I agree with the OP that very distinctive races adds a lot to replayability. It also makes for a more interesting strategy game when the other races are quite different opponents, with different ship designs along with varied strengths and weaknesses. One thing I really liked from Galciv 2, was being able to trade with other races for their race specific techs, that you could not obtain any other way.
I really like large tech trees with lots of different areas to research, but being able to research multiple things at once sounds like far too much hassle. Yes, a huge galaxy spanning Empire would be researching multiple things at once, but this is a game, and it requires a certain amount of abstraction to be fun. Stick to researching a single research goal at a time please.
I'm really pleased to hear about the new design for planetary control, it sounds like you have come up with a great system! Being able to set a galaxy wide control for late game will be really handy, and its great that you can change the settings for individual planets to make them different from the global setting. I really enjoyed the first two Galciv games, but my main problem with them was how clunky the planetary control was. The sliders were annoying to use, s
I just saw the announcement on Rock Paper Shotgun that you are working on Galciv 3, and I'm really looking forward to it! The trailer was great, but what I don't understand is that it seemed to be more of an end game cutscene from Galciv 2. Crushing the alien under humanity's bootheel was what the game was all about wasn't it? :) All joking aside, best of luck with the Gal civ 3 development, I hope you guys at Stardock come up with