Love the game so far.  Here are some of the problems that pop out to me

1.  In the Politics screen, its unclear what the color of the support button means.  I choose a faction to support by clicking on it.   But then the Support button is blue, and it was blue before I clicked a faction.  Click it again and its gray.  I have no idea which color relates to "active".  By trial and error I think by choosing a faction (scientists, religion, etc) it sets the button to default ON, or Blue.  

2.  Experience gain for planets vs fleets seems very unbalanced.   Put a character on a planet and they will pile on levels.  Put them on a fleet and even winning a ton of battles they will fall way behind the planet based character.  Very different from your other games where putting the character at risk in combat was encouraged.  I almost never use characters for space combat, they fall behind on the experience curve too fast.

3.  Manpower bonuses, buyout price breaks, unhappiness reduction (I think thats what that symbol means, its still quite hard to figure out what some of the symbols mean) for luxuries seem very weak compared to actual production bonuses (industry, money, etc).  There are entire groups of luxuries that I have never used because its just not clear that bonus troops levels is better than a flat 25 industry per system.  Overall value seems to be Industry>Money>Science>Influence>food.  Partly due to how universal the resource is, science is always good, and industry and money become easily convertible to other resources early on.  Influence is useful (especially as Empire) but can become useless in some games (lack of non-influence items it can buy, random distances between systems means some games influence is great and others its just too much physical space to be as useful).  Food doesn't  become convertible until very deep into the science tree, and I have rarely ever been limited by lack of food (beyond the Vodyani or a really lucky Horatio start next to a ton of empty systems).  

4.  Luxuries seem rather useless once you pick your system levels.  Surprising given how powerful they were in other games you guys made.  By midgame I just start dumping them on the market once they get close to 1,000 units.  In stark contrast to the mineral resources, which really make you agonize over choices.

5.  Once you go military, it seems super hard to go back.  Combat gives such big and frequent military boosts that I once I have military, I rarely can go back or even need to.  

6.  Empty systems - seem rather lackluster.  Yeah they probably have a wormhole link later in the game, but I have yet to feel that I need to pay attention to them in a game.  They become background bonuses, certainly nothing I would fight over (not that you even can as it is all Influence based).   

7. money seems way too easy to produce once you are past the early game.  I usually just build everything in every system, as I never seem to be short on money after about turn 30-50.  

8.  Maps are much better than a few months ago, but still seem "small".  Given how constellations only seem linked to adjacent constellations, the game really just becomes limited to my immediate 2 neighbors (almost doesn't matter what other races are out there).  Maybe just because AI is weak now (understandably given all the changes going on), so games even on impossible are ending around turns 120-150.   Still a ton better than Stellaris end game slog.  And compared to Endless Legend the map feels smaller even though its "endless space".  

9.  Shame that the beautiful combat art is never used.  Maybe make it less passive an experience.  Without the tactical choices like in Endless Legend, I just skip the combat and go to the results.  Ditto for ground combat.  

10.  Love the stories and quests.  

Looking forward to the release.

Poliorcetes