It was good to see some of the progress on 1.4. For one, I'm glad that SD appear to have acknowledged that the rapid-fire patching every month was producing ineffectual, buggy patches and have given themselves more time for 1.4 - if it's coming out at the end of this month they have a whole extra 3 weeks for making the thing work right first time.

The heavy AI focus also appears to be paying off in a big way. Being able to remove lots of the hated AI bonuses simply by sorting out it's planet management was something that we predicted would happen, and will be popular with players. This is somewhere closer to the AI that SD's reputation leads us to expect, and should hopefully cut the number of 'game is too easy, AI is terribad' threads we see from even newer players. It's a worthy investment of resources and, more importantly, it allows more freedom for dealing with the outright imbalanced mechanics without completely crippling the difficulty levels. This is pretty much exactly as I outlined in my posts on the matter over the last three months, and so comes as no great surprise.

I'm still a little dubious about the removal of the wheel (though in truth, focuses are not removing the wheel but simply offering the player a few fixed points on it to use), and we can see from the live stream that while manufacturing scores are doing well, research and wealth production remain poor; we also see that split-production worlds aren't much use (for example, the planet with 2 research labs that has achieved a massive 2.3 research output, and would be better off just scrapping them for more factories). But ultimately this is rather moot; nerfing the wheel position from 100% whatever to ~50%ish has much the same effect as a worldwide nerf on productive building bonuses. Paul would do well to remember that some mods have already made this adjustment, and so the ability to adjust the focuses IS an important thing for keeping these mods valid; I for one will still be looking to keep focuses at 100% to remove wasted output and encourage specialization more, and already have the complete building set balanced to do so.

The general disconnect between the price balance of tech and the price balance of manufacturing is likely to prove problematic in 1.4, particularly if the scaling of tech costs by map size goes ahead. The exponential function on tech pricing may need to be nerfed or even removed, given the much-reduced technology outputs. Wealth is likely to remain underutilized as well; while the general reduction of productive focus should lead to the player actually needing more than 1 wealth world to pay for 50+ other planets, we clearly see that Paul has no wealth planets at all (and no morale buildings, and very few farms). The permanent split on production likely means that planets can pay for themselves more or less always, which may make the outright cash-making planet redundant. This is an aspect I suspect will see further work in 1.5, as the AI's improved placements should make it more competitive in this regard. 

Diplo appears to have taken a bit of a back seat to the AI for this. While this is a net positive move, as the AI was a much greater problem, diplomacy remains basic and ultimately a bit broken; we even see Paul using the classic sell-AI-open-borders move when the AI should really see the value of this treaty as neutral or even negative. I'm wondering if the major reworks in this area have been pushed back to 1.5, or if we will now have to wait even longer for them; this is unavoidable (there's only so much engineering time in a month), but I do hope that it hasn't fallen too far down the priority list to be pushed back as far as next year. Most other systems are functional but imbalanced; diplomacy was a pretty late addition to the beta and continues to feel very easy to abuse and, in some cases, seems semi-functional.

In sum, some very positive moves, but the improvements are likely to expose several underlying balance issues that have, up until now, been hidden by even bigger balance problems. 1.4 should be the best patch yet for making the game actually fun to play, but while the balance will be different it wouldn't be much better.

I do not dispute anything you said, but I'll offer alternative thinking points. The planets with 2 labs generating 2.3 research, we do not know what the global wheel was set to. Perhaps the AI was focusing the global wheel on manufacturing and putting research aside at that time. And perhaps if he focused on research that planet would have far more research than manufacturing. The point is, I don't think we saw any actual research booming in the dev stream, so we cannot judge the ability to so do on what we saw.

Second, the removal of the planet production wheel was in part to reduce micromanagement. As you strive for 100% whatever, probably though mods, you are self inflicting more micromanagement. I hope people recognize if they do this the self-inflicted micro is not the responsibility of Stardock to resolve. Nor AI balance.

He did have one wealth planet. The global slider looked to be set to 100% Manu at the time. There definitely was a lack of approval buildings and farms. Hopefully they address that. That being said, I didn't see any planets with poor morale, possibly due to the low pop, so maybe the AI didn't think the were needed.

You are where I was 5 minutes ago before reading your post: you are under the misconception that everyone plays like you. Whereas you set your manufacturing to 100% whenever you do upgrades, even with access to the planet wheel I prefer to keep my research/wealth colonies around 20% manufacturing full-time so the upgrades happen slowly and I do not lose wealth/research production during the upgrades. I don't know which style is more prevelant, but I can say the game design does not favor your play style from a micro perspective. You may not be the target audience for their micro reduction solutions. My style, however, does have decreased micro in the new system.

I've watched all the dev streams and I do not recall them ever talking about significant revamping of diplomacy. They have however talked about big plans for star base and constructor management, which they hoped to deliver in 1.4 but pushed off to 1.5 as of a few streams ago.

I don't agree.  I play by setting my research/wealth worlds to 100% (usually) and this new system actually will make a big difference in how I play.  The difference is in the reason for micromanagement:  I set sliders to 100% in order to make the most of my specialized worlds, then change the sliders so that I can upgrade my buildings.  With this new system, I can maximize my planet (to it's full v1.4-level potential) but still be able to build buildings without hassling with micromanagement.  Sure, it would upgrade faster if I switched, but I don't necessarily want fast upgrades, but the reason for my micro was the fact that I couldn't build buildings and max my planets at the same time.

Agree, but in reality this change is more about balance (i.e. removing 100% specialized exploit) than it is about micro reduction.  It achieves the first and i think it will do some of the second after you learn how to deal the first

It's entirely a balance change. It does not objectively reduce micromanagement. This sentence is the telling one:

An objective change cannot be qualified by 'for many players'. It either objectively is or isn't. If it's only a change for some people, then it's a subjective change. And in this case, you're mistaking your subjective willingness to just not bother going and changing every world's focus where previously you did so for the slider for an objective change in the ability and amount of micro required.

Consider the following playstyles.

First, we have a player who just set worlds to 10% manu, 90% whatever. His micro is completely unaffected by this change, since he'd already adopted a coping strategy to reduce it. 

Second, we have the player who, for every upgrade, switched his research or econ worlds to manu to build as quickly as possible, and then switched them back when everything was built. His micro is also not reduced, since he's still going to go to every planet and change his focuses, and then go and flip them back later if he wants to build as quickly as before. 

Finally, we have you. You previously chose to change the slider every time an upgrade popped up, but now will ignore them rather than going and improving the manufacturing output. That's no an objective change in the potential for micro, though. That's you subjectively electing to play differently. You could've subjectively shifted to the 10/90 strategy at any point you liked, or to 50/25/25. And yes, as you say, the only reason you'd have picked to go 50/25/25 is to reduce micro. You could have subjectively chosen to do so at any point, in order to reduce micromanagement. If you had, it would have made exactly the same difference to the objective amount of micro as this UI change does - none at all.

It's a balance change. Assessed as such, it's quite a good one in it's net effect. But let's not muddy the waters by claiming it's reducing micro, because it doesn't. The micromanager will still be flipping just as many planets - in fact, probably more, since he will now have to work much harder to minimize overproduction empire-wide. The guys who already had micro coping strategies will just have weaker planets and the same amount of micro. The only way this reduces micro is if you suddenly elect to not micro it, because it will be much more of a ball-ache to do so. This is exactly not how a micro-reduction effect should work, and unsurprisingly means that there's no actual impact on MM.

Literally the only part of this that reduces MM is that you set focuses on the main planet screen, rather than in the govern tab. That does halve the number of clicks required to do it. But no, the mechanical alteration does not impact the opportunities for micromanagement and does nothing to alleviate it for those who choose to continue to do it.

Not really, he just  listened to what Paul  and Brad had to say on the topic and the wheel removal was 100% balance, Govs were sold as an appeasement and micro reduction, which actually IMO are just part of lowering the wheel nerf.

I guess I'll say my thoughts on the 1.4 changes in Fridays Stream...

I'm glad the planetary management wheel has gone it will reduce micromanagement (fiddling with a wheel takes much more time than clicking a focus switch) but Stardock could do a heck of a lot more to reduce unnecessary micromanagement and time saving if this is the economy system they decide to use.  If Stardock are going to use a focus system we should be able to switch focus without having to enter each and every planet screen (Huge loss of time).  Add focus switches to planet lists on the main screen and the planet list in the global tab at the very least!

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EDIT:  Think I originally mistook the implications of the economy changes, Eviator put me right (I removed some of my original post) it seems similar to the GC2 model in some ways.  Not perfect but could be okay (better than the previous system in many though not all ways) If I understand how it "can work" correctly.  A Global focus switch should also be added. i.e. click on to switch focus of all planets.

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(I liked the military focus project, good idea that.  It could work well in most economy models)

I know the AI (like everything else) is a work in progress still, if I remember correctly the stream ended over 400 turns into a soak test without any one of the AI's seemingly anywhere near winning the game certainly not via Conquest.  If the AI can't win on maps of that size by turn 400 then it simply isn't competent.  On Godlike I probably would be able to win between 2-3 possibly even 4 times by that amount of turns elapsing.  I doubt most people currently playing Gal Civ 3 know that the AI is literally incapable of winning on most map sizes currently.

Very disheartened that Stardock are progressing down the same path with their broken diplomacy system.  I don't find mercilessly exploiting the AI via resource, tech and ship trades to be engaging in any way.  I think Stardock's diplomacy is the worst I've played of any 4X game.  It's become even more unwieldy micromanagement intensive mess than previous games, it isn't balanced at all, though how it ever could be I don't know.  I just don't get the philosophy behind it.  Do people really want this type of diplomacy???  

Please Stardock check out Beyond Earth Rising Tides new diplomacy it looks great it's the opposite of yours no time consuming/broken resource/tech/ship trades just really cool agreement treaties and tons of faction personality.

I hope the next weeks of work on 1.4 and 1.5 see positive changes that most of the community can eventually agree were the right ones.  

Macsen, the new system is now much like GC2 in that there are global settings and planet focuses. So are you saying even that system is too much micro? I agree they should work on a way to mess with focuses on a planet list, like the colonies tab, like they did in GC2.

I'm also not sure I follow on the AI comment. Equally skilled opponents should have longer matches. Certainly there is more room for improvement, but you are comparing apples (you, a highly skilled player who knows all the legitimate exploits, versus the AI) and oranges (AI versus other AI with equivalent skill and strategies).

Um, not really? Since it doesn't reduce micro, and is a balance change? Once again, a reduction in micromanagement is something which allows the player the same amount of control with less clicks. For example, being able to set the focuses from the planet list view is a reduction in MM (which there's no sign of in this update). Being able to flag planets for automatic colonization, that'd reduce MM. Being able to tell ships to bulk-disband using the same interface that allows you to tell them to bulk-upgrade, that'd reduce MM. None of these are in 1.4.

If they made Starbases suck so much that no-one used them, is THAT a micro reduction? By your logic, yes, because some people aren't engaging in SB micro anymore, and therefore the total amount of micro being performed in the world has been reduced. But by actual sane logic used by sane people, it's a balance change that happens to result in a some people doing stuff less. That's not reducing micro; not really. Min-maxers are still going to be microing like crazy with focuses, because they're exactly the same thing as the wheel. It just has 4 set points to pick from rather than hundreds. I still get to visit every world in turn to change production. Merely because the power of micromanagement has been nerfed does not mean that there is less micromanagement to be done. It just means fewer people will bother.

This cuts both ways. Even though no-one in their right mind actually used them, governors in 1.3 were an MM reduction. No-one was doing less micro, because they sucked, but the option was there if you chose to take it. There is way, way, way, WAY more MM reduction from the new military boost project - this allows planets to upgrade themselves at a sensible rate and then automatically flip to military spending when they're done. That's automatically doing something we previously had to do manually. That's good. That is basically the definition of reducing micro. Notice how it is in no way related to swapping the wheel for focuses.

Saying 'it's an objective reduction in micromanagement because fewer people will do it' could be construed as a bandwagon fallacy. Using the change it will make to your own play style to justify the statement is an anecdotal fallacy. However, stating that something which doesn't objectively reduce the amount of micro in the game doesn't reduce micro is not a fallacy. 

Anyway, I was listening with both ears, thank you. Since I was also reading with both eyes as well, however, I noted how the idea it was a micro reduction was dropped fairly quickly, since anyone who actually thought it through would come to the conclusions above. Brad fairly rapidly stopped referring to it as such and started talking about 'the spirit of the game' and balance (very wisely, since it actually does well on these counts). It is a balance change. And, as I already said in the post above, it's actually a rather good one (because by far the best way to rally up a forum rage about a change is to repeatedly praise how good this is for the balance of the game, as I did in EVERY SINGLE ONE of my posts above. Clearly, I was seething with inner rage).

Viewed as a balance change, it's ideal - it makes the economy balance properly, which is long overdue. It fulfills pretty much everything I outlined in my first post on the 1.4 preliminary discussion last month, in terms of reducing output to sensible levels. You could achieve more or less the same thing just by nerfing population output to 0.3 per pop, which would be a damn sight quicker and wouldn't require engineering time, or by reducing the output bonuses on buildings (which is how I went about it) which also avoids using proper engineers but take a lot longer. But hey, whatever works. But really, since I almost always play modded, and since I only use 3 different wheel settings anyway, it makes no difference to me at all. None. Not a sausage. I'll be using the same number of wheel positions; I'll visit planets just as often; I'll still be placing all the buildings. I'm just going to mod the focuses to give 100% of whatever (which you may have noticed was one of my questions asked at the dev stream, but you maybe you weren't using both ears that time), and then it all works exactly the same as it does presently from my point of view. I have nothing to be upset about. The main thing I was worried they would do for 1.4 (remove the wheel and FORCE governor use on us) is not occurring. I'm quite happy to have focuses.

So no, I'm not attempting to rile up some mighty horde of outraged micro-ers. I'm just pointing out that this is, in no way, an objective reduction in micromanagement. As I said before, it might be a subjective reduction - some players might micro less because of it - but so is the above example of nerfing SBs into the floor so no-one uses them. Objectively, there's just as much micro, it's just many players aren't bothering to do it anymore. 

If you tried following my argument, rather than attempting to second-guess my motives for making it, then you might see my point. And my point is, this a good change from a balance point of view, and an extremely poor change from an MM reduction point of view, so don't look at it from an MM point of view. I'd kind of hoped that was obvious from the multiple posts I made above that basically say exactly that. 

What the hell are you two paint sniffers on about? Its like a petty high school hallway in here...

'Points that appear to be aimed at mind control' is also known as 'reasoned discussion' unless you're attempting to imply that I'm a super villain.

And it's not pointless. It's quite pointed, in fact. In the game will still be more or less as micromanage-y as ever before - and not for some group of people, but in the very way we interact with our planets; always individually. Even if you don't micromanage much, when you do seek to change multiple planets you don't have much choice in the UI outside of micromanaging each in turn. You may be doing a lot less of it... but when you change something, you're doing it by tracking down the individual planet, going into it and manually resetting the focus. This feeds back in to your earlier point about SB management being a pain, because it's for more or less the same reasons - it's lots of clicking about to issue basic orders, one target at a time. While this change reduces the motivation for making changes, if you actually want to change something the process is just as bad as before. Well, slightly less, since you don't need to go into the second planet screen.

The few macro controls remain primitive at best. Many of those that exist are either ineffective, or should offer much more information than they do - so, for example, the mass-ship upgrade UI doesn't tell you either how much money you have, or how much the upgrade will cost. The colony list offers information, but no real control, and you can't bulk-order them in the commands menu aside from shipyard sponsorship. Preventing the largest maps from getting bogged down requires genuine, objective micromanagement reduction, and as they stand focuses aren't offering that. They're just reducing your incentive to issue lots of orders, rather than allowing you to issue lots of orders quickly and easily. Micro reduction remains very much on the table.

Adding the focuses to the planet list UI would be a genuine MM reduction that synergizes well the general move away from the wheel. Planet or SB grouping would be better still, though probably a lot more work. Being able to issue orders to multiple targets at once (being able to select 5 SBs and ordering them to summon constructors with 1 click, or select 20 planets and tell them all to adopt a research focus at once) would be a good system which would address both SB spam and more general micro problems.