When colonizing a planet and given a morality decision, the decision should only apply to that colony, not the civ as a whole, except for a small amount (maybe one point). If the choice is outside the the civ's ideology then the planet would suffer a loyalty penalty and would be more likely to defect to a nearby civ or minor of like ideology, or outright rebel. The more of these colonies there are, the greater the odds of this happening. Also, if for example, you are pragmatic and evil planets secede, there would be greater odds of good colonies rebelling as well.

I think there could also be a commodity of diplomatic capital, wherein certain decisions you make increase or decrease your diplomatic clout. Many things could affect it, but it would not necessarily be tied to military or economic power. You would a times expend this capital when an issue of great importance to your civ came up. Of course, the other factions might also be spending theirs, so how much should you spend?

Some observations:

The ships are difficult to see unless you are zoomed in on them or zoomed way out. Also, it is nearly impossible to see most planets when zoomed in, unless I'm really in close. The result is that I spend most of my time watching just the strategic view, which takes away from the game.

In the ship builder, it would be nice to have the widget for which view you want to see. It would also be nice to have a screen of the planet below as the background. As it is, it takes you out of the game.

I hope the planetary resources  will get cleaned up. There is a long history of what each group of symbols stood for. Now there is no rhyme nor reason. It either needs new graphics, or reverted to the old way. The visual types need to be easily identifiable.

I hope that the tech tree will become easier to navigate. It isn't easy right now to choose a tech.

One other thing, the survey ship should come equipped with rudimentary weapons and defenses. Maybe half as good as the first available to be researched. Also, is there any way to upgrade ships? I hate being stuck with obsolete hardware.

That said, I am enjoying the game immensely. I know... I'm not supposed to. So sue me!