Governing, planetary and empire-wide

That is why I keep stressing global and local options. You said it better by having the option to make some planets exempt to a global reset. 

I'd like to see some kind of custom "productivity presets". Let's say I have a research-specific planet, but I just unlocked an improvement upgrade. I want to tell the planet to go 10/45/45. When it's done go back to 10/0/90. I don't want to go into the wheel for each planet to do this. I'd rather click a planet from the planets list and choose the appropriate preset.

That's great for wonder building. This would be nice if I could build que this based on population spending vs income I mean greater or lessor approval or near culture flipping. I'm talking aviators responds.

Hmm, you make a good point, this is probably a bit 'feature rich' of a suggestion for a late beta game, but hear me out for a second, tell me if you think my idea is clever or simply pontification:

It might be nice if we could guide governors behavior based on the current situation in order of importance.  So for instance military worlds would take military priorities first, which would mean if you tell the governor to increase social production when there is a social building being built or upgraded, economic production increased when you are under a certain threshhold in manufacturing and research capacity, and military production increase when you have a military vessel being produced, than on a military world:

Military production would increase when building a cutter, when the shipyard is not in use it would focus on upgrading systems, and finally only if it is doing nothing else it would focus on economy.

A research world would research primarily, never refocusing to the other options because its research gains always match the threshold, unless the player changes the governor or interrupts with his own orders (which should always override the governors until the orders are done).

In this way, we could even possibly get governors with traits and personalities, and if they are skilled (and we spend resources finding the best ones, and training them well and giving them the resources they need) they can respond more exactly to situations, allowing more complex orders and more well targeted responses to situations, etc.

What does anyone think?

This sounds like a good idea.

an issue i see is an old argument about auto combat vs manual combat

essentially if auto-combat gave you a better outcome then manual combat always choose auto-combat

if manual combat was better always use manual combat

the point here is if the governor sets up your planets better then you, then you're no longer playing the game but watching it play. if it sets up your planets worse then you then no one will use it.

Alright, let me respond to that issue and see what you think.  I disagree with this only because of the nature of grand-scale games after a long enough period of increased scope.

Namely that as time goes on, there are more planets to colonize, just as much if not more strategic need to colonize them even if they are not particularly desirable, and yet manually constructing them for some purpose is not something you're invested in. By not something you're invested in, I mean the time taken to figure out where it is, what you might need to build or avoid building is no longer fundamental like your first few planets, nor particularly engaging like the expansion rush planets that follow.

Instead, to avoid the concern of watching the game play itself, you turn an aspect of the game into an ongoing, ever-expanding, late game chore that slows and detracts from the grand scale you've finally reached. I.e. for fear of what I will call the Master of Orion 3 effect, you substitute an inability to automate less important tasks with a requirement to engage in an activity that is an aside from what you hope to accomplish, replacing automation with boredom.

At least with my governor idea, you would have to manage them and keep them in line so that your granular control over planets is replaced with a balancing act of managing governors which is one step up on the scale, it is one thing to focus on per planet rather than trying to identify what to do with every individual tile, then remember to upgrade and terraform tiles, then remember to return to those planets and place more things on those newly terraformed tiles.

When your primary concern has become the front lines of a galactic conflict, having to stop to try to find a purpose for that new 4 tile planet near the front that you don't want your enemy getting hold of is a detraction from the experience, rather than a part of it at that point. Of course, I think planetary governors should have some work, and perhaps even overhead involved, but to assume that if it's not as optimal as manually dealing with every planet, no one would use them, is to assume that people would not be willing to pay some overhead to avoid having to deal with minor issues while running a large galactic empire.

Personally, I would be willing to pay that overhead, and I'm not certain that I'd be in a minority in that regard.

Okay, let me know what anyone thinks!

I thought you were talking about the social military and research focus at the top of the screen in colony management. If we are going to go this route I sometimes would rather an advisor instead. This is why I would rather governors be an in game global option. So when I get tired of micromanaging I could take a break. What I didn't like about the governor system in galactic civilization was it was to limited and the options needed to be global.

A more robust governor would be good, however the advisor - if by that you mean someone who suggests what to built next, might only add to my concerns. If I don't want to spend my time worrying about a colony, that doesn't mean I want someone to remind me to check on it, and then giving me pop-up advice for what they think I should build. I could figure out what to build for myself well enough when I'm focused on that concern. It's when I have bigger fish to fry that I'd like smaller concerns to be able to neatly slip into the background, to be returned to later when I need to.