For people who have a few games under their belt, is there something you know now that you wish someone had told you before your first game? This can apply to the Energy economy or to other areas.
Energy is an issue. No wait, everything is an issue
. Energy is hard to come by, culture is hard to get, production is low, food costs money but you gotta pay for it anyway etc. But managing these challenges is sorta fun, gives a kinda "we're on an alien planet suffering energy shortages" vibe, reminds me of alpha centauri. I'm so glad we don't have to pay for unit upgrades.
Also i've settled a few cities not noticing farms couldn't be built in radius, i forgot that they need rivers. Not sure i like that, i miss irrigation tech. Mines are good but the unhealth hurts, is there a way to make improvements only cost maintenance/unhealth if they are being worked? And everything but generators cost energy. Now that i think about it specialists are alot more important, especially to boost the early diplo trait upgrades, which makes food more important, which makes energy more an issue etc.
With respect to the energy economy, what pitfalls have folks experienced? Did the maintenance on Farms blindside them?
I wish they were buildable on ocean and non-rivers, except for that maintenance on them is manageable.
For Trade Routes, what approximate distribution were International vs Domestic (vs Station)? 100% Domestic (except for 2 Stations)? Did it change over the course of the game?
I made mostly internal. International are usually 2e, or 2e2s both ways, they feel really bad. I wonder if we're paying maintenance on trade convoys, if we do then they are hardly worth it.
What turns are people winning their games, and by what victory condition?
My first game i was about to reach mind flower tech on turn 350 i think, but i was so ahead of the AI i quit. Second game, i wanted to go hybrid but i got rushed by every neighbor, couldn't keep with them with affinity levels, and died off on turn 200 or so (i was still very low level, 4/4 or so).
Third game, went Al falah, hybrid again. Got some angry neighbors, fixed my health problems forever by allying AU and getting the +3 health per resource tile early on, emancipation gate and got gangpiled by the AI except my ally, almost lost the gate. I won on turn 430 or so because i didn't rushed. But Al Falah is really strong in your mod, my cities spent a good time on food process and that really helped with growth.
Do you have a sense for what let you jet up in Culture? Also, do you remember the turn counts for those points? At least what turn you got victory on? I need turn counts so I can tell if the pacing is off (tech costs too low, Virtues too cheap)
Early game, when i lost the signal culture, my culture went to zero, but since all but my capital was a water city i didn't noticed. After surviving a few close wars (retaking cities and stuff), i noticed my culture was at zero so i went for 2 techs with cultural buildings and worked some artists specialists (holosuit, can't remember the other), plus a cultural station landed between my cities and i didn't do the quest to destroy it, and i also got the trait for +2 culture per stretegic resource tiles, all that in quick succession. There was also a few quests (+culture from garrison, and +culture from a defensive building), but i had a ton of strategic resources on the sea tbh; there was a city with 5 of them. Being a water empire mostly, my cities went from zero to 8-30 culture in a short time, and virtues started to fly by (i didn't even had a single virtue synergy at the time). Later, i made a few holomatrixes (about 5 total i think), and later still, after the emancipation gate, i focused city process on culture for about 10 turns and, being al falah, i went from 400 to 1200 culture (1 extra every 3 turns). But even without al falah imba skill, i would've still finished with 2 full virtue trees.
I think the jump happened when i decided to actually get some culture. I couldn't before because i spent the first half of the game retaking my cities from the AI. But i had zero culture until then. Since my cities moved around i didn't cared much, but if i was a land empire i don't see how i would survive without border growth, had no energy to buy tiles.
SO i guess the virtues feel cheaper because culture is harder to produce, but once you get a good combination of culture sources going, the trees fill up fast!
I suppose there should be at least one OER-style early game building with a passive yield for when the player / AI is busy with aliens, wars, etc. Having specialists be the only source of culture early on really hurts land empires.
Partly because I started playing on Ironman immediately. Losing soldiers because of really silly mistakes and then writing sarcastic epitaphs... best feeling ever! 
