By layers I mean defense, building, research, and fleeting. I suggest implementing new layers: political, (resource) economics, and/or cultural. For example, the political layer could be something like a form of government and with that comes pros and cons.

For political I was thinking something like this.Lets say we picked dictatorship, pros could be increased production speed and attacks upon other gives a boost in resources production also. As cons could be lack of moral support therefore without dominance of them and others to prove your supremacy political revolt could happen (this could led to many outcomes: production half-ed, anarchy, fleet destruction/unusable like a blockade of rioters). Or on the other end of the spectrum you might pick some for of elected-type government (democracy for these purposes) and within for pros could be 25% increase in production of resources and/or resilient to propaganda (<--- new tech/ship?). Cons death of president by hostile means leads to anarchy and radicals so again 50% resource production and blockage of fleets. With a political layer you could have almost infinite amount of options (more would be laws, stimulus packages, different reactions from attacks and being attacked, etc.).

For (resources) economics it would mesh with political layer but if you would want to add just a economic layer one could have options such as fluctuating resource production (Stocks), Imperialism (Pairing with others to improve your production but also must not attack; contracted in weeks), and/or leasing fleets (sounds funny but it would be nice) with payments of resources fleets can be controlled by payer (but must be already built by the owner) and any damages are/will be paid for. This would make the game a little more tactical than it is now... But maybe not it such a good way.

Finally cultural, now this might not be the best name for it but it would go something like this. Starting off in a modern science setting production of certain ships limited (i.e. Deathstar, Lunars, etc.) progressing into the more advanced age with this would be things such as more ships, research, defense, buildings, enemies, etc. Duality this could add to player protection where those in the same culture level would be able to attack each other and so on for the remaining levels, like a caste system. If the above would be implemented then you could get new governments and economic systems that provide more diversity in how you play.

Take note that none of this is locked in final or set when you join. Do not do any of the former as I have supported before, Zorg is a playerbase that you want it to be... in limiting them to one, say, culture you would diminish the game diversity and enjoyment. On the contrast if you felt like it should be like that make it hard to switch, like anarchy for 24 hours or half-ed production for 2 days, etc. but never locked in. Lastly if you see this as a addition of populations and metropolitan views you would be off beat of what I was suggesting, think more vaguer, like seeing the Earth under one system and not so much cities, etc. Options are limitless and I am sorry about the long ... post but I was trying to think outside of the box as many ideas are just reoccurring themes that have been suggested for years. Now I hope this hasn't been suggested before, I didn't look O.o