There has been a considerable amount of talk about how the combat in GalCiv3 will work. The combat in GalCiv2 was fairly simple and hands-off, so there are many people who are looking for more depth in the sequel. There are also people who don't want to get bogged down micromanaging every battle to get the optimal result. All I've heard from Frogboy on the subject is that they want more focus on assigning ships roles.
While my proposal may not completely satisfy all parties, I believe it does address many of the main concerns. I present: the formation designer!
(Not a finished product)
I suppose the picture needs a little explanation. I'll start with the steps it takes to go from ship design to deploying a fleet. First, in the ship editor, you have the option of assigning a ship to a "role". You can choose from a list of existing names, or add your own to the list. By itself, a role is simply a name, used to organize ships.
Next, when you take a fleet into battle, you can choose to use an existing "formation" or design a new one. If you choose to do the latter, you are sent to the formation design screen, where you can drag boxes to sort your fleet. In the image above, all ships with the "Rush" role would go in the box in the top-center, all ships with the "Sniper" role would be split evenly between the two boxes at the bottom, and any ships with other role (or with no role) would go in the middle.
However, once your fleet gets sent into battle, the boxes amount to more than just where each ship starts out. If you but a box to cover the top of the screen, ships assigned to that box will be very aggressive - charging right into the middle of the enemy formation. Put a box at the bottom of the screen, and ships will be very risk averse - pulling back whenever enemies get close. Put it in the middle of the screen, and the ships will not hesitate to engage, but will try not to get completely surrounded by enemy ships. And if you make a box stretching from top to bottom, ships in the box will shift between aggression and caution based on their situation (damaged ships retreat, ships advance to face foes they're good against, etc.).
Let's look at another possible formation in my proposed system:
Here, you'll notice the box for ships with the "Escort" role overlaps with the box for "Assault"-role ships. This means that ships in the "Escort" box can move into the some of the same areas as the "Assault" ships, though if the Assault ships assume a position that's as aggressive as you've allowed them to, the Escort ships will never advance that far forward. On the flipside, the Escort ships can assume positions more cautious than those the Assault ships can, and they can move to the left or right beyond the positions the Assault ships are allowed to go.
Beneath the Hood
Many times, I've referred to ships in a "box" making decisions on where to go (limited by the restrictions you set in the Formation screen). So what might this entail? My idea is that each "box" is assigned a decision-making AI. This AI keeps a running assessment of the total capabilities of the ships inside - their combined DPS, their effectiveness against different kinds of defenses, and their durability against the various weapons the enemy are fielding (and maybe a few other things too). It will then move the ships assigned to it around to hit the targets they're most effective against, and keep away from ships they're vulnerable to. It will place a higher emphasis on attacking targets that are doing lots of damage to other ships in the fleet.
The Result
The idea behind this system is that it gives a way for those interested in tactical combat to get involved, while those who aren't that interested can just use a pre-made formation for every battle, and still do well (provided they're keeping up in other areas). It avoids tedious late game micromanagement - since a battle with throwaway ships would consist of right clicking the enemy fleets, then autoresolving (with the formation your fleet remembered from last time), but for major battles, you have the ability to carefully organize your ships, then watch the fight play out with maneuvers like frontal assaults, protracted kiting, fighter screens, and others, taking place thanks to how your formation was set up. And, it fits with giving ships specific roles (the only thing we've heard about Stardock's plan for the combat system).
So, think this would work? Have any improvements or alternatives? Thanks for reading!