I made a thread, saying that empire administration was cumbersome and a turnoff, and that's true mainly because of the UI which isn't really helping the player.
Sectors or not, The Colony as such is the production entity, and we have actually SIX screens, dealing with them. Colony Overview is the first, a simple list of your Colonies. What happens when you click on one of those is, that the strategic map is zooming to it, but there is no way to address the colony as such from there - you actually have to click on the colony center to do that (twice, if there are units on it). Ther reason for that is probably, that there is no actual "colony screen" - instead there are five, and they are not really screens, but lists.
This is the main UI problem, because not only is that completely unnecessary - when you manage colonies, you don't really need to look on the strategic map -, it means, you'll have to click around a lot. It would be much better, if all the information that is now separated on 5 different lists - 1) Producable units; 2) Prooducable Colony Upgrades; 3) Producable Sector Upgrades; 4) Worker Placement within the Colony; 5) List of already built upgrades - were condensed in one screen, so that the player could actually see ALL building options with one look, without the need to click from one to the next, and clicking again to see whether you might accelerate a build by restructuring the worker placement.
I also think, it would be a big help, if the producable units were organized in a different manner. The basic list, whether as it is now or whether as part of a one-screen colony management center, should only contain the basic units, which would keep the list managable. UNits, for which modded versions existed, could be color-coded or highlighted in some way, and a simple mouse-over could then show the modded versions in an overlay.
For colony management it's also not helpful, that you see generally only production times. The actual production value needs a tooltip. Let's look at a couple of shots to see why this is not good.
This screen shows the unit production list of a colony. Ignore for a moment that it shows, that's something in the builds already. You want to produce a Gunship - 3 turns, right? But the mouseover 
shows, that it costs 255 production and we are currently at 125, so actually we should probably reassign a worker to production service to make it in 2 turns - but we can't do it on THIS screen and have to change screen. At this stage we are not sure whether we CAN actually reassign a worker, so we don't click on production, yet. Instead we change screen 
and see, yes, we CAN reassign a worker, the guy who is busy in the fields, although food os produced in copious quantities anyway. So copious, in fact, as we see after another close look, that we'll get a new pop NEXT turn, no matter what, however, the building that will give us an additional 6 happiness and 2 more happiness worker slots will be finished in 2 turns only, which can't be good. Might not be that bad either, no idea at this point - but this kind of thing shouldn't happen.
It does happen, though, and it happens, because all pertinent colony information are portioned into different lists and you don't have them together.
Since this is thematically linked to this last screenshot - workers are grouped in 5s, as you can see. So why is that? A 5 separation makes no sense. Instead, why isn't there a thematical separation? The basic colony worker amount is 4, so there should be a separation after that. We have 8 food slots that should be separated 4 - 2 - 2, 4 because of colony and 2 each for 2 food sectors, both on level 2. Small thing, but still...
Because this is still not all the info there is, because there are still sectors and their info. Landmarks and their benefits, exploitation levels and what that means for the colony and so on. The best way to get that info is to click on the colony, then on the sector production list and then via mouseover on the Sector name. Strangely, this is a way better infi presentation than what happens when you click on the sector base.
Face it, sector exploitation as a feature is an invitation to micro-management because micro-management is rewarded; if you go for energy in a sector, for example, you can make units produced THERE cost less energy - so you WANT to produce units there, which means you should do something for your production as well, which means you'll have a special look at worker assignments and so on. And the UI should make the utmost of effort to make life EASY for the player and not a click-fest.
For this first post I have a last thing that is really bothering me, because it's MISinformation. I mean, you know that from AoW 3, already, but it's something I would like to address. You click End Turn, and eventually it's yiur turn again. A lot of things happened. Your resource bar shows your current energy and your projected income - 250 (+ 150). Looks healthy, all great, right? But it actually isn't, because what happened is, that some of your colonies produced something and are IDLE now, and the projected income is already including the part that comes from Idle Energy Production. The the moment comes when you click through the colonies that produced something, enable the new production - and get a fit, because projected energy is now (-30) or something like that.
To change this I'd suggest TWO projected incomes, the current one (as is) and the REAL one (the one WITHOUT the addition of idle energy production).
That's it for now. It's clear, everyone will disagree, because things couldn't possibly be better in any way, but to each their own - I hope this helps.
Sectors or not, The Colony as such is the production entity, and we have actually SIX screens, dealing with them. Colony Overview is the first, a simple list of your Colonies. What happens when you click on one of those is, that the strategic map is zooming to it, but there is no way to address the colony as such from there - you actually have to click on the colony center to do that (twice, if there are units on it). Ther reason for that is probably, that there is no actual "colony screen" - instead there are five, and they are not really screens, but lists.
This is the main UI problem, because not only is that completely unnecessary - when you manage colonies, you don't really need to look on the strategic map -, it means, you'll have to click around a lot. It would be much better, if all the information that is now separated on 5 different lists - 1) Producable units; 2) Prooducable Colony Upgrades; 3) Producable Sector Upgrades; 4) Worker Placement within the Colony; 5) List of already built upgrades - were condensed in one screen, so that the player could actually see ALL building options with one look, without the need to click from one to the next, and clicking again to see whether you might accelerate a build by restructuring the worker placement.
I also think, it would be a big help, if the producable units were organized in a different manner. The basic list, whether as it is now or whether as part of a one-screen colony management center, should only contain the basic units, which would keep the list managable. UNits, for which modded versions existed, could be color-coded or highlighted in some way, and a simple mouse-over could then show the modded versions in an overlay.
For colony management it's also not helpful, that you see generally only production times. The actual production value needs a tooltip. Let's look at a couple of shots to see why this is not good.
This screen shows the unit production list of a colony. Ignore for a moment that it shows, that's something in the builds already. You want to produce a Gunship - 3 turns, right? But the mouseover 
shows, that it costs 255 production and we are currently at 125, so actually we should probably reassign a worker to production service to make it in 2 turns - but we can't do it on THIS screen and have to change screen. At this stage we are not sure whether we CAN actually reassign a worker, so we don't click on production, yet. Instead we change screen 
and see, yes, we CAN reassign a worker, the guy who is busy in the fields, although food os produced in copious quantities anyway. So copious, in fact, as we see after another close look, that we'll get a new pop NEXT turn, no matter what, however, the building that will give us an additional 6 happiness and 2 more happiness worker slots will be finished in 2 turns only, which can't be good. Might not be that bad either, no idea at this point - but this kind of thing shouldn't happen.It does happen, though, and it happens, because all pertinent colony information are portioned into different lists and you don't have them together.
Since this is thematically linked to this last screenshot - workers are grouped in 5s, as you can see. So why is that? A 5 separation makes no sense. Instead, why isn't there a thematical separation? The basic colony worker amount is 4, so there should be a separation after that. We have 8 food slots that should be separated 4 - 2 - 2, 4 because of colony and 2 each for 2 food sectors, both on level 2. Small thing, but still...
Because this is still not all the info there is, because there are still sectors and their info. Landmarks and their benefits, exploitation levels and what that means for the colony and so on. The best way to get that info is to click on the colony, then on the sector production list and then via mouseover on the Sector name. Strangely, this is a way better infi presentation than what happens when you click on the sector base.
Face it, sector exploitation as a feature is an invitation to micro-management because micro-management is rewarded; if you go for energy in a sector, for example, you can make units produced THERE cost less energy - so you WANT to produce units there, which means you should do something for your production as well, which means you'll have a special look at worker assignments and so on. And the UI should make the utmost of effort to make life EASY for the player and not a click-fest.
For this first post I have a last thing that is really bothering me, because it's MISinformation. I mean, you know that from AoW 3, already, but it's something I would like to address. You click End Turn, and eventually it's yiur turn again. A lot of things happened. Your resource bar shows your current energy and your projected income - 250 (+ 150). Looks healthy, all great, right? But it actually isn't, because what happened is, that some of your colonies produced something and are IDLE now, and the projected income is already including the part that comes from Idle Energy Production. The the moment comes when you click through the colonies that produced something, enable the new production - and get a fit, because projected energy is now (-30) or something like that.
To change this I'd suggest TWO projected incomes, the current one (as is) and the REAL one (the one WITHOUT the addition of idle energy production).
That's it for now. It's clear, everyone will disagree, because things couldn't possibly be better in any way, but to each their own - I hope this helps.
