Casual gaming and combat in Free Orion

[Black_Dawn]

I would like to give an example of another 4X game's blance between casual and deep:

I frequently play a game called Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, which is a great fantasy-themed 4X game.

This game has tactical turn-based combat, which takes quite awhile as you can have up to 56 units in a single fight and you can participate in many fights per turn.

In multi-player matches, you can set combat for the match to one of three modes:

Automatically Resolve: The computer resolves all combat based on unit statistics. This is the quickest way to play, but removes a lot of strategy from the game.

Tactical Combat between players: Automatically resolves fights versus AI controlled units, but allows tactical combat between Human players.

Always On: Tactical combat always occurs.

With the exception of Play by Email games, all multiplayer games that I've seen online use the Between Humans option.

One of the things that turned my off MOO3 so quickly was the complete lack of tactical combat. It is the same reason that I can't get into Galactic Civilizations. Sins of a Solar Empire has a nice balance between Send-and-Forget ship fleet building and tactical combat.

Hopefully, FO will follow the Age of Wonders example, or at least Sins' example. RTS style build-send-repeat combat would not interest me.

[eleazar]

In multi-player matches, you can set combat for the match to one of three modes:

Automatically Resolve: The computer resolves all combat based on unit statistics. This is the quickest way to play, but removes a lot of strategy from the game.

Tactical Combat between players: Automatically resolves fights versus AI controlled units, but allows tactical combat between Human players.

Always On: Tactical combat always occurs.

Yeah, we're planning on having something like these options. Often it will be necessary to speed up a game by auto-resolving some combats.

The second one is an interesting twist, which i don't think has been mentioned before. It sounds like a good option to have.

[Conker]

I think if you take a one shoe fits all approach you won't make as many people happy as you could if you added some options. Some people would want to press autopilot, sit back and watch the carnage. This would be boring for any enthusiast. While others would want to have control over absolutely everything and perhaps win battles that were otherwise hopeless. This could be tedious and too much effort. Then there would be those who like some of both.
I believe that the combat system should have plenty of control. If we are talking more than 20 ships this could get tedious however the Idea of combining ships and commanding squadrons like in Homeworld appeals to me.
What I think is that there should be some AI involved in controling your fleet.
For instance you group a dozen fighters and assign them into a squadron. Then you set the squadron AI to "defensive" and tell them to "guard" a capital ship. Then if you had some powerful ships with valuable ammo that you want to save till later then set them to "hold fire". You could set another squadron to "agressive" and set them loose on the enemy. With these optional AI settings you could have your fleet take care of themselves, to a degree, without pressing autopilot.
You, fly near this ship. You, shoot everything at this ship.
Sometimes you have to do that too many times in turn based strategy games.

Commanding a battle shouldn't be being in full control of absolutely everything but rather calling the shots. This would work well with the proposed RTS-TBS Combat system as someone taking full advantage of these options wont have to repeat the same order every turn. Also it means that someone with 320 ships could actually give them some instructions without being overwelmed and their strategy won't just be everyone attack everyone.

The key to my idea of optional AI sttings is that you don't have to use them and they shouldn't take care of everything.

[lord_midnight]

I think you should also consider Dramatic Battles, and Critical Battles to the above options.

Dramatic Battles are when combat is resolved automatically, you are shown a portion of it, say the last few turns, or 30 seconds. These are like getting reports from the battle after the fact.

Critical Battles are battles that are important, like your homeworld, or a border system that is the only entrance to an arm of the galaxy. When on auto battle, or auto AI, you can set this option, and you will be given the chance to play them out.

Neither are needed, both are a nice touch. They should work with or without any other options. Dramatic Battles give a bit of immersion and entertainment. Critical Battles allow the player to skip most battles, and play important ones.