GalCiv 2's ground combat consists of displaying two numbers (attacker and defender) and counting them down at different rates. Whoever reaches zero first is the loser.
You see a vaguely representative picture of a battlefield, but to my mind it is more simplistic than SEIV. You can choose a tactic (more effective ones cause more planetary damage) but that's it.
As for planets, the grid setup looks nice at first - but you can only develop each square in one of 4 ways (boosting population, production, influence or research) with some unique options available later on. The 1995 game
Ascendancy provides more options to consider in planet development (connectivity, free population, special facilities).
It's a pity since the grid could make ground combat more interesting (allow an attacker to choose a landing point, allow defenders to create fortifications on key squares) and the planet development aspect could be beefed up by including proximity (similar/complementary facilities closer together work better) and connectivity (require everything to be adjacent or connected on non-breathable worlds) but at the moment it is more glitz than substance.