Yes, leavng the UP is a very good option on larger maps now. All you miss out on is trade revenue, which probably makes up a small portion of your income anyway. As soon as a law is passed that is negative for me as the player, I immediately leave the UP. It was a tougher decision when trade routes were worth more. Now, it is a no brainer.

Trade doesn't bring in enough to warrant the effort. Sure, you can build starbases and upgrade it with a dozen constructors, but... bah! I think economic treaties are more valuable. I'm guessing you can't have treaties outside the UP? Or am I wrong...

If you leave the UP you lose the ability to trade. Oooooh scaaaary.

TURN OFF YOUR FRAKKING MEGA-EVENTS YOU WHINY FRAKKERS!!!

Funny thing is, I have never played a game with Mega Events turned on. Mega Events has nothing to do with it. There are still events that screw me, though.

Currently I am considering uninstalling the game. I've played through 7 games now, the odds are rarely in my favor, and even if they are the game finds some way to ruin it for me. My biggest problems are a) the AI colonizes planets next to mine and then gets miffed at me for having close borders, the AI will colonize all the planets surrounding a class 26 planet that I've colonized in an attempt to culturaly flip it, c) the economy in this game is a broken piece of sad garbage; I colonize at least 10 planets devoted entirely to making money and it's still not enough to support 4 other planets devoted to production or research. Do I need to colonize 50 planets with stock markets just to support 10 planets devoted to research and ship building? Give me a damn break.

At the moment I am finding this game less and less appealing. Tonight may be my last game, but you can't say I didn't give it a fair chance.

I agree with the OP's criticism to some extent. Up until the last DL patch before DA came out, it didn't take five planets solely devoted to income to make one factory planet work. In fact, you didn't need to have such heavy specialization because individual factory improvements gave more production points.

I don't mind the fact that the game changes every so often, but I do think the current economy/production model is a bit out of whack. Who in their right mind would go to settle on a new planet when they are told "Your world is going to be nothing but a gigantic bank. You won't build any starships there at all. We know those nasty Drengin are only a few parsecs away, but we are building ships on a planet on the other side of the empire that will protect you. Trust us."?

Maybe the devs felt the pace of the game was too fast and furious before, but I think they've overdone it a bit.

Man what gives??? I am always hearing about how trading is stupid because people are making like 20K + a turn, etc. What size galaxies are you playing on, jwburks? Anyway, in my own experience playing on medium, abundant maps, I have no problems having factory worlds and research worlds (maybe because I don't research too far up the factory and research building tech tree). Normally only in the beginning stages of the game, do I have production capacity at less than 100% while I wait for my population to catch up. Then again, as I always play evil civs, being able to upgrade your starbases for free is nice. When I play, I usually have 100% capacity, but hardley anything in my treasury. I'll admit that I am not having a huge treasury, but why have a huge treasury, when you can have fleets of spore ships and warships to purge the galaxy?

In my games, when I feel I am far enough ahead technologically and production wise, I decide to go for the kill. I will go 100% military and produce ultimate ships with a spore module. Yes, those spore ships cost alot to make and have lots of upkeep, but after I take a planet, they dissapear and my costs to maintain the ship dissapear with it. When I spore a planet, I usually demolish every building so that each world only costs me 12 BC so I can afford to wipe the galazy clean as soon as possible. If the AI take back their planets, they are left with buildingless planets that are toxic atmosphere and hardley any pop. That keeps them away from my vaualble mega-industry planets that pump out my super defense / offense / spore huge ships. Perhaps this strategy wouldn't work on higher difficulties. Then again, I don't know, I think the AI would go right to trying to take back the stupid worlds I spored that now have no buildings!!!

Are you maxing out your factory and research techs? As your factories and research buildings become more high tech, they cost more and more to operate. A huge world devoted to production is going to cost a crap load if it is filled with industrial sectors.

I guess you just can't have a world that is filled with industrial sectors unless you have 10 planets supporting it. No one was meant to wield such industrial might.....

IMO, neutral is not the best choice for Krynn, because of the square rooting of population and the declining base morale. That eats into the neutral morale bonus more than it does for other races. Evil has a nice +50 Defense + Artificial Slave Center combo you can take advantage of. On small maps the free maintenance bonus from Good helps a lot more; so does Krynn's Super Spy bonus. And you get to apply the +50 defense to Good's special defenses.