I have to say, I do like the economic update. I felt it was too slow at first, but now being over 130 years in, I'm starting to quickly grow, so it wasn't as much of a problem as I thought previously. And with a new patch coming soon, I hope it can be even better.
The next major step after Le Guin, is almost certainly a diplomatic/political overhaul, but I think they should do an AI overhaul next instead - not much point in that update if the AI can't keep up.
But once the devs are ready for a diplomatic overhaul, here's some things I'd (personally) like to see.
Pacifist empires should seek out mutually beneficial deals with other empires (Like non-aggression pacts) - even if they don't like you. And should be a bit more diligent with Liberation wars with neighbors if they're not fanatics.
Two militaristic empires should be able to form a pseudo-federation with each other, combining their forces to conquer the galaxy. It should work similarly to current federations where the main thing is a combined fleet. But you can have events and stuff as well. And stronger commercial pacts than normal empires.
Regular federations should have trade between each other (Energy and unity), and every, I don't know, 60 months or so, each member can gain a new technology from someone. You could have new event chains, leader elections (Instead of automatically switching hands), and boons (Like the shroud almost) where you can get improved economic output for a time and such. Curses as well.
RIvals should be more interesting than a flat influence gain, and negative opinion. If they're equivalent to you in at least one way, it should start a cold war chain. Every say, couple years or so, you can infiltrate them to gain a new technology, steal resources, kill a leader, among other things. This can escalate until one or the other declares war, and fight it out. It would be a total war causes belli. Winning could mean crippling their economy (Or yours).
And something I'd REALLY like to see is collective rivalries between a federation and pseudo-federation. This would be even bigger than a normal rivalry, even going as far as getting each others systems, spawning small fleets to disrupt each other's trade, attempts to cripple the economy of one of the members, and all this could escalate into a midgame crisis. If you're not in the federation, you can choose one side to ally them (Or stay neutral of course), and if you're in a federation already, you can bribe other empires to join you. It comes to mind that it's almost like a smaller-in-scale war in heaven.
To make sure it doesn't make too much of a mess, you could have triggers for that federation war happening (If the possibility arises) and the great Khan. Or not, could make mid game more interesting for sure.
The next major step after Le Guin, is almost certainly a diplomatic/political overhaul, but I think they should do an AI overhaul next instead - not much point in that update if the AI can't keep up.
But once the devs are ready for a diplomatic overhaul, here's some things I'd (personally) like to see.
Pacifist empires should seek out mutually beneficial deals with other empires (Like non-aggression pacts) - even if they don't like you. And should be a bit more diligent with Liberation wars with neighbors if they're not fanatics.
Two militaristic empires should be able to form a pseudo-federation with each other, combining their forces to conquer the galaxy. It should work similarly to current federations where the main thing is a combined fleet. But you can have events and stuff as well. And stronger commercial pacts than normal empires.
Regular federations should have trade between each other (Energy and unity), and every, I don't know, 60 months or so, each member can gain a new technology from someone. You could have new event chains, leader elections (Instead of automatically switching hands), and boons (Like the shroud almost) where you can get improved economic output for a time and such. Curses as well.
RIvals should be more interesting than a flat influence gain, and negative opinion. If they're equivalent to you in at least one way, it should start a cold war chain. Every say, couple years or so, you can infiltrate them to gain a new technology, steal resources, kill a leader, among other things. This can escalate until one or the other declares war, and fight it out. It would be a total war causes belli. Winning could mean crippling their economy (Or yours).
And something I'd REALLY like to see is collective rivalries between a federation and pseudo-federation. This would be even bigger than a normal rivalry, even going as far as getting each others systems, spawning small fleets to disrupt each other's trade, attempts to cripple the economy of one of the members, and all this could escalate into a midgame crisis. If you're not in the federation, you can choose one side to ally them (Or stay neutral of course), and if you're in a federation already, you can bribe other empires to join you. It comes to mind that it's almost like a smaller-in-scale war in heaven.
To make sure it doesn't make too much of a mess, you could have triggers for that federation war happening (If the possibility arises) and the great Khan. Or not, could make mid game more interesting for sure.
