Real time
combat, yes. You'll be duking it out in real time, and the battle map covers the entire
system, so no attacking isolated tankers when there's a massive fleet in the next sector unable to help.....
You can warp during combat, and when you land on a planet (with troops, mind you, not with a diplomatic envoy
) you can fight a tactical ground battle. I don't know if tactical ground combat is real-time too, but what I do know is that you can call in orbital bombardments (WOOT) if you have the appropriate ships.
Don't believe me? Just take a gander at some of the space and ground combat screenshots and look at the control buttons in the lower right of the screen. Exactly.