I am a veteran of 4x games going back to MOO (and yes, even the disasterous MOO3).  The evolution has been interesting.  There were many interesting mechanics introduced by MOO which have been unfortunately phased out.  I'd love to see these reintroduced.

1)  The multi-disciplined tech tree. I always *loved* that in MOO it was possible to split research into multiple fields.  If one wanted they could pour it all into one field, or they could spread it across many.  Also - there was no guarantee that once the points were accumulated the tech would be opened - it was a % chance to open the tech based on the accumulated points.  To solve the imbalance of stacking MOO had the accumulated tech points *compound* each turn.  While not perfect it did give players a choice - research a single tech fast but at the expense of others falling behind or spread the tech across disciplines and get them all faster than if they did one at a time.    It seems to me that GalCiv could adopt and improve on this.  A civ may get a certain number of tech points *per field*.  Keep the % chance of success and the compounding, but introduce that if researchers from one field are forced to work in an unfamiliar field then their research is halved - both as a result of their unfamiliarity as well as the loss of inter-discipline research.  Also - slow down the introduction of research across the game.  Give me time to implement the tools I researched before introducing new ones.  

2) MOO planetary management was hypothecated.  You could build infrastructure (factories) but not individual buildings.  I always preferred this.  I think it is lame constructing 'buildings' on a planet surface.  IRL our planet has millions of buildings and not one is unique enough to change the output of our planet.   The building factor of GalCiv is juvenile and naïve.  The population management is comparably silly - really we would give up 10% of our population to create a colony ship of invasion force?  C'mon.  Even the construction points are lame - the USA has considerable construction power but a university built here is not built any faster than one built in Ecuador. If anything it is not our industry that would accelerate it so much as our existing universities!  Calciv should go back  to hypothecating planet resources.  Give production by population unit.  Allow the player to determine a planets focus on research (or fields of research), ship construction, farming, recreation, or wealth.  Give planets advantages or handicaps in these.  Give bonuses when a planet is focused but financial penalties apply for doing so - for example: If a planet is focused on ship building then their food must be imported and costs increase.  Another planet may focus on food - but have to purchase ships to transport it offworld - costs increase.  Etc.   Technology should absolutely increase overall *citizen* output but get rid of the silly building construction mechanic.   If you really want to have silly buildings - let the player manage a capital city and note that the civilization will tend to mirror that.  But even that is lame -  NY and LA *do NOT* mirror DC.

3) Diplomacy.  With the advent of ai we should be able to chat directly with the diplomats - no more multiple choice menus. I can tell the ai that I will declare war against their very strong neighbor if they offer me a tech.  If they say no I can mention to them why it is in their best interest and possibly nudge them from a poor decision.  LIke - give me mega-space blasters so I can better ships to attack them with. 

4) Espionage!  One of the most rewarding parts of MOO and MOO2 was stealing tech and fostering chaos!  I miss that.  The espionage portion of GalCiv is essentially nil.  But heaven help you (or your unfortunate spy) if you got caught!  Galciv needs a major overhaul in this category. 

5) Spoils of war.  One of the *best* rewards of MOO and MOO2 was the 'democratization' of technology through planetary invasion.  I am sad that my invaders are completely incapable of investigating the advanced technology of a captured planet or reverse engineering captured ships.  

6) Ship upgrades.  Too many techs are automatically applied to existing ships.  Engines do not spontaneously upgrade!  Same for most weapon types.  While we're at it - lets overhaul ship design.   Let me import an existing ship to upgrade instead of starting from scratch each design - and for fuck sake give the ability to permanently delete a ship design in-game.  Let me upgrade the flagships.  In fact - Let me construct as many flagships as I want and assign as many commanders as I wish.  Make them cost prohibitive  and awesome.  Let me even construct survey ships.  Same thing - cost prohibitive by awesome.  

7) Leaders - I understand the appeal, Lets develop them more. Give them experience points and levels.  Unlock certain abilities as they level up.  Have incidents (like a close call space battle, planetary assault, or spy contact) scar them.  Give them a salary.  Maybe - with ai chat - some personality?

Galciv IV  has been fun but I feel it still needs polish.  It feels like we're playing on a Frankenstein chassis; all sorts of parts bolted together instead of crafted in synchrony. Hopefully for the next iteration we can do a ground-up code refresh.