Honestly, I dont really like talking about which mechanics are good and which ones are bad because I am really not very good at that kind of stuff, but every once in a while I might chime in. One thing that I can say was that in the previous patch, in one of my games I just randomly out of nowhere got over 1000 crime, and honestly ot sure why, so one thing O can say for sure is that it is a little too hard.
Now I want to talk about an idea I thought up, territory and borders (by the way feel free to trash it if you think it is crappy). The idea is a civ esque borders that will mark your territory and prevent other races from building there. The avantages of this that I have thought of are: more incentive to build more cities because building a new city will let you block off a race. Another avantage might be that it will make all the other races less clumped toghether which I find annoying.
EDIT: After reading my idea over it no longer sounds like an amazing idea but I am gonna post it anyways just in case I am mistaken.