I"m good and irked at the moment; my buddy and I just finished discussing this in detail, so I've confirmed I'm not the only one that feels this way.
1) Pirates. What the #$%(. No rules for pirates? No supply? No cost? Just appear in the middle of nowhere and start raiding?
This is "raging barbarians" from Civ 5, and we hate it. I don't want to DISABLE pirates, I want them to play by THE SAME RULES AS I DO. They should require a supply planet, they should have maintenance, they should have tech limitations, etc. Where are they getting their research from? That non-existent planet?
The same goes for the AI, and the minors.
Grrr.
2) Ideology. Wow did you screw this up. 220 turns in, and I've got my first and second ideology picks. Just wow. Two hundred and twenty turns, with Galactic events on Abundant. Apparently Stardock and I use a completely different dictionary, because words like "abundant" and "occasional" mean completely different things when I say them.
3) Shipyards. Tripled the price? So, not only are we no longer allowed to build defenders on our actual planets, because NOBODY builds actual space ships in atmosphere... star wars, star trek, pick your poison, canon be damned... but any hope of actual defense is now slow as @#$*, as you either get to take a bloody ETERNITY building it, or send some constructors through the gauntlet of pirates.... good thing we build build BUILD constructors, right?
4) Carriers. So, apparently the answer to something being useful, is to make it worthless. Niiiice. Quadruple the cost of the mods, plus make them even weaker than before? Now a single carrier can't take out a relatively-equal pirate fleet, or much of anything, for that matter.
5) Trading. I have to wait? Why? Is there a traffic controller of the Universe, some God-figure, telling me I can't run a red light? Who is it precisely that dictates policy to me, the Space Emperor? Why can't I tell this @#$@ to go #$%^ himself?
6) AI. I personally find it offensive that the AI is at full blast at normal, and gets free stuff handed to them to make them harder, instead of playing at "average" at normal, with a learning curve, and getting smarter as you ramp the AI. Perfect Dark, UT2k4, Descent Free Space, all had learning AI that would figure out your playstyle, and use it against you. Aren't we supposed to have improved since waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back then?
Ok, I feel better.
I'm likely going to put this on ice for a bit, til some patches come out, because, at this point, this is just infuriating, after what I was playing just a bit back.
Not enjoying the "improvements".