Thanks for linking. This was a good read with lots of interesting thoughts.

With regards to the comments on buying out another company is a huge advantage, perhaps there is some way to elegantly build in "dis-economies of scale" through the inefficiencies of having a subsidiary or necessitate the routing of resources through colonies to distribute. As its structured now, buying out an opponent is more of an "asset purchase" where the opponents buildings and resources seamlessly integrate into your colony, opposed to a merger/acquisition takeover via stock purchase which would indicate the entity remains a separate subsidiary under control. Perhaps the subsidiary could only auto-sell resources at market for cash to transfer to the parent company? Or have a built in integration period for the acquisition where the utilization isn't 100%.

I've only rarely seen instances where buying an opponents colony is not a good decision, partly because the AI almost never outright fails and succumbs to massive debt burden. As such, buying an opponent is best due to the massive influx of resources and claims