Mostly for multiplayer. No more options to manual or auto combat. Opponents are choosing all cards before battle for all phases step by step:

1st phase long range select:

Player A: card A1 Player B: card B1

After this both players sees: A: card A1, B: card B1

result: Player A's fleet status1, Player B's fleet status1

2nd phase medium range select:

Player A: card A2 Player B: card B2

After this both players sees: A: card A2, B: card B2

result: Player A's fleet status2, Player B's fleet status2

3rd phase melee select:

Player A: card A3 Player B: card B3

After this both players sees: A: card A3, B: card B3

result: Player A's fleet status3, Player B's fleet status3





If you for some reason didn't picked cards, when AI choses its for you except retreating(ai can't retreat). You can see afterbattle report in log and click "playback" and watch the action later. During playback you have active chat and can respond, can cancel or faster playback anytime or move to any part of combat(with progress bar just like in media player or similar).

Or even better: playback of battle in popup window - dragging small battle window, so you can watch and manage your empire simultaneously or you can watch in full screen it if you wish. For my opinion it will reduce chance of afterbattle desync too just because the battle will play on your computer only without any network activity and actual battle is resolved before.



Sorry for my poor English