FEEDBACK:
Firstly, map is sooooooo much better. Not even close to as much blank open space. I actually care about it now. I pay attention to the scouting now. It has variety, and even if you are a new player just starting out, it just looks like there's lots of STUFF to look at and examine. This really enhances absolutely everything.
The territories thing is the other really great addition. Expansion makes sense here, the way to grab them also makes sense. I like the teleporters. Sure beats the old daisy-chain of military buildings, yeah? Military.... sorta makes sense, I havent grasped that yet (I've only had about 100 turns right now and have to stop for the day). So far on my map, pretty much every territory has something or other in it that is desirable for whatever reason.
One problem: sometimes I'm not ENTIRELY sure what that reason is. Adjacency bonuses are easily explained, but I've no idea exactly what I'm going to be doing with these magical ants or whatever they are. All I know is I have a harvester or whatever there and it's stuffing them into storage, and then they will.... do.... I really dont know. All I know is that for some reason, I want these. But there's no hint as to why, and this goes for all things of this nature.
Wonders are much easier to understand though. One big suggestion: Make these stand out more! A couple of them, it took me awhile to notice, particularly the World Tree, which blended into a small forest it was in. I didn't notice it for some time. Since these are useful things, highlighting the hex that they are on would help. I'll stuff that suggestion into Mantis I think.
No diplomacy happening or anything like that, so all I know about the Boarines (only race I've encountered so far) is that they talk via amusing noises. And that stuff I want is in a territory adjacent to them. They dont seem to be doing anything at me yet though.
Tech tree is a little more interesting now, but still needs a bit of work, though I'm not sure how. The earliest bits of the tech tree I still handled in a very linear way which likely isnt going to change though. Also, the ways to increase science output are not entirely clear. I can place down a science center or whatever once every million years or so, and then stick computing clusters to it, which do.... something. They want some sort of resource that I dont see anywhere to attach themselves to. I'm not sure if the thing is actually doing anything yet without this mystery resource.
The status bar: Having all the numbers faded is a bit of a headache to look at. Also, percentages, these confuse me. Because math, or something. It doesnt matter how long I look at the employment one, I still have no idea what the heck it's trying to tell me until I hover over it. Derpy, perhaps, but math and such is my arch-nemesis.