[Jmenschenfresser]

Good points.

How I see it, is it will be incredibly hard to tell who exactly is leading for much of the game.

I wouldn't put a penalty on glassing planets. Do it all you want...there is only a penalty on completely killing a race. But as you say, glassing population isn't beneficial in the long run.

I do like the idea of limiting weapons tech, SJ. Perhaps make use of the "target only" properties so that it is more or less impossible to completely destroy ships with weapons...you'd have to ram them. But you could gut them if you had a variety of "only" type weapons--engines, weapons, security, shields, etc. Make ship capture important.

In such a game, you'd think twice before sending out a large transport full of population unguarded.

Hmmmmm.....