A recent news post said "If you have any ideas or suggestions on tweaks and such you'd like to see, visit our forums and we'd love to hear them! We plan to release free updates based on player feedback."

Ok, you asked for it

Summary: Please allow players to change the game speed during a game. Specifically:
1) Add an in-game function that increments the speed setting to the next level, wrapping around if already at fastest (so slow->normal->fast->slow->etc.)
2) Add a toggle option to the "New Game" screen that allows or disallows the use of the above-requested function, and have this option default to off (disallow).

Reasons:
for 1) -
a) I really like the slow, 4XTBS-ish feel of the game pacing on Slow or Normal, but sometimes I want to accelerate the game because it's just a matter of waiting for something to happen.
To put it another way: in GalCiv I love being able to take all the time I need to make decisions, but sometimes I just hit "turn" a bunch of times in a row because all my orders are going to take multiple turns. In that way, GalCiv lets me alter the pace according to how much my involvement is necessary.
c) To put it yet another way, I like how Europa Universalis managed to be a "Real Time" strategy game that allowed both careful decision making and the ability to greatly accelerate game pace in the lulls (which could be a game-decade at a stretch in that game).
d) I have some gameplay modding ideas that would be quite a bit more feasible if the speed were adjustable in-game.

for 2) - I imagine many multiplayer players will not want this option on because people will abuse it for an unfair advantage. On the other hand, if a group of friends who trust each other are playing (coop against the AI, for example), it would make sense even in MP.

Other specifics:
on 1)
- you don't even have to bind this to a key by default, just add it to the "Key Bindings" function list and I'll take care of it from there
- I probably won't get quite the acceleration I want from default "fast", but when the mod tools come out I can change "slow" to as slow as I need it (reducing the need for in-game pause on multiplayer) and "fast" to as fast as my computer can handle and it'll all be good.
- I'm just talking about the speed setting, not the specific "research speed" and "resource speed" settings. Hopefully I can mod the speed settings to also affect research/resource appropriately.

If there are technical issues which prevent this, just let me know and I'll drop it. Hopefully it's just a matter of reassigning the values of the speed-dependant variables.

Thanks!
-Keith