit more since a few more friends bought it

kaydiechii wrote:
it certainly gets points for unique, but as my picture can better describe:



It doesn't fit the 4x scene. at ALL, its completely counter intuitive.



fleet formations, micromanaging your support/lead ships and controlling mobility over firepower and durability were all design elements and thoughts that LEAD to the creation of the original point/module system that moo pioneered, ES in short directly COPIED what moo did with their tonage/module system, but took out the very reason they were CREATED in the first place, that in it of itself is completely just absurd, i don't know how else to say it...





i don't usually get this emotional about video games, but i've been wanting a game that could come even remotely close to the original MOO for years, running that damn game out of dosbox with a network emu is just tiresome - and i guess my feelign could only be described as if i was given what appears to be my wish after all these long years, only to have one of the most intrisnical stragetic elements of the game snatched away and replaced by what can only be described as complete observer, i mean even the freecam option is another slap in the face of "Ooh look you can watch in all angles but can't control a damn thing", i mean, whats the point in having ships with bonus tonage effeciency to defense/support/offense modules if you can't even posistion them, several times i have watched helplessly as my armored ships sit behind my lesser armored ships and they get melted, i mean i could rant about this for HOURS.





moo. a 2mb game had the combat perfect. it was slow, it was hard to learn, but it had an auto feature for less experienced players, and even that auto feature was fast and you actually watched what the cpu did to micro (allowing a new player to pick up on strategies) I just don't see how something like this was missed or intentionally not added. I get the desire to be unique and accessible to players of lower intellect or means, but for the love of god there are other ways! Don't copy moo, that's fine i agree, but can the dev's honestly sit here and say the battle system is fine the way it is? maybe im the one odd duck here who can't seem to enjoy what others are, it feels bad. this game is so wonderful



on the converse - i've never seen such good tooltips and effecient ui's, especially for this game's age. its almost as acessable as moo was (the original moo, you could right click virtually ANYTHING for in depth information and statistics), the amount of anomolies/tech branches and depth of planetary management is amazing too, though again i feel the system production instead of invidiual planets is a bit odd but nothing wrong with it. there are so many amazing facets to this game, asthetics too... but why combat, whyy

There is a game in dev "M.O.R.E." that is supposed to have combat like MOO 2's ,you might want to check it out it looks good

stasik28 wrote:
Well there's three of us now haha. But I agree with you, the cards are a fun idea at first, but it's like watching a replay of an rts, but you change the outcome by applying a spell card from Magic to "Add +2 attack for all allies on the field". You can get what I'm saying :P. But luckily, I'm just an addict for Space Battles, so setting up some cards then turning on free cam is all I need to enjoy it.

Make that 4 of us

Honestly, I think the rock-paper-scissor combat system is terrible. Weapons will pretty much always be better than defenses because defenses are good against one weapon, whereas weapons are good against two defenses. Generalizing in defenses is always a losing proposition against those swarms of glass cannons. Furthermore, why stick yet another rock-paper-scissor-lizard-Spock on cards? Why not always provide their intended effect, but subtract from some kind of reserve or cost Dust?



Also, the opacity of ranges on weapons and fighter/bomber mechanics and stats is very frustrating.

Igncom1 wrote:


Ok so I know we all love MOO (Not me personally, I cringe every time someone mentions it) but that game did have a lot of late game problems with management of battles, and considering the current battle system was a dev decision to implement I feel like we should focus on improving it rather then trying to copy some 30 year old game.

Igncom1 and I have been arguing a bit lately about the awesomeness of MOO and MOO2, but i will side with him on this one.



Bottom line is, ES is not meant to be as tactical a game as MOO2 was. ES is designed to focus on the strategic and building elements, the "execution" is more automatic. Its neither good nor bad, it simply caters to a different kind of player.



I like the tactical battles in MOO2 once in a while. I loved the big epic battle where i painstakingly worked my way to victory. But most of the time, i just wanted the battles over. I'm a builder more than a fighter, so i prefer the quicker execution of ES.

I like the card battle system. It makes for a nice middle ground between real-time action and turn-based random-number-generation. That's not to say it's perfect; it's not. It needs continued balancing and tweaking and expansion, but the overall concept is good. In 4x games, I find that if the battle system is too involved, you end up spending so much time on it that you don't actually manage your empire, which is kind of a problem if you plan on having interesting and compelling trade/diplomacy/research and empire-building systems. And it sucks late-game, when you're fighting dozens of battles at once. If you have to micromanage each one or risk losing, you'll spend hours on a single turn.



Also, for those of you who just really want space battles like the video posted on the front page, check out Gratuitous Space Battles. It's close.

I am a long time fan of the MOO series, but I am just as much of a fan of the ES game, and in my book, it wouldn't take much to take ES to MOO category. THe combat is what makes ES unique. In MOO, I got very tired when it was massive fleets against massive fleets. It took forever to resolve.

Donkadoo wrote:
Have anyone tried starebase orion? its for iOS, I think they solved it pretty sweet actually. When you engage the enemy you choose a option for each ship (there is a option to make it applied to all the ships in the same class) the top one is distance.



1. Charge Close 2. Medium Range 3. Long Range 4. Evasion 5. Retreat



And then there is what to engage (don't remember the order of that one, or the exact types)



1. Weakest 2. Biggest 3. Smallest 4. Closest 5. Hold ground (something like that)



And then you have two boxes where you can choose if you want to pick a enemy ship to kill first and then apply these rules

And one box if you want to escort one of your own ships.



The rest is just an show where the ships fly around doing their thing, sticking to the rules you set.



snip

That's exactly the level of control I would like to have for the fleet engagements. I should add that I really like the new targeting and formations. They were well done.

loppnessmonsta wrote:
I like the card battle system. It makes for a nice middle ground between real-time action and turn-based random-number-generation. That's not to say it's perfect; it's not. It needs continued balancing and tweaking and expansion, but the overall concept is good. In 4x games, I find that if the battle system is too involved, you end up spending so much time on it that you don't actually manage your empire, which is kind of a problem if you plan on having interesting and compelling trade/diplomacy/research and empire-building systems. And it sucks late-game, when you're fighting dozens of battles at once. If you have to micromanage each one or risk losing, you'll spend hours on a single turn.

This I completely agree with. I love the fact that you don't need to lead each spaceship by hand, telling it exactly what to do at any given moment. I want to be a general, not a bunch of captains all at once.



But the current card system seems like lottery tickets. One can profit much more by guessing the opponent's card than by playing your strong hand as your strong hand is completely negated if the opponent guesses it.



Also, there is not a single tactical way to guess the next card. With the sole exception of retreat, it has absolutely no connection with the battle so far. Perhaps this is not the best explanation, but I see all three rounds as the same kind of lottery tickets.

after watching the video you call ES combat clunky and a waste of time.......really?



Maybe your perception is kinda "imprinted" due to the fact that you adore MOO that much. I never played it and all that video does for me is to take a stick and keep it away from me.

Igncom1 wrote:
In b4 mod fires the related thread cannon.



Ok so I know we all love MOO (Not me personally, I cringe every time someone mentions it) but that game did have a lot of late game problems with management of battles, and considering the current battle system was a dev decision to implement I feel like we should focus on improving it rather then trying to copy some 30 year old game.



And as your an emperor and not a admiral you really shouldn't have direct control anyway.



Not that the current system is perfect by any means, I still give it the old dagger eyes every time I play, but I really, really REALLY love the battle cards and would love to see them be massively expanded in use and implementation in the game. Get cards for fleet mobilization, and feet control (Possibly split the current combat rounds into micro phases for the use of extra cards, and alloy me to play them during an auto battle.



Expand the battle system based on what is awesome and fun!



(P.S. If you ever wanted MOO like Real time combat, please for the love of almighty spaghetti monster check out SOTS1, and possibly 2, you won't regret it, promise)

i agree, the premise of the cards is actually quite awesome, i don't think they should go - infact the post i made before yours i think is a good middle ground

kaydiechii wrote:
can anyone shed some light on why this was designed and implemented this way? i feel like somewhere half way through the game development funding just got cut altogether and someone had this brilliant cost effective idea of "hey lets just make the battles a predefined cinematic where players click 3 buttons!"

Nope it's been like that since the early alpha's - always been that way by design. I'm sure the 'why' is buried here on the forums somewhere in the archives.

I quite like the combat system, its unlike any game I've played before and it does mean that as long as you play smart you can defeat a force much larger than your own, it is a bit limited granted but im still not sick of it yet :P

Yeah, the OP hit the phrasing that I was looking for for a while now.



WHY the cinematic expirience?



If you go at it logicaly there's 2 points going for pressing auto and 2 points going for pressing manual.



Auto:



1) Saves Time

2) If you're clueless about the cards, the auto might win you a fight you could've screwed up somehow



Manual:



1) You get to see a cinematic

2) You can use the repair card which the auto doesn't seem to use, and you can retreat



But once you get familiar with the cards, and you see all the animations, youre left with



Auto - Saves time (and there is no way in hell anyone has the time to go through all the combats manualy once ships start piling up)

Manual - You get to use the very important defeat cards, and the completely overpowered repair cards



And since most of the game is really not graphics intensive, the cinematic combat is inflating both the size of the game and the pressure on your machine, and since I have a rather old computer this is quite a bit of an annoyance. I WANT to use the cards, and HAVE to since at higher difficulties playing without retreat and repair is suicide, but there really, really, really is no reason for the combat not having a small interface with a timer, 3 buttons and a "skip" button on any phase so you can skip to the next one, and no graphical involvement at all.



That is, right now. IF it were possible to move the ships in line to the front/back and manually affect what get's hit and what doesn't during combat and thus give any meaning except the aesthetic to the combat, then maybe, maaaaaybe it would make some sense. But I'd pay out of my own pocket to have my manual combat be done in a small window with no graphics apart from a timer and a couple of buttons.

Biaslemon wrote:
I quite like the combat system, its unlike any game I've played before and it does mean that as long as you play smart you can defeat a force much larger than your own, it is a bit limited granted but im still not sick of it yet :P

it certainly gets points for unique, but as my picture can better describe:



It doesn't fit the 4x scene. at ALL, its completely counter intuitive.



fleet formations, micromanaging your support/lead ships and controlling mobility over firepower and durability were all design elements and thoughts that LEAD to the creation of the original point/module system that moo pioneered, ES in short directly COPIED what moo did with their tonage/module system, but took out the very reason they were CREATED in the first place, that in it of itself is completely just absurd, i don't know how else to say it...





i don't usually get this emotional about video games, but i've been wanting a game that could come even remotely close to the original MOO for years, running that damn game out of dosbox with a network emu is just tiresome - and i guess my feelign could only be described as if i was given what appears to be my wish after all these long years, only to have one of the most intrisnical stragetic elements of the game snatched away and replaced by what can only be described as complete observer, i mean even the freecam option is another slap in the face of "Ooh look you can watch in all angles but can't control a damn thing", i mean, whats the point in having ships with bonus tonage effeciency to defense/support/offense modules if you can't even posistion them, several times i have watched helplessly as my armored ships sit behind my lesser armored ships and they get melted, i mean i could rant about this for HOURS.





moo. a 2mb game had the combat perfect. it was slow, it was hard to learn, but it had an auto feature for less experienced players, and even that auto feature was fast and you actually watched what the cpu did to micro (allowing a new player to pick up on strategies) I just don't see how something like this was missed or intentionally not added. I get the desire to be unique and accessible to players of lower intellect or means, but for the love of god there are other ways! Don't copy moo, that's fine i agree, but can the dev's honestly sit here and say the battle system is fine the way it is? maybe im the one odd duck here who can't seem to enjoy what others are, it feels bad. this game is so wonderful



on the converse - i've never seen such good tooltips and effecient ui's, especially for this game's age. its almost as acessable as moo was (the original moo, you could right click virtually ANYTHING for in depth information and statistics), the amount of anomolies/tech branches and depth of planetary management is amazing too, though again i feel the system production instead of invidiual planets is a bit odd but nothing wrong with it. there are so many amazing facets to this game, asthetics too... but why combat, whyy

Biaslemon wrote:
I quite like the combat system, its unlike any game I've played before and it does mean that as long as you play smart you can defeat a force much larger than your own, it is a bit limited granted but im still not sick of it yet :P

The combat in "Birth of the Federation" by Microprose (who made Master of Orion 1/2) was very similar to Endless Space. Except that it was better - as you gave your fleet orders between phases, and those would then visually carry out. It looked more impressive and it also allowed for more than 2 sides to engage in combat, so 3-way battles were perfectly possible. None of this card nonsense, but instead they used tactical maneuvers which could counter each other. (including ramming the opposition if this was your last resort)

I can't record dosbox, or i'd upload a video of original MOO fleet fights and plaster it all over these forums, id put it in my sig even, lol





and evil, that actually sounds half decent - i could live with that, but this current status quo is just painful lol



Video of what is DECENT for a 4x game in OP lol

lujo wrote:
But I'd pay out of my own pocket to have my manual combat be done in a small window with no graphics apart from a timer and a couple of buttons.

This. id pay to have moo2 ported into teh battle window for the ships. lolol







THIS.

I wholeheardely support the "unique" rant. I mean, I live in this century, and I've lived in the 20th century, and I know my "style over substance" when I see it, but I just can't see the point of having such an obvious "style over substance" feature be the only damned way you can interact with other players. It's insane. Who in the world would take a 4x game, and then be satisfied with the "visuals" of the combat so much that he wouldn't be annoyed by the non-interactivity (or sense, or lack of depth, and the misuse of time). I could go on for hours, this is just wrong.







EDITED IN BEING CONSTRUCTIVE:



Whad did get me thinking is that the whole thing could work it they just made it a proper cardgame when it comes to battles. If there were cards which could give you non-combat benefits like production bonuses, science bonuses and so on and so forth, if different ships models (or modules) allowed for different manouvres, if systems could be attacked while sieging fo benefits (or fleets attacked by static defenses) and if all this led to card use then battles would make sense.



They'd still need an option to disable the whole "animation" aspect and let as do them by just pressin buttons IMO, but then it would work. Cards ARE a good idea. Also, tieing their usage to dust might not be the best, but if there were modules which gave energy for manouvers, then it would not only be good but incentivise people to do something other than slap millions of weapons or shields and press auto all the time.



Or if you could manufacture one-shot expendible cards like big nukes and ones that would let you "stink up" a system by adding an anomaly to a random planet if you lose, or add an extra level to the opposing hero which increesed their upkeep but gave none or negative stats, I don't know... But there's so many places to go with the cards that it's amazing that what we currently have is... Not much.

maybe, tieing in production to cards actaully is a pretty cool idea, reminds me of a little of DW:E (dynasty warriors empires) and something like those card system (which it seems that is what amp was aiming for) would be nice, but i can't stress again how much of an issue this lack of fleet control is, it really wrong and just out of place, however on that note of DW a good idea for a future expansion is to revamp, not remove this combat style and allow you to posistion your fleets and send in battle commands to each ship, and by this i mean simplistic commands, retreat, advance, repair x, etc. things that can be easily done in the incredibly limited cinematic engine that you have locked us in, this can be done, and with not much effort mind you, i hope to see THAT in future expansions.

In b4 mod fires the related thread cannon.



Ok so I know we all love MOO (Not me personally, I cringe every time someone mentions it) but that game did have a lot of late game problems with management of battles, and considering the current battle system was a dev decision to implement I feel like we should focus on improving it rather then trying to copy some 30 year old game.



And as your an emperor and not a admiral you really shouldn't have direct control anyway.



Not that the current system is perfect by any means, I still give it the old dagger eyes every time I play, but I really, really REALLY love the battle cards and would love to see them be massively expanded in use and implementation in the game. Get cards for fleet mobilization, and feet control (Possibly split the current combat rounds into micro phases for the use of extra cards, and alloy me to play them during an auto battle.



Expand the battle system based on what is awesome and fun!



(P.S.

i haven't played sword of the star's but i heard its combat was somewhat similar to this.

If you ever wanted MOO like Real time combat, please for the love of almighty spaghetti monster check out SOTS1, and possibly 2, you won't regret it, promise)

I played both MOOs and Birth of the Federation and they both had different yet addictive combat styles. Personaly i am fan of turn based combat and imo a 4X game should have a turn based combat. I know i know we are emperors and not admirals but if take that then we can have auto combat for granded too. The style ES uses i believe has been chosen for multi player reasons. Its not bad, personaly i enjoy it with its flaws but needs some balancing to get more fun for the single player. Right know i doubt it can be changed but only improved. There is a lot of things (at least in my list) that could be added to make battles more fun but its a matter we can discuss some other time when an expansion is at bay.

as title says, i played the original Moo religiously, i logged almost as much time in that game as i did brood war, fantastic game. i never played moo3 because it was clunky, poorly made and just unfun. coming back and seeing ES is really nice, the faction creation is pretty detailed, could use some more point variations (especially neg mods) and customizable affinities - but alas it's very pretty and a fun game to play through. but i have to ask, what the hell is up with the combat in this game? Auto combat takes the fun out completely (although epically one sided battles i get that, and in the 100+ turn mark i get it too, thats fine) But manual, this 3 phase bullshit of cinematic arbitrarily placed gunfire shooting back and forth with almost 0 accuracy at the highest possible upgrades is just silly. not to mention the rock paper scissors additive of cards - that just is a more engrievous insult. maybe i was spoiled by the incredibly in-depth strategic positioning and turn based tactics of the original Moo fleet battles (which could take in excess of 25 minutes each lol, dear god that game was at time sink), or has the norm degraded this far? i haven't played sword of the star's but i heard its combat was somewhat similar to this. i'm not bashing ES saying its terrible. amplitude didn't have amazing funding to hold that level of aesthetics, but i'd honestly sac the aesthetics of that beautiful (but as linear as humanly possible lol) cinematic for some actual tactical play.



can anyone shed some light on why this was designed and implemented this way? i feel like somewhere half way through the game development funding just got cut altogether and someone had this brilliant cost effective idea of "hey lets just make the battles a predefined cinematic where players click 3 buttons!"



overall ES gets a 7/10 from me, the only markdown is this part, the severe gamebreaking technical issues are not design flaws, but rather errors that will be fixed in time, but i don't forsee a patch or expansion anytime in this game's lifetime to actually add depth to the combat, instead of this.... hideous thing that after seeing a fleet of every race fight once i dont feel like clicking "manual" ever again, if only to retreat.



despite all this negative tone im using, ES still remains by far one of the best space 4x style games ive played, and i really would like to see where development goes, its a very fun game to play through!





This is what im talking about if anyone is interested in MOO1/2

I personally like the combat in the game. I wish there were some things to streamline, like the ability to speed up/fast forward in combat if both players agree to it and the ability to retreat from the auto/manual menu.



I would also like to see the possibility for basic fleet setup. That way I can put some of the beefier ships in the front with a lot of defense to shoot down missiles and take the brunt of beam/kinetic damage, and some glass cannons in the back.



Either way, I personally like the combat in the game and like how it looks as well. I think if they can improve it down the road, it'll be perfect.

I like the current system and I don't care if its cinematic, its unique and cool it could be expanded yes but that vid looks boring as crap I don't want have to do that 50 times cause players are spamming fleets because they can.



I would also like the option as someone else posted is a non-graphical manual mode, where you just pick the cards and it just tells you what ships died etc on a bar.



Giving players options is GOOD game design and should be what 2012+ game design is about not restricting players to play X way (that is dumb 90s game design)



ES is not a replacement for MOO so stop trying to make it ES IS ES so less fanboi ism and more enjoying ES for it being ES and not for not being a replacement for MOO, this is why it wasn't designed like MOO.



the current system functions in an interesting way that is quick and easy to understand this is a good thing and looks good and that is all a battle system needs to be in a 4x game.



civ 5 has a less system than this (my unit deletes your unit) and I don't see peeps complain about that.

@the OP:



ES is not a game of tactical combat. It is a space based empire building game, like GalCiv2. Tactical combat would ruin ES in my opinion. The system could use tweaks, but the basic system is as it should be.

ThatMG wrote:
civ 5 has a less system than this (my unit deletes your unit) and I don't see peeps complain about that.

^ This!

I love the combat. It's strategic, economic, and quick. This allows multiple battles to occur without dragging the game on and allows for some really interesting multiplayer. Battles in MOO2 had to be mirco or you would lose almost every time. By controlling the battle you could really win with an inferior force but it took forever. That's all fine and dandy for single player but ES tries to macro a bit of that and speed things up all while proving a nice view to the battle. Again attrition comes into play here. In MOO2 or Galciv2 you either win or lose. In ES you can draw as you try and widdle down the opposing ships. I remember doing some brainstorming years ago about redoing the combat for MOO2. We had a very simular system in place but without the strategic or economic factors that effect your choices. Some of the strategy comes from technology also. This adds another layer to the strategic battle since your enemy could be using tactics you haven't developed yet. So while the ships are very important in their roles and sizes of the fleets there is also a strategic element which draws from economics at the same time. If you have the tactics and the money to back your fleets your going to be hard to stop.



I'm hoping to one day see the battle phase expanded to Orbital Bombardment and eventually Ground Combat. To this day it seems to be missing in all 4x games. Sins did it very well however there was no actual invasion with ground forces after orbital bombardment.

Malicar wrote:
I love the combat. It's strategic, economic, and quick. This allows multiple battles to occur without dragging the game on and allows for some really interesting multiplayer. Battles in MOO2 had to be mirco or you would lose almost every time. By controlling the battle you could really win with an inferior force but it took forever. That's all fine and dandy for single player but ES tries to macro a bit of that and speed things up all while proving a nice view to the battle. Again attrition comes into play here. In MOO2 or Galciv2 you either win or lose. In ES you can draw as you try and widdle down the opposing ships. I remember doing some brainstorming years ago about redoing the combat for MOO2. We had a very simular system in place but without the strategic or economic factors that effect your choices. Some of the strategy comes from technology also. This adds another layer to the strategic battle since your enemy could be using tactics you haven't developed yet. So while the ships are very important in their roles and sizes of the fleets there is also a strategic element which draws from economics at the same time. If you have the tactics and the money to back your fleets your going to be hard to stop.



I'm hoping to one day see the battle phase expanded to Orbital Bombardment and eventually Ground Combat. To this day it seems to be missing in all 4x games. Sins did it very well however there was no actual invasion with ground forces after orbital bombardment.

This, also the fact its a set timed battle means more players in multiplayer can play without having to wait for ages while someone else battles each other.



Birth of the Federation I strangely miss that game, the some of the random events in that were truly game breaking.

I don't have a problem with simplified or streamlined combat. Lots of 4X games do it differently. I don't think it is fair to claim that there is only one right way to do combat. While i enjoy some complicated, involved turn-based combat systems, i don't think a 4X game is generally a good place for them. It just makes things take too long, especially for multiplayer.



So i think the basic card system is fine. But they undermine it's main virtue (speed) by making you go through the cinematic, or abandon all control. Adding some way to make your three choices as quickly as you want would let the benefits of the way they have done things really shine through.

I've never been a fan of possessing my ship captains to personally pilot every damn ship in my fleet - admiral level control suits me perfectly. The cards system is a fun take on turn-based orders. I'll enjoy seeing the system developed a little better, seeing the addition of carriers and fighters, etc.

Im not going to lie... i haven't played MOO, even though i perhaps should one day. Yes its space combat is awesome etc. But Endless Space is no "Total War:", a game that completely gives over to YOU commanding the battle every single time... which is very unrealistic. Not only that Total War has a massive design team so they can afford to implement some depth in building as well, not much as Endless Space or a 4X strategy game is capable of though. Total Wars strength is in controllable combat and it feels so good.



However, expanding on your MOO videos, the ground combat in particular. We are expecting at some point for the ground war combat screen to be implemented... SG kinetic shells hammering buildings while your Hissho Samurai run the gauntlet. Cannot wait, especially when fighters and bombers are introduced, making ground combat more cinematic.



But one thing is that ES is no MOO... because its Endless Space. Its more manageable due to its clean interface, elements, clean tech tree etc. Focusing on cinematic combat is rather new to me. And in my opinion more satisfying in some respects to see your grand plan and strategy come together rather than being a "Creed" (Imperial Guard Tactical Genius) and winning everything yourself because the AI is stupid.

I like the fact that the combat is relativley simple. Its quick and keeps the game moving at a consistant pace. Although sometimes I do wish that there would be some more exciting things going on in the battle.

I would like to see a fast forward for each phase - pick your card, space or other key to see result, then a few seconds to possibly change your next card. It may not save too much time in player vs player (since you have to coordinate both participants), but it would really speed up combat with AIs without losing the option to use the cards.