Look at Distant Worlds Shadows (king of living and breathing galaxy) and Sword Of The Stars 2 ie Randoms and Grands Menaces what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and more fun. I like pain. Strike me where I'm weakest I dare you... 

Having tensions with conquered colonies (especially with those of a different race) would be a good one. Also, random events like coups and revolts (not like the current Jagged Knife, I-League, etc., but smaller, colonial revolts) would be cool. It would definitely make you think about the people in your empire more (this should happen in the A.I.'s empires too, of course).  

Distant Worlds does come the closest to creating the illusion of a "living and breathing" galaxy, largely due to the "private sector"  I love to watch the merchanters going around building space stations and mining outposts.  Even though GalCiv III is going to be TBS, I hope they find a way to make the civies as active as in DW.

I also would like to see the character system from DW find its way into GCIII.  DW's characters were very close to CK2.

 

Jarac:

Having tensions with conquered colonies (especially with those of a different race) would be a good one. Also, random events like coups and revolts (not like the current Jagged Knife, I-League, etc., but smaller, colonial revolts) would be cool. It would definitely make you think about the people in your empire more (this should happen in the A.I.'s empires too, of course). 

 

That is exactly the type of things I was thinking about!

Distant Worlds does come the closest to creating the illusion of a "living and breathing" galaxy, largely due to the "private sector"  I love to watch the merchanters going around building space stations and mining outposts.

I'm not familiar with Distant Worlds, but the idea of an active private sector sounds awesome.  It doesn't have to be too complex, but having private trade routes, starbases, and mining colonies... they could be attackable, which would require you to either defend them or take a big approval hit from the local planets ("our military can't even protect our own people!!").  And the fact that you can't control them would add a fun element of chaos to the game when the private interests try to, say, colonize a planet you want and you have to negotiate with them to join your empire.  =D

When a star exhales, watch out ...

remember this is not a role playing game but a stredegy game but it would be cool to have some graphics what I would like to do is have something like medieval total war where u have serious interaction between leaders and generals princes and princeses and wat not also civilization has some aspects like civics corporations and a pick of different leadeers with different abilities for each civ and lets not forget about great people

agreed!!!

distant worlds won!

How is distant worlds btw? The screenshots of the game scare the crap out of me. 

Distant Worlds - Shadows is pretty good.  The graphics are not as cool as GalCiv2 but the game has a lot of depth and many things going on.  Having said that, be prepared to drop a load of cash.   Shadows is the latest version you have to buy the original and the previous expansions at regular prices to get there.

Another really cool way to accomplish what the OP suggests is to randomly have the game generate a set of "fluff" statistics, maybe even a brief narrative. What if each planet or star system came with a small "Extra Info Panel" that was, in part, fueled by the development choices you make. What if the main export of your agricultural world was semi-sentient legumes, or your industrial world produced the galaxy's supply of lubricants? You could have a set of fluff info something like:

Population (exact)

Chief Export

Date of Founding

GDP

Average citizen age

Major Sports

Trending News

Gov't Popularity

Major Natural Attractions/Phenomena

Tourism Rate

I absolutely agree with the OP. Random events, and lots of them, would help to give individual games more personality. I could do without the GalCiv2 style "mega events" however, which frequently threw things out of balance so much as to be really frustrating.

I also agree with the idea of having tensions with conquered planets. It would be cool if the game kept track of the racial composition of each planet, similar to Master of Orion 2. So if the Drengin conquer a Torian planet, the surviving population should initially be 100% Torian, but the longer the planet stays in Drengin hands the more Drengi begin to live there. If this was done, they could implement a further cool feature: during wartime, the AI could prioritize recapturing worlds where many of its own people are still living.

I love random events and exploration. Some diplomatic back channel action too. Give me 10 battleships! Yes sir for the war.

Agreed on Distant Worlds. Lot of good elements to incorporate. 

Yes! a more alive world please! pumped for GCIII but make it more that just the old game with better graphics

Glad to see I am not alone on this. 

GalCiv 2 had the genesis of a good idea: remember the planetary screen?  On it, there was always a quote from a random citizen reflecting their opinion on the planet and the player's leadership.  I would like to see this expanded so you get a lot of feedback from the citizenry.  Perhaps we could borrow another idea from GalCiv 2: the robot TV show that would report on a new tech breakthrough.  I would like to see that used for all sorts of events and headline news affecting the galaxy.