I very much like the new Empire mode, there is however one detail that gives me problems: the Domination victory condition can trigger in most inconvenient moments. For example, I just defeated one enemy, thus integrate his conquered colonies and immediately trigger the Domination victory, which leads most other leaders to declare war on me while my main armies are still engaged far away from my homelands. Or it triggers while there are still secondary objectives left that I wish to fulfill. In normal games I disable the Domination victory or increase the threshold to avoid this. It would be good to be able to do that in the Empire mode as well. Another option would be to have an additional step needed to trigger Domination victory like researching a specific tech or launching a strategic operation similar to Doomsday or Unification victory.
A few other minor suggestions:
A marine spawner that spanws amphibic units would be interesting: having such a spawner off your coast that can target your lands but is harder to eradicate due to its aquatic position could pose an interesting challenge.
Another interesting spawner would be one that spawns flying or teleporting armies that attack even far away colonies but is hard to reach itself.
Having spawners create special units that establish new spawners farther away in the late game could also spice up the late game a bit.
I'd love to have some kind of hero item forge that allows to replicate items you already have or maybe randomly research new ones (for a hefty price of course). The forge could also allow to break down unused items to gain some cosmite. This could either be a regular building for the capital, a visit site or a silver/gold landmark.
A trade system that enables to establish trade treaties for a mutual energy or research benefit would spice up diplomacy. While the diplomacy system has become more meaningful in later versions, I think it is still one of the weaker parts of the game and could profit from this. It would give establishing good relations with other factions more of a strategic advantage instead of the "eventually you go to war with everybody" approach that often dominates: factions that invest in diplomacy and trade would get an edge in the long run compared to warmongers. Trade could be coupled to special trade good resources from visit sites, exploitations or special buildings. The need to protect the trade routes would also add another interesting strategy layer, with possible attacks by marauders and enemy armies or even espionage operations.
A few other minor suggestions:
A marine spawner that spanws amphibic units would be interesting: having such a spawner off your coast that can target your lands but is harder to eradicate due to its aquatic position could pose an interesting challenge.
Another interesting spawner would be one that spawns flying or teleporting armies that attack even far away colonies but is hard to reach itself.
Having spawners create special units that establish new spawners farther away in the late game could also spice up the late game a bit.
I'd love to have some kind of hero item forge that allows to replicate items you already have or maybe randomly research new ones (for a hefty price of course). The forge could also allow to break down unused items to gain some cosmite. This could either be a regular building for the capital, a visit site or a silver/gold landmark.
A trade system that enables to establish trade treaties for a mutual energy or research benefit would spice up diplomacy. While the diplomacy system has become more meaningful in later versions, I think it is still one of the weaker parts of the game and could profit from this. It would give establishing good relations with other factions more of a strategic advantage instead of the "eventually you go to war with everybody" approach that often dominates: factions that invest in diplomacy and trade would get an edge in the long run compared to warmongers. Trade could be coupled to special trade good resources from visit sites, exploitations or special buildings. The need to protect the trade routes would also add another interesting strategy layer, with possible attacks by marauders and enemy armies or even espionage operations.
