maby a button u can press and a graph come us and it updates like every min also maby u could just have options on how much resources you start with and how much of each type and maby u could have how many planets u start with like if you wanted to play the story out the tec has like 30 or so advent 1 but give them a big fleet and the vasari like 10 and a small fleet or something like that also like on Supreme commander maby have a mod button and all your mods are in that drop down list like 2x extractor speed 2x population cap mines neaver run out ext..... also whith dat score board maby the total power of your ships cos the tec would always have the most ship so in turn have the hghest scor but thier ships are no where near as good as vasari the tec just use overwhelming numbers and industry to poon down thier foe maby work it out using prices or something or total att power dont know u suggest something. but there is one problem they may use starting resources and planets to help balance the game but we dont know intill we have all 3 races. hint   

lol cant be arsed its only a forum its not dat important

another thing to add would be: choose what capital ship you start with .

reminds of how spying was done in vanilla galciv 2. I would favour it as it is not too complicated to take away too much of the players attention but add another layer.

this might also be something to distinguish races. say, the avent due to the lore would be good spies, tec possibly mediocre (think of corporate spying, not a new concept to a trader society) and vassari due to their alien origin would have more difficulty in this.