The forum seems to have eaten the post i made earlier.

Anyway, I think this interception option could be implemented while making military starbases more usefull.   Alllow MSB's to autolaunch intercepts within their area of control, with their defending fleet and/or interceptors if they have the appropriate module.  Fluffwise, you could say that MSB's have powerful sensors and a field of mines/gravitywell projectors/whatever to force hostile fleets to slow down and navigate it, allowing for interception.   This would make MSB's actually important for  placing on strategic areas, and important to take out.     Well placed MSBs could help cut down on multi-engine transport rushes (especially if they cover the planet in question)  and help focus battles around at or around objectives. 

Defending fleets could intercept as much as they have movement, while interceptor drones keep going as long as the starbase is intact.  To keep it from being OP, the interception range could start small and extend through station upgrades.  


As far as allowing retreats, I believe the best option would be to require some leftover movement to retreat, and  allow the pursuers X number of free shots on the fleeing ships, based on the ratio of the pursuer/pursued's tactical speed.    Ships w a guardian or escort role could stay behind and fight the pursuers, stopping said free shots, until their designated charges escape.      This way, retreating is still a costly maneuver, with your fleeing ships getting chewed up and possibly losing any guardians that fight a delaying action.  

Denial of Area:
fixed Sentry, Interception and Gravitywells

Sentry Fix: [Show][Hide]
At the moment ships in sentry mode wake up as soon as any ship that doesn't belong to the player enters their sensor range regardless if it's allied, neutral or hostile. To fix this, you could, after clicking the sentry button, be presented with a new set of four buttons. Three of them you can click to highlight then or grey them out, they say allied, neutral and hostile (at best they should even be coloured in green, yellow/grey and red) and a confirm/start sentry button to confirm your selection.
The only thing that would provide more uttility would be faction specific wake-up but that would consume to much ui space, while only rarely providing additional benefit.
Alternatively for an even easier solution simply make sentry wake-up on hostile only and leave the ui as is.

Interception: [Show][Hide]
Add an Interception button to the ship command menu next to guard and sentry. If activated an area of hexes around the ship will be marked, this will be visable to all players: blue for your ships, green for allied ships and red if it's an enemy ship. The range is either the sensor range or half of the remaining movement points, whichever is smaller. Why half? So the ship can move to an enemy that entered the range, attack and return to it's position. If the ship still has leftover mp after an interception it reenters interception mode.

Gravitywells: [Show][Hide]
New modules for starbases and ships that create a gravitywell which would work like a reverse interception instead of moving to the enemy if he enters the range, the enemy is moved to the origin of the gravityfield and forced to attack. In contrary to the interception this would work even if the ship it's mounted on has no leftover movement points. It would also be marke on the map in the same way as interception(except maybe a fancy animation underneath to show it's a gravitywell instead of interception).

Research Branch: [Show][Hide]
There could be a new tech branch for this stuff that goes:
Automated Interception Algorithm (unlocks interception for all ships) -> Starbase Gravitywell Generators (unlocks module with 5 hexes range for starbases) -> branches into Extended Starbase Gravitywell Generators (unlocks module that adds another 3 range) and Mobile Gravitywell Generators (unlocks shipmodule with 3 range nonstack) and after those maybe some more techs in both branches that extend the range further.

But the MSB interceptors are a good addition for the early game to shoot down small stuff so it doesn't use the moves of the defense fleet, I'll give you that. You only need to change area of control to sensor range and limit the range of the interceptors depending on the MSB module and mark the range the same way as in my suggestion.
But there is still open questions: What happens when something stronger than the MSB interceptors enters the range? Do they need to rebuild like carrier fighters? Do they attack on every tile inside or just when something enters the range?
For the rebuild question I would argue to make the strength, amount, range, rebuild time and reserve squadrons all based on MSB modules and for the attack question only on enter because if they can't destroy it on enter they probably unable to destroy it at all, there are some edge cases but most of the time you would just waste interceptors.

Quoting Go4Celerity,

GC3 will not have turned based or real time tactical battles because the Galactic Civilizations series has never had these. To alter the series so dramaticly as to include these as an element has never, to my knowledge, been envisioned for this title.

That said, there was an old NES title, Defender of the Crown, from Beam Software/ Ultra published in 1989 that had a combat system I would like to see in GC3. Here's a gif:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=defender+of+the+crown+nes&view=detailv2&&id=64C084D6BFDE56F0D5B06A8D3837E391D25E3730&selectedIndex=19&ccid=ivO8DhJw&simid=608021414015667093&thid=OIP.M8af3bc0e12703809f4481c319400b42co0&ajaxhist=0
As you can see, all you do is set a policy for the battle; Fierce Attack, Hold Ground, Bombard, Outflank, or Retreat. The policy can be changed mid-battle.

With a few more options and some brainstorming that could work for GC3.

The strategy selected could alter 1) starting formation 2) distance 3) ship behaviors within their preset roles.

Outnumber the enemy? Surround them.
Want to try your luck steamrolling the enemy with capital ships as you screen them? Form a line of battle.
Feel like Nelson? Dive straight in al guns ablaze (the default).
Want to avoid the fight? Retreat. You have 30 seconds to jump to hyperspace.
Trying to catch the prey? Pursue them.

etc., this could go on awhile.

It would add dynamics to combat.

It would give the battle viewer a purpose beyond eye candy.

I cannot see it detracting from the gameplay (except where the investment of Stardock's resources to implement it would come at the expense of the developement of other aspects of the game).

It would not require annoying micromanagement on the players part.

It would not change the franchises identity, nor detract from the core gameplay, and could be- if not easily- integrated within the existing combat model.
Please at least consider this Devs.

Yes, I know I've looked at it before. As you said yourself there will be no turn based or rtt battles.
The problem with your suggestion is that it doesn't work with a battle system as simple as GalCiv's.
Defenses and attack arcs are unidirectional which fucks up most of it because it makes the manuvers either useless or overpowered. Surrounding has no effect because ships have  no weakpoints, kiting is broken because there is no terrain to stop a high thrust missle ship from endlessly kiting. From battle retreat is broken with carriers
How do you intend to balance that stuff?
Can we change it so it's not unidirectional?
No because the ships are custom designs, they can be the size of an ant or a gigantic behemoth but still have the same stats.

In my opinion it's important to think about the how because you may find problems in your idea that would make it not feasible.
Maybe it's just me because i study informatics and can't just ignore such questions anymore.

Either way the biggest feasible change I 've come up with is hold position. With only two options it might even be reasonable that it gets set automatic depending if you're attacking or defending.

There is still this when it come to RETREAT FROM COMBAT:
When do you guys want to retreat, in what kind of situation and why in combat and not when the enemy enters your sensor range? No  one answered and I'm still wondering in what case you would leave something you don't want to lose with leftover mp on the frontline.

Also for the next time just use this link it leads directly to your post on the steam forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/226860/discussions/1/598198173700392501/#c496880503064766463