I'd like to bring up a topic which bothered me in other 4x games: about exploit (one of the Xs) in space. First of all the habitable planets: usually there are too many of them, usually they are easily terraformable and in just a few turns they can become as productive as our ancient homeworld is, the early expansion is a colonization race which then snowballs till the end of the game. What I would like to see instead is many uninhabitable worlds which at least first only supports mining facilities which are still valuable to fight for. Mining and trade stations which are worth defending and worth expanding our empire's influence just to get them. Space should be big (which is the same as to make FTL travel relatively slow) so instead of so called doom stacks/fleets a proper defense should be required along the empire. Of course eventually we should be able to colonize other planets, but it should be a relative long process, a costly one, and the luck factor should be reduced: not good if we can find Gaia planets and such. Let start with an outpost/mining facility and slowly turn it into a more and more productive colony. About homeworlds: I can imagine two types of game: 1, there is our homeworld which would have overwhelming production/population advantage over the colonies in the beginning. The latter are still important for getting special resources for example and expand our influence. 2, a special story could create a sitaion that all races have lost their ancient homeworld somehow, and in that case our starting planet wouldn't be as special. One last thing: If this game will be like moo2, which i considera tactical wargame then it's ok that each race prefer the same planet types. However for grand strategy element it could be fun to have different races different preferences.
I understand and agree with a lot of what your saying. What irritates me is going into space and just as you reach the Edge of your solar system, you sneeze and BAM 30 different hostile Alien races show up and the Game turns into "Circle the Wagons Hoss" I would like to see more Exploration and adventure, with good storys, that lead you to a point, that could be Aliens, past civilizations ruins, ships, stations, ect. Before you get the Barbarians at the Gate. I think Colonies will be Space Stations and Hollowed out Mining Operations, before Habitable Planets, or the Tech Needed to make them Habitable is reached. Not to mention the Light years needed to travel space, even with FTL Drives.
I'm definitely in favour of the idea of most planets being unsuitable for big colonies, and the player being forced to build mining outposts to access useful materials on these planets. To me the advantages are :- It creates a better sense of immersion. In a 4x space game, space should feel full of wonder, but also full of danger and hostile. Being able to turn every planet into a full colony creates a civ in space feel. It is a natural way to reduce late game micro-management, without having a tiny map or artificial limits. You can only have so many colonies because most planets are hell for biological beings, rather than hitting some happiness limit. It creates diversity in the game. You don't just have colonies everywhere. Remote mining and research outposts, or remote mining research ships. The player has more diversity and decisions to make. Terraforming should be very late game and very expensive as it makes the universe bland - late game MOO2 or endless space, every planet looks identical.
Also, with regards mining outposts, I think it is better to separate building materials from building capacity. The 4X 'Stars!' did this well. You can mine materials you need on a toxic but mineral rich planet, then transport them to a large population, but mineral poor planet to construct things. In MOO2, a tiny toxic but mineral rich planet was useless, because production and materials are combined into one.
