a1) still twinkle just much less noticable since you can zoom out further

a2) there a little intrusive being able to turn them down indepentely of each other say by group (actions, turn, ambient sounds, combat)

[0.61] Ideology issue:

• [bug] Benevolent Breakthrough does not deduct 45 Benevolent points.
• [UI-flaw] When I complete a tech (normally), and unlock Breakthrough before visiting Technology, then I must loop back to Ideology to see my +300(?) rps update the research progress bar.  In more detail:
• I finish a tech normally.  Let #A = W4 Kinetic Weapons (for my railguns).
• At the next turn-start, my Missionary Center's +1 Benevolent point per turn gives me exactly enough to unlock a tier 3.
• The only remaining tier-3 is Breakthrough.
• Without clicking Technology to choose a new tech, I click Ideology.  Now I'm trapped in the Ideology screen until I unlock (but that's OK).
• I select Breakthrough and click Unlock.  It does not deduct the 45 points.
• I click Done (to exit Ideology).  As expected, this takes me to the tech newsbot for #A, then the technology screen.
• Within the tech tree, I select #B = W5 Kinetic Range Extension.
• I click Done (to exit Technology).  My research progress bar does not update.  It still shows 0 pixels.
• Work-around: In the same turn, re-enter Ideology and go down the waterslide.  This forces it to update.
• I click Ideology to re-enter the screen.  I cannot unlock anything.
• I click Done (to exit Ideology).  It takes me directly to the Technology screen (but not the newsbot).
• I click Done (to exit Technology).  My research progress bar promptly updates to ~80% of #B (as expected).
• I don't know what happens if you skip the work-around.  Maybe you lose your Breakthrough bonus ??

It's a placeholder UI.

Micro is the micro-hell scale.  Macro is the grand, sweeping policy-level decision scale.  It follows that one macro-level decision can cause you to retool your entire production base, move your shipyards, commit to a tech path, and trundle your ships, all to fulfull one harmonious objective.  Seen as a tree-of-orders superimposed over your empire, it might dominate and unify 80% of your units (planets, ships, starbases, tech-path).  It may persist for 50-100 turns, until you've achieved your macro objective (or you must fight fires of such distraction that they force you to pull back or abandon, c.f. the Punic Wars).

Generalizing, a macro-level decision may involve replacing your tree-of-orders, from whatever you were doing before to what you'll do now.  This is why we stare at the wall for several minutes and weigh the cost.  N.B. CEOs do exactly this when they issue a 2-paragraph statement that shifts 1/3 of their corporation toward a new horizon-goal.  Humans are pretty good at doing this kind of macro-level thinking.

For yuks and a field test, and because already I'm getting kind of bored of being kind, I committed to a macro-level decision that

• I (Terran, power ~800) shall conquer Drengin (power ~1400) by military butt-kickage.  I chose Drengin because they're #1 in this game.

Let D = the turn I made this grand decision.  At D+10, we are still at peace while I trundle my weenies across the fairly large gap (~50 hexes!).  Some broad observations:

• The placeholder AI mis-manages approval.  Drengin's planets are at 35%-55% approval.  (Krynn are at ~60%.  Iridium don't count since I'm playing whack-a-shipyard.)  I'm at 100% throughout.  So I am almost surely out-producing and out-researching faster than Drengin, despite the power gap.
• The placeholder AI is oblivious to a build-up.
• Range extension.  I have a naked mining starbase (two Durantiums, yaay!) halfway, which lets my sensor wagon see Drengin, but my weenies are ~4 hexes short of fighting.  I am 5 of 6 turns into a 2nd range/mining starbase in Drengin ZoC that will let me swarm his backfield.
• Stream of weenies.  It takes my speed-5 weenies almost 10 turns to fly the gap.  I have about 10 of them at or near Drengin's borders.  The forwardmost 2 of them have sat adjacent to his planets for several turns (using Open Borders from Universal Translator), until I pulled them back to upgrade.
• Tech peeking.  Whenever you finish a tech, do all other players immediately see it in your Diplomacy list of techs for trade?  Even if you don't trade them away, they can still see what you've been researching.  (Consider, if necessary, the Diplomacy-free game style in which nobody trades techs, so your list of tradeables does reflect your own work.)  Then all AIs should see my tech-path as a blatant declaration of intent to invade some planets, because I kinda-sorta beelined to it at AoW.
  
• No response.  Of course I expect the placeholder AI to have no geometrical reasoning capability.  Still, this is about the slowest possible way to prep for a grunt war, and yet ... it's going to work.  It's been an intriguing exercise in running a pre-invasion arrangement.  The build-up phase is 90% of the time and effort!!  This is historically accurate, e.g. the Roman legions, or Napoleon's troops, would march 50-100 days to fight once for 8 hours and win.
• The placeholder AI builds insufficient fleet strength.  With Improved Logistics for +2 = 12 logistics per fleet = 4 Small hulls (and railgun with range extension), I expect to kill his Cutters et al. 4-v-1 until his standing forces are wiped out, then whack-a-shipyard until my transports arrive.  I just need to momentarily outnumber him.  We know the placeholder AI does form fleets if you give it time.
• I admit (without shame ... it must be my vast benevolence, uh huh) that this entire grand strategic plan essentially amounts to a Battlestar Galactica ambush, where I'll line up my fleets-of-4 within sprint range of his backfield, and then ... let the first salvo also auto-declare war.  It's viable only because the placeholder AI is so utterly blind to it.

More deeply, the very concept that a grand strategy decision creates (and thus is) a tree-of-orders over your empire is a bit of a revelation.  The real AI should plan at this level, because it will surely need to do all of the above to launch gap-crossing invasions of human player space.

The war vs. Drengin will probably begin around D+20.  More on it as it unfolds.

This is what happens when I'm bored