One thing that's extremely hard for game devs to get right is UI design, simply because of all the variables involved. Thankfully, it should be moddable, so as long as its flexible enough, I'm sure the modding community will release something appropriately efficient.

i think its a good design according to [+] and [-] collapse features. you have to think that by the time you get to a second planet from colonizing it, a fight will always usually breaks out before then depending how big the galaxy is being played.

almost always you'll encounter hostile scouts or fleets during the second takeover of a planet. again, it all depends on how many planets are being played and how many players are playing on them. so, this case you might not even use the whole left side of your screen to fill in your whole empire. for most who do have other things than to play all day, i believe they will be playing a minimum of no morethan 5planets or less with a 2v2 or 3v3 game, because i'm one of those players who might just play with those settings.

The game is very compatible with the person who plays it(from what i heard). It gives you a lot of choice to how much control the AI should have for the management of your empire. Now, we all know that the AI(no matter how good) always does strange thigs, so some times you will have to do some excesive microing(hopefully not a lot) but i dont think it will be a problem.

True, thats why the give you options, and the AI is very flexible and responds well to changing situations(in battles and such). And you will recieve warning messages when your fleet is being obliterated, so if you want you can just step in, or you can manage every battle from the start. Its your pick.

Exactly what i have been trying to say. However i will always keep an eye on my battles, since they will be amazing to watch anyway.

But i must keep to the trail lest i stray from my point.

Youve just been plutoed!   

Well as the scale of this game goes , I dont mind leaving it to the AI to control the actual battles aslong as ive done my bit ..ie managed the empire and strategy to get those ships to the battle.

Its like Civ4 , you do soooo much already , do you really need to control how the tanks shoot..no you just let them auto-fight and see the outcome. However with a game like CnC , you dont exactly do much else so you might want to control how the tanks shoot.

With Sins you got Tons of things to do..like manage an entire system and hundreds of ships and a dozen planets but Sins goes one better by giving you the option to.

The only depressing thing is if the AI can get outsmarted vs a player , meaning players are forced into micro to achieve victory

Looking at the manaegment bar on the left, I wanna know what them blue dots are next to each plant!