Oh, you like everything and then a huge list of complaints.
I was a desperate Ascendancy fanatic player in my childhood so I know EXACTLY whats crap and whats to change - as far as I can.
> In what way the shields are not balanced? Energy consumption?
> I LOVE these expensive planetary buildings. Spares a lot of micro management. I always found it sad, that after 1800 turns the research is over, and after 2 turns any planet is completely built up, and you dont even build all ship stuff or Huge Class Ships cause all is built so easy and cheap and fast.
I wanted to make it more realistic and slow and beneficial - the AI benefits, cause it builds up slow, so, in middle game it has enough empty planet slots to build the good stuff, and in late game it has much bad stuff.
That just hampers the human, not the AI, cause the AI has AI War Center to boost its industry. If you want the AI faster, use Ascend00 Heavy.cob! Or even brutal.