For months I've faced the problem of a game that slows down when you load it, speed up and then almost halt when you start the next turn. I think this has a lot to do with how many popups the game has. Nearly every mechanic has at least one pop up tied to it, and for SOME REASON it was decided that having like, 5 notifications of your systems being in an influence zone was helpful. So put all versions of a notification on the same pop up, getting told thrice about your trade routes getting intercepted is not helpful. And also do a rework of the diplomacy popups so your computer doesn't have to immediately load five animated and voiced characters screaming at you about some minor rudeness.