[Makinus]

I own both (as i own most of 4x games nowadays) and have these observaionts?

Armada 2526 - Claims to be an upgrade of MOO2 and does play like it, but it does not have the "flavour" of MOO2.... it[s a good enough game, but i still prefer to spend my time playing Moo2 or SEIV...

Distant Worlds - Very interesting gameplay engine, but has a steep learning curve, also, it has some annoying bugs that still need to be squashed to play better (I particularly hate the pirates ship cloning bug).... In the current state it is a good game, if its bugs get squashed in future patches there is the potential of it becoming a great one.

Nowadays i am mostly quenching my craving for space strategy games with Sins of a Solar Empire... it is a very good game, and the modding community is very active, with some mods that really improve the basic game (i am particularly fond of the Distant Stars mod)