This game has been designed not to have rts battles, in fact it has been implemented a quite original and intuitive "card" battle system, which i like. I don't want to change it, devs made their decisions and I'm fine with. If I want something different, well Sword of the Stars could be that game, for istance. I'm absolutely ok with what we have now, and I'm sure this system will become even better with future and more polished game versions

ElegantCaveman wrote:
PLEASE GOD NO!!!

Lol nice one Elegant! lol



There is a fine balance of 4X "loyalism eggshells" Amp will be walking on figuring out how much they can afford on their bottom line between a very successful product to a total flop that pleases only a minority of their target market or hits their target market entirely.



Given today's very graphics hungry future market of younger players who have yet to taste the potential joy in 4X gaming I suspect this is where the brass tacs are counted at the offices in Amp.



Keep the Golden Oldies happy or try and keep everyone happy, new and grizzled 4X vets alike, maybe, dare I say it, shed the grizzlies and go for the younger 4X greenhorns?



Thats why I'd advocate a balance, at the very least you should be given the option for "Classic 4x" if you so wished when it came to dealing with the Space Battle feature and anything else that may remotely be abhorrent to 4X "purists", but the wise money would be to move 4X on to an audience more used to Pew! Pew! unless ofc Amp is not interested in any of their .



I think SOSE is building along these lines across multiple 4X fronts, ES is definitely building into a superior product with a stronger strategic 4X build though it seems to be dragging its tail in other potentially vital areas of gameplay that could make quite a significant difference to the success of the product in today's market.

Lets just revamp the system we have, rts is good but this game has its own feel and if we want it to be successful and get to a ES 2 then it has to have something different about it.

i'll go with Caveman about this one. I want to play the big picture, not the small focus on Space Battles. I enjoy playing on huge maps, putting hours into expansion, building, diplomacy. If i wanted flashy Space Battles i would play Sins of a Solar Empire. oh, i'm actually playing Sins quite often.... why can't i just have both. In seperate Games preferably.

Admiral_Tolwyn wrote:
Turn based like the top down moo2 battles? If that's what you want just go play moo2. The power of video cards and game design engines are jumping mountains in what they can display on our screens today,that cant be stopped. So the whole 3d space battle visuals thing is going to become more of the norm and frankly 'they way it is' from competing game companies trying to outdo the next big space battle display.



I love the old school space strat games, I grew up with moo2, ascendancy ig etc but if they want to stay afloat in this market they have to impress with visuals. They can do both, just balance it out without killing the game. Sooner or later space battle tactical games will look more like a movie, remember how epic the so called ig3 'nexus' game looked. That's just a taste of what is to come.



Imagine this game using the Nexus engine for the space battles *Drooooolz*

You don't have to impress with Graphics to get an audience these days, but keep telling yourself that you need to. As much as i dislike it, Minecraft proves that you can reach a broad audience just with a good idea and gameplay. More then 6 million ppl bought that game and it helped the indie developers around the world, showing that there is a hungry market out there that is willing to help indie companies if they just stick to what they do best: coming up with new ideas and concepts instead of trying to compete with the shiny graphics of triple A titles from EA.

Calico wrote:


You don't have to impress with Graphics to get an audience these days, but keep telling yourself that you need to. As much as i dislike it, Minecraft proves that you can reach a broad audience just with a good idea and gameplay. More then 6 million ppl bought that game and it helped the indie developers around the world, showing that there is a hungry market out there that is willing to help indie companies if they just stick to what they do best: coming up with new ideas and concepts instead of trying to compete with the shiny graphics of triple A titles from EA.

+1 [10characters]

I'm with the caveman on this as well. No to RTS but by all means add some depth and options to the existing foundation, command and control multi-ship targeting, formations, things along that line.

You don't have to impress with Graphics to get an audience these days, but keep telling yourself that you need to.

I totally agree (and have for about a decade now), graphics don't make a game good, they only make an already good or great game (game-play wise) better.

Any one ever play EU or Crusader KIngs or dare i say Vicky all three are complex and yet there are no battles

evilknight23 wrote:
Any one ever play EU or Crusader KIngs or dare i say Vicky all three are complex and yet there are no battles

QFT. I'm playing CKII right now and I'm loving the combat. It's much faster than ES right now though - it could use a speedup/tuneup.

stevenmc409 wrote:
I just want more control I don't care if it is with an RTS style battle or if they just improve the current system to include things like target prioritization or formations.

+100% support

TheManInRoomFive wrote:
You can still keep the turn based aspects and card ideas and let people have formations and environment matter.

Currently I like how things are but I can agree that formations and a bit more control of fleet combat would be welcome. As it stands though it an get tedious because with the right mix of cards you can pretty much win every fight without much effort. A bit more strategy would be nice as winning fights with the same couple of cards isn't that engaging.

Count me in the "please no RTS battles!" camp. If there are ways to give the player a bit more of a hands-on feel without drastically affecting the flow of the game, then fine. But there is real potential for screwing up the game if it goes to far.



People always like to suggest things that would be fun for the player to do, but seldom taking into consideration what the AI can handle. Arguments that "it works in other games" don't necessarily apply, because nobody wants this game delayed for 6 months to a year while they re-write the combat AI from scratch.



The lead designer of GalCiv2 always used to say that the game didn't include tactical combat because that meant 100% of the programming focus could be spent on the strategic layer of the game. We've seen in the past with games like Total War how a game that tries to do both things well -- strategic map + tactical battle AI -- doesn't always work well. It's working pretty well now in Shogun 2, but that's after how many games of trying to get it right? Remember suicide Generals? And AI armies in TW games still can't siege worth a damn.



Bottom line: let's look for small improvements, yes. But with an indie developer like Amplitude that isn't working with a Creative Assembly-type budget, I think there's a limit to what we can expect for tactical battle AI, while also having an engaging game at the strategic level. Right now, I think they need to be putting a majority of their AI programming into Diplomacy and not combat.

What about a real-life war-gaming style approach the the battle planning. The battle itself would be three phases long, however you would plan for the first phase once, and the last two phases twice (two adhering to one strategy, the other two to a different one).



The plans would be drawn up in a blueprint style screen before the battle begins, the only information you have to go with is the approximate/known enemy fleet size. You would then chart routes, target priorities (e.g. weaker ships first), as well as group formations (ships in a group formation would all follow the same routes/priorities).



During the battle you would only be able to switch to your alternative plans at the end of the initial stage (thus you get an idea of what you enemy could be doing).



This is quite difficult to show in words so for example, here is an exemplar plan set, one is offensive, the other is defensive:



Phase 1:

(Boxes show group formations)





Phase 2 (Offensive/Defensive):

(Group disbanded for free movement/new formation)





Phase 3 (Offensive/Defensive):





Though the plans would not have to be restricted to offensive and defensive. This could also be tied in to the faction mechanics so that certain factions are more likely to take certain approaches to conflicts thus you can make a strategy for each opposing faction.



This is only a thought though.

I'm with caveman on this, really don't want RTS in this. I play and love the Total war games however the majority of the time I auto resolve the battles. Just the way I play it. I also love Sins of a solar empire, so I'm not adverse to RTS space battles per se, I just don't play Endless space for huge battles where I'm frantically trying to control everything and predict whats going to happen next. I guess what I'm saying is I have different games for different itches and Endless space has never seemed like it needed RTS battles to me just like Heroes of Might and Magic never needed ARPG elements. However a slightly more involved turn based system I could easily get behind and enjoy.



I can see how people would like Total War in space, and I think there is room for that game, however to take a game that is already impressive in Alpha and try to shoehorn it into that mould would be a mistake in my opinion. I love the fact that Amplitude aren't afraid to go a different way and try something a bit different. It seems to me that the gaming industry is stagnating alot now and I believe its down to things like trying to copy the big sellers too much and risk averse nature of big companies, ala EA and activision, have you noticed how many FPS there are? I do not want to see all strategy games go super simplified like civ 5 or just copy TW:x and to avoid that we need developers to try and implement these different methods. Genetic diversity is essential for life, and I think that diversity is highly important for gaming as well. (sorry for my little rant )

Sir_Destru wrote:
If we could get a control system akin to Star Wars Empire at War that would be amazing. +1

+Support ~ I'm not billy mays and I guarantee it!

Steven_Muldoon wrote:
What about a real-life war-gaming style approach the the battle planning. The battle itself would be three phases long, however you would plan for the first phase once, and the last two phases twice (two adhering to one strategy, the other two to a different one).



The plans would be drawn up in a blueprint style screen before the battle begins, the only information you have to go with is the approximate/known enemy fleet size. You would then chart routes, target priorities (e.g. weaker ships first), as well as group formations (ships in a group formation would all follow the same routes/priorities).



During the battle you would only be able to switch to your alternative plans at the end of the initial stage (thus you get an idea of what you enemy could be doing).



This is quite difficult to show in words so for example, here is an exemplar plan set, one is offensive, the other is defensive:



Phase 1:

(Boxes show group formations)





Phase 2 (Offensive/Defensive):

(Group disbanded for free movement/new formation)





Phase 3 (Offensive/Defensive):





Though the plans would not have to be restricted to offensive and defensive. This could also be tied in to the faction mechanics so that certain factions are more likely to take certain approaches to conflicts thus you can make a strategy for each opposing faction.



This is only a thought though.

+Support ~ Also like this one!

As has been said a few times, the system now is fine for me, but it needs something more, something that can be included alongside this same system, but it needs more.

It's just a glorified cutscene most of the time, not particularly epic or enthralling, need more things to do.

I think I should link this here.



/#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11109-discussion-proposals-understanding-what-can-be-implimented-in-a-beta-stage-game

Keep the realtime out of ma 4x game I say



But more tactical options for the current system would be nice to have. Just playing my first game, and I can see getting combat old, very fast.



Also why I can´t withdraw from a battle? Am I a Klingon in disguise? Nothing more frustrating than seeing a combat going on and from the 1st second, it´s clear that all your ships will get wiped out

I assumed the battles were RTS Style and was in a for a shock. They need to be RTs...or at least the option.



Akin to Empire: Total War naval battles would be awesome...but probably far, far away.

Hm, I verry much like Rts space battles and wouldn't mind it. But I think it would better fit in a game that also were in a sort of RT like in Imperium galactica with the important option to pause your game. I hope that there will



be one, and as far as i know legend of pegasus will go that way. If you don't want spend to much time with space battle just auto solve your combats. But I also think it is not realistic as the game is designed



differently and i am perfectly ok with it. And I also would like to see what you can make with the Battlecard feature that i find just great. So I am for an Improve of the control.



Here are some proposals:



1. The ability to create fleet formations, and task forces. That also would give you more control of the outcome of an autoresolve battle, perhaps also with the option of picking priority cards for auto battle.



2. The ability to use comand cards for fleet manouvers, like letting a task force fall back, letting another part of the fleet outmanouver the enemy fleet and attack from an difficult angle, from below or the rear. Please use the three dimensions of space.



3. More options for the combat cards, wich i verry much like and find it a great feature of the game. One possibility i would like to see is researching support modules, that would give u more options. So you have the choice between Firepower of diverseability.

RTS would be nice... if ES was a grand strategy game. But it isn't. It's a smaller scale game than Total War.



Also, given a finite set of resources, either they can create two mediocre battle systems of which only half their audience will ever use as well as introducing exponential difficulty in balance and gameplay tweaking, or they could refine/tweak/adjust/Frankenstein one to work well. Personally, I'd prefer the latter, whether real time or otherwise. Given the stage of development and the systems already involved (not just combat, but also the camera system, etc etc etc), the most practical course is sticking to what we have now (turn based) and improving the systems that support that.

Well, I think it's very safe to say that it's never going to happen, though...

How would RTS be more appropriate in a grand strategy game? That's like saying Hearts of Iron 3 would benefit from real-time strategy, but it wouldn't. The higher up the strategy ladder you go, the less sense controlling individual battles makes. All real-time "strategy" games I'm aware of focus on a single battle in a war; you can tack a strategy simulator onto such a system, but they don't necessarily synergize.

MOO used turn-based space battles which often got out of hand in the late game because there was no fleet cap. I think a turn-based battle would work just fine in ES due to the unit limits and it would fit in with the turn-based theme. Of course you could go down the route of Total War and go turn-based on the galaxy map and real-time in the battles but I think turn-based would fit the game better since it might integrate faster with the existing card system, where a card is played every number of turns or something.

+1. I'm fine with it not being RTS. Keeping with rest of the game being turn based, and not going for a game mechanic mix like the total war series. But it needs to be heavily improved upon. Right now, I just auto all fights as I don't. fight them interesting in any way.

Yep pretty much agree and I suspect it links to the need for Free Cam via public vote etc, folks want to do/have control of more in the space battles and they simply want more from ES Alpha.



A very big opportunity to RTS the ship battles would be a great big feather in Amplitude-Studio's Cap if they pulled it off it would be akin to designing Total War:Space and probably land them with quite a large fan base in addition to what they have atm.



Is that going to happen? Not now, maybe in the future? Who knows... Autoresolve is your friend atm unless you really need to sort something out.

Aye, That's what I've resorted to. I just take the Strategy road, (Though the battles do look pretty on my computer) because it's more of the element I'm lookin' for.

Yep I see the Space Battles as one of the rewards for bothering to sit for hours playing the game, it should be quite a motivating factor in the Just One More Turn genre.



If the Space Battles do not develop so well in the future ES will be in danger of Just One More Turn Off and shrink to a die hard fan base to be shelved with the rest of them.

As of recent, my favorite EndlessSpace-style mods died out from Garry's Mod. And It hasn't been announced to return. Ever. So I'm trying to fill this gaping hole it left in my life, (and schedule.) because I used to devote so much time to it. I guess it's more an Eve / ES style, really. You only controlled 1 ship, and had to mine and what not. Eventually you got into these pretty hardcore space battles. 20+ ships (not including AI) and these were behemoths. Very interesting. I'd feel I'd died and gone to heaven if ES eventually came close to that genre.

That does remind me of the X-Universe series of games. Often expected them to sort out an mmo to rival the likes of Eve one day...



Shame really you cannot combine SOSE with ES to get that rts Ship Battle element. Wishful thinking I know...

Well, hey, it's a lot more likely than with any other business model out there. Props to Amplitude for appealing to the gamer, rather than the pocket.



I've got some high hopes for this game. (Hopefully they're the popular hopes.)

I'm really looking forward to Beta launch to see if the combat has improved. There are quite a few other discussions on ways to improve combat and I'm sure Amplitude has read over a few of them. A RTS based combat system isn't a bad option, but I'm just wondering if a board based approach is more in congress with the rest of the gameplay. You can select a Strategy card, pick targets, move your fleet, then watch the action happen as it does now. Most real-time combat systems include landscape based positional bonuses, that I just don't see getting implemented in the final game. Could be wrong however.

If we could get a control system akin to Star Wars Empire at War that would be amazing. +1

Sir_Destru wrote:
If we could get a control system akin to Star Wars Empire at War that would be amazing. +1

+support.

I just want more control I don't care if it is with an RTS style battle or if they just improve the current system to include things like target prioritization or formations.

I'm sure somebody has posted something about this, but I couldn't find any threads...

Also, I'm sure I'll get some hate for this, but meh...



Anywho, I'd like to release my opinion. I'd like to see RTS style ship battles in the game. I read somewhere "I like the 'trading-card' feel of the battles that's in the game currently, but it will get old, quick." And I whole heartily agree with that person. The Game is fun. I love ES. It keeps me interested, for sure. But there's a huge community of RTS players who are now finding ES, who will jump into the game and expect "Gratuitous Space Battles" but will get this version..



Let me be the first to post : It's fine how it is. I love it. I'm not saying I won't play if they don't implement it. (They already have my money anyways ;]) But, if it were put in, I'd just be more prone to play it, and for a longer set of time. This game is very interesting, don't get me wrong, I'll be here a while.



Post opinions

I really really don't want to see a RTS system in this game, its been done before, its hard to code nad harder to balance, not to mention it would require a compleate revamp and change to the majority of the games michanics that when not done is a appropriate way would just leave people more fustrated then if they had hit the auto-resolve.



Don't get me wrong, i love my RTS games, but i don't want to see this added to them. I play turn baised stratigy games for a reason, and its the same reason i auto-battle every time in the total war series.

I, for one, am very glad that there is no RTS combat in Endless Space. I wouldn't mind seeing more strategy in the battles (though the card system is nice as is, it also has a high degree of randomness) but not strategy from an RTS mold.

You can still keep the turn based aspects and card ideas and let people have formations and environment matter.

TheManInRoomFive wrote:
You can still keep the turn based aspects and card ideas and let people have formations and environment matter.

Yes indeed!



At the very least some middle ground has to be met to advance and improve upon what has already been developed.



The current format as it stands imho is just like a visually ramped up version of previous graphic scripted space battle displays from 4X games of yesteryear, maybe some folks are too happy with the status quo, it wont bring in new blood though compared with whats on offer elsewhere.



Even some of the ship models need a good revision too.



So wishful thinking it is indeed for RTS, however definite improvements are much needed on this front; it could turn out to be a game breaker in the making and will score them poorly when it comes to reviewing the Gold.

Just as long as there's absolutely no real-time interaction during combat.



It's not possible to have Player vs Player and real-time in a game that lasts hours of single player and seconds of combat.

PLEASE GOD NO!!!



I really really don't want this to become Total War: In SPAAACE!



One of the things that surprised me about ES and which made me happy is the fact that the battles -aren't- real-time.



There's a massive shift in gaming in general to go towards real-time (and first-person) for everything, and it's one I hate. I recognize that this makes sense from a business perspective, and that a majority of gamers like this, but what can I say... I'm a bit slow, and I'm old-school. Give me good ol' fashioned top-down/isometric, turn-based any day over all this fancy-schmancy real-time 3D FPS crap. Damn kids, get off my lawn! *shakes fist*



I'm all for making the battles more engaging and strategic, but please please please, not RTS. If anything, I find them -too- real-time now, the way there's a timer and you have to pick your cards "in a hurry" (well, okay, the timer's plenty slow now that I know what the cards do, but when I first started playing, it was more like "OH GOD WHAT DO I DO PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!! D:").



If the battles become real-time, I'll be using auto-resolve exclusively, and I'll be missing out on a pretty big aspect of the game. I really hope it doesn't come to that.



I do like the potential with the card system, though. Make the battles turn-based, add a few more phases, a bunch more cards, things like that. Give us a grid, possibly hexagonal. Ship placement would matter (for example, I could have "sniper" ships of smaller hulls with less HP in the back, being shielded by heavily-armored dreads up front), and you could use different cards for different ships (or at least for different "wings" of your fleet; say you could have a defensive wing and an offensive wing).

Wonderful encapsulation of how I feel about the matter, Caveman, though a bit more crotchety than I might have phrased it.



I don't think a hexagonal grid would work: you'd need to get way too involved in moving the ships from phase to phase. How about a trio of range boxes you can assign ships to instead? You have three boxes, the enemy has three boxes, and maybe there's a box in between you at the start. Every turn a ship can move a box one way or the other, unless it's really fast in which case it can move two. This is nice and simple and allows you to try to defend your long-range ships. Leaving a box with enemies in it should be painful if they want to hurt you. I don't know if I'd want targeting assignment or not, but I'm thinking no.

GC13 wrote:
though a bit more crotchety than I might have phrased it.

I'm a grouchy old man, leave me alone.

GC13 wrote:
I don't think a hexagonal grid would work: you'd need to get way too involved in moving the ships from phase to phase. How about a trio of range boxes you can assign ships to instead? You have three boxes, the enemy has three boxes, and maybe there's a box in between you at the start. Every turn a ship can move a box one way or the other, unless it's really fast in which case it can move two. This is nice and simple and allows you to try to defend your long-range ships. Leaving a box with enemies in it should be painful if they want to hurt you. I don't know if I'd want targeting assignment or not, but I'm thinking no.

Come to think of it, I think you might be right. I like the simplicity of your range boxes. Having a grid (hexagonal or otherwise) might complicate things too much.



Though one of my issues with RTS battles is partly the real-time component, more importantly, I don't want them to be too complicated or too long.



I loved King Arthur: The Role-playing Wargame, for example, but the auto-resolve was basically broken, and you basically -had- to play out the battles manually if you wanted to have anything close to a decent chance. I actually quite enjoyed the battles (as far as RTS battles go, at least), but I found them to be far too involved, and I was spending a good ~80% of my playing time simply in battles, when I wanted to focus on the overall "big-picture" strategy instead. This made me stop playing, which is a pity, as I was really enjoying the game overall.



I would fear something similar happening with Endless Space; especially given how common battles can be, even though more complexity would be nice, they would still need to remain relatively quick, or they would completely take over the whole game experience.

Yes, whatever gets put in needs to be kept quick. Even when you sprawl over half the galaxy, the AI collectively owns the other half and they aren't shy about using its productive capacity to throw fleet after fleet at you.

ElegantCaveman wrote:
PLEASE GOD NO!!!



I really really don't want this to become Total War: In SPAAACE!



One of the things that surprised me about ES and which made me happy is the fact that the battles -aren't- real-time.



There's a massive shift in gaming in general to go towards real-time (and first-person) for everything, and it's one I hate. I recognize that this makes sense from a business perspective, and that a majority of gamers like this, but what can I say... I'm a bit slow, and I'm old-school. Give me good ol' fashioned top-down/isometric, turn-based any day over all this fancy-schmancy real-time 3D FPS crap. Damn kids, get off my lawn! *shakes fist*



I'm all for making the battles more engaging and strategic, but please please please, not RTS. If anything, I find them -too- real-time now, the way there's a timer and you have to pick your cards "in a hurry" (well, okay, the timer's plenty slow now that I know what the cards do, but when I first started playing, it was more like "OH GOD WHAT DO I DO PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!! D:").



If the battles become real-time, I'll be using auto-resolve exclusively, and I'll be missing out on a pretty big aspect of the game. I really hope it doesn't come to that.



I do like the potential with the card system, though. Make the battles turn-based, add a few more phases, a bunch more cards, things like that. Give us a grid, possibly hexagonal. Ship placement would matter (for example, I could have "sniper" ships of smaller hulls with less HP in the back, being shielded by heavily-armored dreads up front), and you could use different cards for different ships (or at least for different "wings" of your fleet; say you could have a defensive wing and an offensive wing).

Turn based like the top down moo2 battles? If that's what you want just go play moo2. The power of video cards and game design engines are jumping mountains in what they can display on our screens today,that cant be stopped. So the whole 3d space battle visuals thing is going to become more of the norm and frankly 'they way it is' from competing game companies trying to outdo the next big space battle display.



I love the old school space strat games, I grew up with moo2, ascendancy ig etc but if they want to stay afloat in this market they have to impress with visuals. They can do both, just balance it out without killing the game. Sooner or later space battle tactical games will look more like a movie, remember how epic the so called ig3 'nexus' game looked. That's just a taste of what is to come.



Imagine this game using the Nexus engine for the space battles *Drooooolz*