I am thinking that they are thinking more of a baulders gate style system

Wasn''t Frogboy talking about "continuous turns", saying that sins of a solar empire combat was like a continuous turn system ? here and here (reply 9)

I remember a NON-tile based system in Total War, and it was pretty good imo.

If it is like Baldur's gate or better Icewind dale 2 (almost the same difference) that would be great for me but I think it would be wise to consider a Mechwarrior 3D zoom in zoom out style. It would appeal to the younger consumers and make Elemental unique as it allows 2D or zoom in and turn it into 3D. Taking control of a unit in battle in a first person mode would really appeal to the Hack and Slash consumer while still retaining the old school strategy turn based consumer as one can choose not just play old school way.

One thing I would real like to have is a screen that logs the combat actions realtime (damage, attack roll, Critical hits, etc).

Also one of the things that I did not like about the tactical screen in Age of Wonders was that the trees, rocks water, mountains, etc did not seem to matter in much other than range attack. If one tried to use a unit that could hide itself or use invisibility magic it seem to not work. Trying to use the high ground to get the advantage only seemed to work in town battles but not in other parts of the map.

It would be nice to be able to have the same up close and personal feel for RPing, specific quests, dungeons, Merchants, etc. as well.

For what its worth the tactical battle screen is what got me hooked on Age of Wonders. I just loved having a completely different screen and feel to my battles compared to what I had for the rest of the game. Being able to see my favorite units up close and personal and in action also made the game much more enjoyable. I enjoyed it so much that many times if the battle was very fun for me I would replay it a few times using different tactics. I spend many hours at times with just one battle trying to challenge myself and the limitations of the units I choose.

Well for me that works just great anything with the flexibility and massive options for unit, hero creation is enough to take me to the moon. I just thought when I saw the screen-shot that maybe Stardock was attempting to do some sort of first person skirmish battle option in the tactical screen. I had never seen it mixed with turn based games and thought they may be attempting to do an "arena" style option for the young ones with the typical Hack and Slash mode.

You have bad eyes Epaminondas. Here is a bigger screenshot:

One has to be concerned about the tactical combat.The issues are Stardock have no experience in making games with tactical battles and they are going to be added in just a few months before the game is shipped.

I expect a very simple tactical battle system in Elemental.Do not expect MOM,MOO2 depth.

The battlefield was divided into parts, but they were too small to count as "true tiles" for me. It wasn't possible (at least for me) to determine precisely to which tile a unit would be moved.

It's because of their armors. It looks like that most of the units [on that screenshot] are wearing the same armor type. [Probably some heavy iron plates or something like that.]

Huh....why do you think so? We gonna have a tactical combat BETA [4], and if it won't be good enough, we can make our complaints about it. Constructive feedback = the devs are happy.

I prefer a simple system. Disciples I & II had a very simple one, but it was quite enjoyable (and the battles didn't take as much time as in some other games). I don't want it to get too complicated, like the Total War series.

The only time consumer in TW was travel.  If they have an engagement range setting that changes the expanse of the tactical map, you could set up for those large, time consuming battles, or do point blank bloodsport instead.

Not much is going to be as brain dead fast as Disciples though.  I never did make it through the campaign.

I actually like the idea of battles being something like Baldurs' Gate, where you could pause the action anytime and give orders to your squads, and even queue them. This makes combat strategic and maneagable for us "slow" thinkers, but still makes it thrilling.

I really hope tactical battles get to the final version of the game (as opposed to simply watching them develop like in GalCiv2).

By the way, being a retired tabletop Warhammer player, it would be cool to see squads with captains and standards. Maybe this is too much to expect, but it could be an idea for the modders out there.

While constant pausing in MP can be kinda annoying, I don't like this phase-based combat idea. That being said, an optional real turn based mode is a must have, especially for MP.