When i first dowloaded moo2 everything worked the way i remembered it, with the exception of opening the game sometimes left you unable to click on the menu and you have to load it back up once or twice. However i decided to reinstall windows 7 to keep the computer fresh as i do every 6 months or so and now i find that when i install it again there are minor differences such as there are no battle pods or troop pods and the ships are all named scout 0, scout 1 etc.

I tried to download a new patch but i am no good at these things and even though it did indeed need to be opened a couple of times, it still had the same differences. does anyone else have this problem or a sollution?

If you haven't enabled tactical combat, then there are a few technologies missing, you can't design/refit ships, and you can't name the ships either. It's not a missing patch, it's just that you are playing with strategic combat (or how it's called).
P.S. Unless you really mess up with your windows, a reinstall every 6 months is overdoing it, one time per year or 18 months is more than enough, though I'm currently running an installation of over 2 years without any problems.

wow that feels stupid...never had it unchecked before in my defence lol cheers for your quick reply and btw the only reason i do that atm is the laptop is getting pretty old :(