I like HUGE galaxies. Lots of planets to explore. Gives the ai plenty of time to expand. And it makes for some pretty epic battles. However it can get very cumbersome making the right planets produce the right things at the right times. Or say the ai's are warring with each other and one of the races surrenders and gives me their planets only I can't tell which new planets I got because I already have 35 colonies and now I have forty and can't figure out which planets i didn't have before. Getting the drift? I have an idea that (with my limited coding experience) should be an easy fix. Qaudrants! Imagine if you will that a huge galaxy is 100 by 100 sectors.(I'm not sure if that is accurate but lets say so for sake of argument) All systems in X0,Y0 to X9,Y9 would be in the Alpha quadrant. X10,Y10-X19,Y19 in Beta quandrant ect. Now imagine clicking on the govenors screen and have all planets in Alpha quadrant produce this or in the planets screen have an option to be able to only list planets that are in specific quadrants. I really think that this would help a lot of the micromanaging that I am always doing. The smaller the galaxy size the fewer the quadrants. I love this game but it can be tedius at times.
Another thought is an option to put a new tech achievment on every planet that you own. For instance the orbital defence thingies. I just get the tech and it's a must have for every planet. I hate having to click on every planet and manually place them. Those fusion plants i think are must haves as well.
Finally perhaps a master cue list for those planet govenors to use. I have just colonized 5 planets in one turn and having to set up each planets cue take my mind away from more important things like total domination of the galaxy.
This game rocks the way that it is but some tweaks to make it a little less cumbersome than it is would be greatly appreciated.