Hey, let's keep this forum a friendly place, okay? If I wanted nasty arguments, I would've stayed in the MOO3 forums
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I think that the thing to keep in mind is that there is no such thing as what a strategy game, or any game at all, *ought* to be like. What any game is like depends strictly on what the designers and players would like it to be. I think that you can avoid a lot of bitterness by avoiding such phrases like, "A strategy game should have such-and-such features..." and rewording them into phrases like "I would personally really enjoy it if a game had such-and-such features..."
As a matter of personal taste, I would side with Dogscoff in wanting more detailed modelling of planets. I would also greatly enjoy a space strategy game in which combat is optional, not required.
However, I would disagree with Dogscoff if he implies that all of the extra detail would have little impact on the level of micro-management required to play the game. If all of the added detail were to be meaningful, then surely the control that the player has over them should (uh-oh, the "should" word again
) have a discernible impact on gameplay, and dealing with the control of those details means added micro-management time. Doing otherwise would replicate the MOO3 problem of plenty of "look-but-don't-touch" details. In other words, I agree with Imperator Fyron that those details that won't require constant player attention and oversight "ought" to be abstracted.