Any chance for a better minimap?

Maybe you could toss a few ideas out here? I am baffled to what you want from it? Green blinking dots where you can move units?

One feature I'd like to see is the ability to get up a larger minimap like the Galaxy Map in Gal Civ 2. Just to get a general idea of where everyone is and whose territory is expanding. I know you can get something similar by zooming out on the main map, but a simple colour coded map would be able to show the overall picture at a glance.

When I'm planning on a war, would like to see where the different factions have cities and outposts.  A different color for each would help.  When playing a huge map it is difficult to get an overview.