[raynor]

The #1 problem for me in MOO3 is the lack of options once you go into the 3D combat screen. It requires the battle to go until finished or 10 minutes--whichever comes first. If you have two unarmed ships (or perhaps so lightly armed that neither will ever die), then it will always take 10 minutes. So, if you have three or four such combats, you have to get up and go get a cup of coffee every time there is a ship combat.

Because of this rather significant flaw, I never even got to the point where I found out that the game has no AI. Even if they release a patch for the AI next month, I'm still not going to reinstall the game.

I'm playing Gal Civ now. It has some interesting features. But I'm still struggling through the interface in my first game. The AI is pretty tough. I've got it set to 'Cakewalk', and I'm trying to just press rush through the turns so that I can see what cool technologies I get. But even at the absolutely easiest level of difficulty, I'm gonna lose if I don't at least do *something*.