Someone mentioned money... Well I personally like the way money is being represented in MOO3. (Yeah, I always have to bring up the MOO games don't I
Well they're GOOD - and Aaron did mention that MOO was one of his inspirations for the SE series!
)
Anyway, the way money is implemented in MOO3 is that you collect taxes from your population, as well as collecting money via trade treaties, tributes, and a few other sources I can't think of off the top of my head. Also, production and research don't occur automatically - you have to fund them, with a diminishing returns effect. So say you have 10,000 industry and 20,000 research. It will cost 1 AU (Antaran Unit, the MOO3 unit of money) for each industry or research point or research point you want to fund - up to your maximum; if you don't fully fund your industry or research then the extra points are wasted. Likewise, you can overfund your industry and research, but remember that diminishing returns effect? For every multiple of your industry or research, the cost per unit doubles. So with your 10,000 industry, if you want to get 30,000 production done this turn you will have to spend 10,000 AU for the first 10,000, and 20,000 for the second 10,000, and 40,000 for the third 10,000, for a total of 70,000 AU! So it's possible to overdrive your production or research, but very very expensive! (This system would also work for intelligence operations, assuming they will be done on a points basis like in SE4; MOO3 isn't using the system for intel because it uses a different system - you hire and train individual spies to carry out your dirty work.)