My only real problem with Galciv 2 + 3, any ideas dev's?

Agreed, it would be nice if a few end game surprises could be thrown in.   Often the mopping up takes longer to play than the "interesting/challenging" stage

I completely agree! Love everything about GC2/3 but the end game tends to get monotonous. The Dread Lords have been extremely disappointing for me. Not once have they ever been a significant challenge. either the AI kills them off before I even meet them or they spawn right near me and are killed off in a few turns... In GC2 I was always scared of them and they became my #1 priority, and still do, but they are never something to be feared in this iteration. Hoping that will change and that they come up with some more interesting stuff for the end game. Have no idea about Stellaris but it sounds good.

What sized maps do ya'll play on?

I play on medium - large. Anything bigger and by the time I get around to dealing with the other side of the map, everyone's researched all techs and its just battle of the gods.

I somewhat agree, although almost all 4x games have this issue. Id argue it's the one major unsolved problem of the genre.

would be interesting to see stardock solve it. Maybe in an upcoming expansion about a crusade or something...

GC2 had these events that come up late game.  The Jagged Knife is an infamous and (for me)unpopular example.  The ambassador incident that suddenly triggers war is another.  I expect we will see something like that sooner or later in GC3.  Brad has acknowledged the issue and pretty much hates it as much as we do.  The fan response to the late game events can be mixed, so I am sure they are trying to be judicious about what monkey wrenches they will be throwing into our late games.  

However, it is my ardent hope that the AI will get more and more clever about strategic Diplomacy and late games turn into alliances and escalations and complications, with warfare, treaties, embargoes and backstabbing.  I want playing against multiple factions to be exponentially more difficult as the number of opponents grows.  10 enemies is much more dangerous than 2.  A hundred enemies should be monumental.  The consequences and instability would snowball as the game progressed.  It is possible this would dovetail with espionage plans also. If they adopt those kinds of behaviors, your late games should never be dull again.

Yeah, most 4x games have this issue of being able to actually win the game when it is blatantly obvious that you've won. Note that I am not going to suggest any game breaking late events or nearly game breaking ones. What I will suggest is to add a couple more sensible VC's when it is clear that you are dominating the galaxy and will continue to do so.

Here's an example from a game I finished last night. I usually play L/8/I Large 8 players (7 AI and me and typical amt. of minors) Incredible. I timed things just right as I hit 75% map influence just as the remaining Torean planet flipped to me. It was just me and two small Mal. civs so rather than conquer them (my friends), I figured just spam some influence SB's in open spaces and get influence and diplo techs and win by influence. This was going fine and my influence began to grow even more, but near the end of the 10 turn countdown, both AI's did something (likely thru techs) that pushed my borders back a bit and now I only controlled 74% and had to build a couple more SB and start the 10 turn clock all over again! This nuisance just delays the actual finish of a game won long ago.

I'll suggest a few things.

1) Perhaps Influence Victory should be immediate at 75% and the 10 turn clock should start at 2/3 (67%).

2) Perhaps there should be a combined conquest and influence VC. ie..I control 60% of all habitable planets and have 60% influence and the 10 turn clock should start. Get to 67% and I win instantly.

3) For conquest VC, perhaps as in Civ5 all I should need to do is to capture every major AI home world.

Just some food for thought, but won games need ways to be won earlier.

Well i don't think they needed to get rid of the kagged knife they just needed to fix it. The jagged knife needed to fix it's ecenomy. Needed to be able to destroy and fix stuff. 

I understand complaints about boring end games, but I don't think you present a great example.  The fact that the AI somehow found a way to resist your influence victory at all is pretty amazing to me.  We need much, much more of that, not less, to break up the boredom of the end game.  It needs to be more than a nuisance, though, and for that part, you have a good point.

Yes, good that the AI found a way to push me back from 76% to 74% influence. Perhaps that was intentional on their parts or perhaps it just was a normal part of their building up those planets. Anyhow, the next time, I'll make sure to plant a few more cultural influence SB's near the borders or I'll simply send in the war ships and transports like I usually do and eliminate that last couple of AI's.

For me, the way to make the endgame less tedious is for the game to end sooner when it is clear that I've won. Of course, I could opt to not finish won games and sometimes I do that, but the isn't really fun.

Edit: as we all know, this is a problem in most 4x games. How do I win the venerable game of MOO2 when I am dominant? 1) I can build up a huge fleet and go to Antares and defeat it and win. 2) Most often I am winning by winning the Galactic Counsel vote with 2/3 of the vote. As I am often repulsive or won't be loved as I've conquered more than half the galaxy, I have to be large enough to be able to have more than 2/3 of the vote myself. 3) I can take the slower route and kill everyone.

Stellaris has a good idea with end game super enemies that show up. An increased inclination for the AI to ally against super powers would help too such as the "realm divided" mechanic of shogun 2 TW



Just those 2 things would solve everything. I'm not sure why Stardock hasn't ever done them or even made them an option.

Unless you make an unbeatable game theirs going to come to a point where there is only mopup. You could extend it where you require a really long game to beat. That is probably why they have cheasy surrenders. What you could do is use the computers decision making skills, and logical algorithms to make a more flexible gameplay, but there will come a time where you won. At that point it is mop up. Are you asking for an unbeatable game. I guess I'm asking for clarification on what you are asking for.