First I gotta say I can't believe they have a post icon that looks just like me! I had to use it
Anyway, from everything I've datamined through on interviews and posts it appears that combat in SEV will be real-time only. This disappoints me. There were two main features that attracted me to the Space Empires franchise: the ability to mod the game and turn-based tactical combat. I hate real-time strategy games BECAUSE of the combat, trying to micro-manage multiple units at once in real-time is a pain, even if you can pause the game to give orders or slow speed to a crawl. I love real-time combat for first-person type games or simulators where I only need to control one unit, but not for my strategy games.
This means that for multiplayer games you will be forced to use the "strategic" computer-resolutions for combat, which, quite frankly, sucks. No matter how I attempt to script AI, it always comes down to the superior force winning, when it should be the tactics of the commanders. I can defeat superior forces in tactical combat by outmaneuvering them and outsmarting them. The AI always tends to get backed into a corner or outflanked when I let it handle strategical and I lose units I could have saved. There are limitations on what are possible with formations/strategies that can only be corrected with on-the-fly orders (seeing an opportunity and seizing it).
The reasons for me to purchase this game have all but vanished. Sure, there are some nice new features to the game (3D systems, hard-points, government, etc) but the features that have me STILL playing SEIV are gone. Shrapnel may not notice the few customers who decide not to buy SEV and they will attract some new players with the real-time combat, but they will lose alot of the hardcore chess-style strategy players. Some might buy the game anyway, but I doubt it will have the longevity the other SE games have for those like myself. It remains to be seen how much of a margin of their consumer base this style of player holds and undoubtedly they will find out when they go to market SEVI if it does not contain turn-based combat, as those who might have purchased SEV anyway to try it out will have decided whether or not they like it by then.
I wish there would at least be an option to make tactical combat turn-based (and no, pause and slow features do NOT cut it, there has to be a way for tactical combat to be played in multiplayer through Hotseat and PBEM - the two primary ways I play multiplayer) otherwise I'll just have to hold up hope for SEVI or perhaps another SF game that DOES implement turn-based tactical combat. I might play the demo, but I refuse to endorse removal of this feature so I will never purchase the game without it.
Combat in SEV
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