We have an opt-in of GalCiv III v1.9 already out.  We continue to update and respond to feedback on it.

Here are some changes I made:

1. Diplomacy tech affect to diplomacy ability increased from 0.5 to 1
2. InfluenceMinToClaim increased from 0.33 to 8
3. InfluenceRadius root reduced from 3.25 (^0.325) to square root (^0.5)
4. Eliminated the Influence Bell Durve target divsor
5. Influence fall off is increased from -0.3 to –10
6. Capital Influence per turn increased from 1.5 to 3
7. Colony Influnece per turn reduced from 2 to 1
8. Removed the faction ability bonus from the Diplomatic Office
9. Removed all faction ability bonuses from starbase modules
10. AI is much MUCH smarter about detecting cultural flipping strategies
11. AI is much better about detecting fast alliance strategies
12. Colonies now instantly update when you rush bulid to show the effect of the new building.
13. Players start with no area of influence for the first turn
14. Influence now grows more organically over time

There were some exploits (or ones I would use anyway) that I removed.  For instance, if you built enough cultural starbases, you could get an insanely high diplomacy score.  Same was true for early game trading and other diplomacy techs.

I also changed it so that you start out with zilch on-map influence on the first turn. It quickly grows but I wanted to be able to convey to players that influence is not a right but something earned.  If you don’t build stuff to increase your influence, it won’t grow far.

I fixed a pet peeve of mine. When I build something on a planet, I want to see the stats update right then. 

The next thing on my list is the small empire / administrative resource that will control not just how many starbases you have but a lot of other things. I am trying to get that in today.