Hey folks!

I'm sure 111 hours isn't that much to most of you die-hards here, but I feel it has given me enough experience to share my thoughts on this game and provide feedback.

I'm on my fifth game (and fifth race) now and am completely addicted. 

PRAISE

First, high praise. I bought Endless Space 2 expecting Civilization V in space but what I found was so much more. The depth of all the various systems, the uniqueness of the many races in both design and gameplay, the gorgeous artwork by talented people like Aurelien Rantet, Sylvain Sarraih, Thomas du Crest and many others... I'm very excited to play all the races to experience their stories, their quests and their struggles.

IMPERFECTIONS

- Late-game micromanagement of System population is extremely time-consuming. Either you ignore it and accept your Systems are functioning suboptimally or you micromanage it all and spend half your turns just comparing Systems and moving population back and forth from fertile to hot and from sterile to anomalies and from cold to happy and... ugh! I have a suggestion below that might remedy this somewhat.

- Stock market sell price isn't always accurate. Regularly I sell a single item for amount X after which the price immediatly jumps UP to X+10 and then slowly drops as I sell off more individual units. It's as if the price didn't refresh for a number of turns or didn't reflect an AI's buying/selling actions on their turn and doesn't correct itself until the player buys or sells at least one unit. Feels glitchy since it's only ever true for a single unit.

- It's not entirely clear what the benefits are of having heroes on the Senate. I made a Reddit thread about it but you can see in the comments there are a lot of different opinions and ideas about what is and what isn't effected by hero Senators.

SUGGESTIONS

Since I get the impression the Games2Gether platform is all about community ideas and suggestions, I'd like to share some of my own.

- In-game glossary for icons and effects! The icons for 'unhappiness from over-colonization' and 'unhappiness from over-population' are very rare but their meaning is not obvious at first glance, at least not for me. It's not addressed in the tutorial that I know of, has no tooltip, and they are not mentioned in the .pdf manual. 

Hmm, would I like 40% less unhappiness from... flag waving and... oddly-bodied species...?

- When creating a new game, it would be nice to be able to have the option to toggle 'secondary population bonuses' on or off. This would be the bonus that a population gives based on the planet it's on (or the Happiness of its System in some cases). Turning it off means the Horatio no longer give a bonus on Hot planets, Unfallen lose their Fertile planet bonus, etc.... This would allow perfectionist players like myself to greatly reduce the time we feel obliged to micro-manage our poplation in our 20+ System empires in the late-game and instead focus more on the dozens of other, more interesting aspects of the game. And because it's an optional setting at game creation it wouldn't impact those that would like to keep the current system just the way it is.

- More optional notification options! The game already has a trillion different notifications but in my opinion some key reminders are missing.

  >Upgrades for ground troops now affordable. I always forget to upgrade my troops and balance them in terms of infantry/armor/air. It would be nice to be reminded to upgrade these either periodically or when you have the (strategic?) resources to afford the better ones.

  >Praise effect on Minor Civilization ending / has ended. Minor Civilizations are rarely around long, even on lower difficulties. Missing out on claiming one just because you forgot to Praise for a few turns sucks and it would be nice to be reminded of such effects ending either the turn itself or just beforehand.

  >You're making enough Influence to afford a new Law. I tend for easily forget about my Laws for many turns so an optional reminder now and then would be nice.

- The green hero skill tree's top tier skills have too much overlap. One reduces hero costs slighly while the next one halves it or something along those lines. Seems very weird to me to have two very similar talents so close together. I would like to see one of the two reworked, or both since I've personally never been inclined to take either of them. (While googling an image of this I stumbled upon threads that seems to suggest these have already been reworked in the past, which makes this all the more mystifying to me.)

Would you like your hero to cost a little less or a litte less than that other less from before?

- And last but not least - and hear me out on this one - a complete rework of the Hero skill trees. I deem this important enought for its own segment, so please read on...

SKILL REWORK SUGGESTION

Right now it seems to always be more beneficial to either focus a hero 100% on On System skills or 100% on On Fleet/Ship skills with only the occassional On Senate skill as the only ones of interest to both types of build. 

But... wouldn't it be vastly more interesting if every single skill gave you EITHER an On Senate effect OR both an On Fleet/Ship and an On System effect? 

This would make choosing skills much more interesting, as you have to choose between multiple good options regardless of the type of build you want. 

For example, with the current system a level 6 hero with 5 points in On System skills (aka a Governor) becomes level 7 and now has 6 different skills to choose from but might actually only be interested in 2 of them because the other 4 have nothing to do with being assigned to a System. With my proposed system, they would already have 5 points in skills that buff both their On System and On Fleet skills and their 6th points can be put into 6 different skill open to them, ALL OF WHICH ARE BENEFICIAL TO THEM because they all buff both On System and On Fleet! 

It also means you can more easily switch heroes between System and Fleet duties without feeling like they are being woefully under-utilized. Did a random event just put a few systems into Unhappiness? Recall a hero from the front who happens to have +happiness On System skill and have them work as governor for a while on the most rebellious System. And that hero that's been boosting crops on a now over-populated System, how about we put their energy weapon-boosting skills to the test as Admiral with that new laser-equipped Carrier you just sent to the front?

In conclusion, this proposed system would make skill choices more meaningful, would make heroes more versatile and fun to strategically move around in your empire, gives meaning to keeping ALL hero ships combat-ready (No, Governor, those cobwebs in the engine room are not decorative!), AND makes all heroes useful during times or War and times of Peace (No Admiral, we can't go around shooting Lumeris cargo ships and pretend they were pirates just because you're bored!).

That about wraps it up. Hope you made it all the way to the end. Please do leave a comment with your thoughts about my post, I'm always eager to learn more and engage others in discussion.