I just wait for the next expansion, I really really think an internal politics DLC is needed:
- Something which revamp factions, allows for civil wars, better slave/robot rebellions, maybe piracy.
- Also, something about Sectors, how you create them, something like Sector autonomy, or the ability for them to revolt, maybe linked to the Governors. I would really see something which disadvantage huge militaristic ever expanding empires while Pacifist empires would manage well those type of things.
- Maybe something about Pop integration, right now it's just clicking a button about citizenship, and in a matter of years (basically the pop happiness malus for being conquered), the species is perfectly integrated in your empire. I would see Xenophiles being good at that, while Xenophobes not bothering with that with just having slaves or extermination
- Vassals rework, probably the easiest to do
Of course, those things would/should have link between each others like Governor being part of the new faction system which would lead to civil wars, OR careless/corrupted governors which would lead to increasing piracy; or tyrannic governor/powerful egalitarian faction leading to slave rebellion
All of the systems we have right now are a bit "primitive" and there were very acceptable as a base game but become less and less as Stellaris is becoming a game with lots of DLC about managing a space empire.
I know that the civil war/rebellion thing is a hot topic and Devs know better than anyone that those are very sensible topics and that a bad implementation wouldn't be fun at all and just annoying for the player and so often decide to ignore it; but I think that Imperator:Rome does it pretty well.
The second thing I would hope (so maybe in a second DLC) would be something about wars, I don't think that wars are that great in Stellaris:
- No peace treaty and separate peace means that, when enemy empire are in a federation or a defensive pact, the wars often end up in huge "total war" (not total war like the Stellaris CB, but as a way of speaking) and you need to occupy a fourth of a galaxy for something which was initially a border conflict.
- Wars are a bit slow, especially when in a war against a federation. I think they are slow to avoid doomstack but, even with that, it's still the best strategy because losing two battles, one of each size of your empire is worse than winning a battle and letting a side undefended. Of course, if you win with half of your fleet, you don't need to doom stack but also the war is just one-sided so you could win with any strategy, maybe ships should be faster and find an other way to avoid doomstack
- Defense platform/Citadels are just immobile ships, so it's not a good choice, they need to be stronger in mid/late game
- Land Armies is a lot of micro for something which just consist of having a big number and going in under control systems, I would maybe put a limit on the number of armies you can have, so having good armies is actually relevant. but I would allow Armies ship to be attached to regular fleets but only entering combats in last and retreating if the fleet retreat so you would have less micro to do, you take the system and can instantly invade planets; also having a button for "Invade every planets in the system", it would be particularly useful when habitat spam
- Ship computer combat is pretty cool, I like ship placing themselves according to a strategy, I think a system about Fleet Strategy with ships moving in certain way as a global strategy would be pretty cool but I'm not sure it's feasible
I've no clear vision of how wars should be in Stellaris so it's just my little complains about the system, I'd just add that I think the ship battles display is so cool and it's way better than other paradox games on that point but doing wars it is a bit "a pain" sometimes and it certainly could be better.
Also, speaking of flavor packs, I could see something about Spiritualism, Religion and the Shroud, could be fun.
