I want to chime in as well. 

The ai seems more 'alive' is the best I can explain it. Stronger, more confident (if you can ascribe such traits to an ai.) I also played on Normal and I am glad I did so rather than gifted.

Kudos on the hard work. It shows in this unobtrusive patch. Well done Stardock!

I'm 100 turns into the 1.4 patch playing on Genius difficulty on a Gigantic map. I'm about 70% higher in power score than the nearest AI, which is close to the norm previously on Incredibile difficulty with the previous version i.e. maybe about a difficulty level of improvement in AI performance as it looks like the bonuses on each level are unchanged. The AI looks a lot smarter with starbases and planet builds as hoped.

With the removal of the planetary production wheel, while I'm switching focus on each world from time to time, and what project to run (e.g. military subsidies) ... overall it's less micro-management (this is style specific of course). Also I can't use it to run away from the AI so easily. It slows the game down somewhat e.g. you can't spam colony ships quite as quickly early game for example. I was on the fence when this change was announced but so far I like it.

Some of the UI changes are good as well and help reduce unecessary clicks. I particularly like that on the main map it now shows when other races are prepared to speak to you diplomatically rather than having to go into the diplomacy screen and check each one. That said, it remains pathetically easy to farm cash and technology from the AI, diplomacy remains essentially broken.

I'm just forming an invasion fleet now, so can't really comment on any improvements in the AI's military capability, but from what I can see on the map it does look to be the same old same old i.e. too many small fleets and ship designs that are easy to take advantage of.

Less Starbase spam is one of the reasons I like Naselus's IAB Mod so I'm looking forward to seeing a 1.4 version of this when ready.

All in all, looks to be a very good patch, although there is still much that needs improvement.

can one of you run the 'god' cheat and see if the AI terraforms its planets? (at any tech level). I'm curious to see if this has been fixed or not, as the AI previously didn't see to research or develop its planets in that way.

I only run with the IAB mod so I won't update until naselus updates his files.

thanks ))

The wheel isn't 100% dead yet ("I'm not quite dead yet!"). The Global wheel is still there which means that least in the early game you can do the same micromanagement and get the home planet built up before scaling it back.

Personally I hope this last vestige of the wheel and the attendant micromanagement is removed shortly. I much prefer the 'focus' and the ability to change it on the main planetary screen. But as long as the Global wheel exists, it's possible to micro production and research such that you gain a fairly sizable advantage over anyone not doing it (including presumably the AI). 

Was in the process of prepping to update some of my mods when I noticed this:

<Tech>
<InternalName>YorPlanetaryInvasion</InternalName>
<GenericName>PlanetaryInvasion</GenericName>
<DisplayName>YorPlanetaryInvasion_Name</DisplayName>
<TechTree>Yor_Tree</TechTree>
<ShortDescription>YorPlanetaryInvasion_ShortDec</ShortDescription>
<Description>YorPlanetaryInvasion_Dec</Description>
<ResearchCost>10</ResearchCost>

Holy ****. 

It used to be 121.  The lowest in the game for the base races, AFAIK, right now is 50 (the Drengin, the Altarians, [ETA] and the Snathi) with the Krynn at 70 and Generics at 80.  Everyone else is still at 121. 

EDIT:::: Looks like the 50, 70, and 80 values for the above mentioned factions are all new for 1.4 as well.  

Keep an eye out for the Yor, and by extension, the Drengin, Altarians and the Snathi, when it comes to being Invading Happy is all I gots to say.

 Just a quick first impression really and this may just be me being unwilling to adapt (got 600 odd hours under old system) but not really liking it so far. Main gripe is about handling social manufacturing. As far as i can see you have adjust the split between military and social at the empire level. So if you have new colonies with no infrastructure that should be pretty much putting all available manufacturing into social and old colonies/homeworld that have decent infrastructure that could/should be contributing to pumping out some ships how am I supposed to efficiently manage that split. It will be ok(ish) when all my worlds have infrastructure but whilst some are developing it is going to have to be inefficient to one class or the other,

I think I see what they're doing but i think you need to treat it as four separate divisions not three, social and military manufacturing are not that same thing and it does depend on where the planet is in its  individual development as to where the appropriate focus is. There ought to be some way to put a planet on 'development mode' or something before the empire settings quick in. An undeveloped planet (possibly without even a shipyard) has better things to do than contributing its measly 3 production to a shipyard where it might even be suffering decay.

Maybe im just not getting it but feels like I am being forced to be deliberately inefficient, that cant be good design surely?

My 50 turn opinion...

I don't really miss the planet wheel. This is a new game and I like the way it plays for the most part. The focus choices are great.

I am trying to give the governors a chance and it is possible that they will be able to take over after giving the planet a decent start. I am not sure how it would wind up if the governors took a free hand from the start but my experience isn't good. the first improvement they seem to build on all planets is the fabricator. Not adjacent to anything just on a lonesome hex all by it's self. Built one on a bonus hex that would have been much better with just a basic factory. All their choices seem pretty random

It's fine using the global wheel and the focus buttons seems to work okay for me.

Too soon to see how the AI is going to do. I have contacted 2 factions by T50 on an Insane map and I am 3X ahead on normal. That is pretty close to how it played out previously.

I think they are on the right track, but not quite there yet with the governors. I think we need to have a way to narrow the choice of what the governor build, like build only factories labs and farms and we could go in periodically and clean it up.

   Because if you fill up your home world and don't have O Construct, you can not go 100% shipyards on a planet by planet basis.  Which means either wasting production, or setting your empire wide production wheel at 75% research and clicking "research focus" on your homeworld (or wealth), or setting empire wide military / shipyard spending to 100%

   Any other work arounds people have come up with to not being able to go 100% of industry to shipyard because you don't have O Construct yet?

   Oh, and not being able to advance a turn until you choose a project for your homeworld.

I will pipe up enough to agree with OP.  I can see and feel the progress and I appreciate all the work that it must have entailed.  Good stuff getting better.  Makes me hungry for more, but I am struggling to not seem impatient.  Anyway, back to the game...

I'm still in the midst of playing my Insane sized game, am in the 600s turn-wise. So after reading here and else where about the 1.4 changes I thought it best to start a new game to see all of the changes in their full glory. I'm now about 100 turns in and one thing that has impressed me is that the AI have been accusing me of building colonies within their territory when I have no clue where their territory even is! I've only run into a scout ship of theirs yet they are complaining about me colonizing planets within their territory. This happened with two different races. No wars have started yet but that will change soon based on the atmosphere of the galaxy... Too early to see what the AI has done with their planets or ships. I'm only playing on an Immense sized map and with 35 major and rare minor races. Another couple of hundred turns will give me a much better idea of how things may have changed. Heading back in!

I've just finished my first 1.4 game - Thalan, Genius on a large galaxy with five random opponents: Iconian, Terran, Krynn, Yor, Altarian + assorted minor races. 

It was a bit harder than without the glorious wheel and took even longer: nearly 18 hours. I didn't use the governors at all but did use the focus buttons extensively of course and found that they worked surprisingly well. 

I won by culture (didn't bother to fight the Altarians but had got the rest, including the Krynn who surrendered to me when destroyed by the Yor) round about move 220.

There seemed to be more habitable planets than in previous iterations and i got one size 26 which was 31 by the end of the game. 

The AI were a bit more willing to attack with transports than previously and their planetary governors were hugely better at specialising planets though still as mentioned earlier not fantastic - for instance i didn't see hospitals next to farms much - and not v good at terraforming optimally.

Indeed the diplomacy still needs developing and one thing we do need is the "get off my lawn" if borders aren't open. Presumably this shouldn't apply to unarmed vessels or weakly armed survey ships but having a huge cluster of what will be ships in your territory when you want to declare war is a real nuisance and doesn't really add to the game.  

Overall, I missed the wheel much less than I'd feared and thought that this was a somewhat harder game and an improvement.