[licker]

RotK series games are all quite good, though not all available on the PC.

MoO3 is a completely different game, as elaborated on already, the bugs are gone, and the game play is tightened up.

You are still better served embracing the macro management ideas put forth, but frankly, the tools you have and the rebalanceing done make this work out reasonably well once you get past the smallish learning curve on using your DEA plans and ship designs so that you actually get the roys to build what you want.

I've been playing it on medium, and finding it challenging, but easy to beat short of very bad initial placement or galaxy set up. Going up a level makes me really have to work much harder to get to just even with the AIs who come out on top after the initial expansion, and really makes you stress diplomacy to keep yourself from being ganged.

The community at the atari forums is small, but happy to help anyone coming back to the game.

MoO3 really destroys the other space 4x games in my opinion. GC2 is just silly at some point, SE5 completely lacking in my opinion, and SotS is a good one, but lacks significant depth. I've never played SOASE so have no comment on it.

Of course they are all different from each other, and as such have their own appeals depending on each persons own likes.