So I've been playing galciv 3 for a few months now and I was a massive massive fan of galciv 2. The one thing that grinds my gears about it is that the larger size galaxies haven't come out yet 
but in due time, I can't wait for the immense ones that show my sprawling empire and the governing systems. But anyway, about the tech tree. There's a lot of stuff in the tech tree, more than almost any 4x strategy game I've ever seen, and it's amazing, the only problem is that there are so many techs and so many options that I feel as though the game is trying to push ahead and get to endgame faster than I'm actually going. For example, I was already in the ascension era and I had only just researched the shield optimization tech, right after the defense specialization. By the way the tech tree subdivides it's sections I was only in the Age of War section with 2 techs in governing and maybe 1 in engineering. Otherwise I was still in the age of expansion. I was still colonizing planets, building a military and colonies and whatnot and apparent;y I was about to turn into a god with regular railguns? It's not an issue but it gets me really nervous because I feel as though I'm about to get roflstomped by all the other AI who I feel like have alot more tech than me. Now, this may or may not be true but it's still uncomfortable, and I found myself scrambling to get a military strong enough to defend against the Drengins and enough colony infrastructure to support the military and continue my research rate. I would then research military techs and fall behind colonially and whatnot because I felt as though I was falling behind militarily and it was just a cascade of stress. I don't like stress. So IMHO I feel that the actual tech progression bar needs to be watered down a little, requiring more techs to get into each "age". However you get no benefits from entering an age, so it could potentially be removed entirely thus ending the scramble to actual research up to where the game thinks you should be. Unless there were bonuses to getting into a new age. But if that happens then you should have to research more techs to get into each age otherwise you'll end up with ascension bonuses using sparrow missiles.
Otherwise the game is going great, lots of stuff that's interesting and fun to do and I like building my space empire. I just wish there were +thousands more stars 