MOO3 was just god awful - there is a special place in hell for developers who destroy legendary franchises. GC2 is far superior to MOO3. MOO2 gives GC2 a much better run for the money, but I can not objectively judge them against each other until the "new" wears off GC2.
Well the problem isn't that the AI uses military rating, it is that the military rating formula is rather weak. I might be wrong, but I think I read that military strength is SUM(ATT)+SUM(DEF) for all your ships, but there is no consideration for logistics or strength per ship and strength per fleet or for ship speed or for starbases. I usually have far fewer ships than the AI, but my ships are usually individually more powerful,
I'd like to see something like CIV IV's "what would make this work" or "what would you give me for this" when attempting trades with the AI. The problem is that it is quite tedious to go down the list of AI techs for each of my techs in order to see the best possible deal (or often if any deals are possible). I'd like to be able to select one of my techs and ask the AI what he would trade for it - or better yet, highlight his
