Re: Has anything really changed?
 

I've had the end-of-turn game hanging problem happen several times, during the processing after all players. Now I use autosave for every turn and if it hangs, use CTRL-ALT-DEL to end the game and restart, then I can continue on from the last turn it saved.

But it also seems that the hanging problem only happens if I've played continuously for an hour or two. So I'm getting into the habit of saving and exiting the game every so often and restarting the game. I've also noticed that if I don't do that, the game runs more and more slowly over time.

Re: Has anything really changed?
 

Here's another concrete example:

In SEIV, many mods implimented "native" colonization tech- that is, if you started out as a Rock dwelling race, it was harder to research Ice technology, and vice versa.

In SEIV, this took three racial traits. In SE5, it can be handled with three tech areas, WITHOUT any interaction from the player at all. There's no confusion and no extra racial traits.

Re: Has anything really changed?
 

Actually, it is possible to do it without any traits in SE4 too, exploiting the way unique techs work. Check out the Colony Tech Mod 2 over on SEnet.