Below is a list of the changes / new mechanics I noted going through the rules books. I welcome everyone to add anything I missed or correct me if I got something wrong.

Miscellaneous Changes

-no mercenaries, distant sun tokens, final frontier tokens, ion storms, mechanized units, leaders, representatives, mines, shock troops, artifacts, transfer actions, facilities, tactical retreats,

-ground force and fighters are not assigned to specific ships while in space, after a space combat, capacity is checked and excess units are removed

-PDS can fire through wormholes and are adjacent to the other end for all purposes

-gravity rift – moving through or out of a rift gives +1 movement, but destroyed on roll of 1-3

-retreat – when declared you can also remove grounds forces from planets (if there is capacity), take them up to space when declared

-retreat – into an adjacent system, not containing enemy ships and containing a planet you control or a unit, if nothing eligible then no retreat, activate with token from reinforcements if not already activated

-every planet has a trait (cultural, hazardous, industrial) which may tie into action cards, abilities, etc.

-if a card or faction ability says cannot , it is absolute and cannot be overridden by other abilities

-abilities resolve in initiative order (or starting with speaker if in strategy phase)

-abilities must be resolved in their entirety (no more burning action cards that can’t be fulfilled properly)

-if an effect requires the placement of CC from reinforcements and there aren’t any, the CC comes from the players command sheet (his choice)

-when producing units, if there are not sufficient units in the reinforcements, the units can be removed from the board if they are in an non-activated system

-a trade good is placed on an unpicked strategy card

-flagships can be built outside of the home system

Set-Up

-3 players: six blue, two red

-4 players: five blue, three red

-5 players: four blue, two red (one red back additional system next to mecatol as determined by speaker), 2 trade goods (outer close players), 4 trade goods (sandwiched player)

-6 players: three blue, two red

-could wormholes be missing?

-wormholes cannot be place adjacent

-any system may be placed anytime (no need to do planets after empty)

Units

-space docks and PDS can no longer be built during a production phase, they are built using the construction strategy card

Mecatol Rex

-the custodians token is removed when a player spends six influence and invades Mecatol Rex

-the player removing the token receives 1 Victory Point

-there is no voting (new Agenda Phase , at end of round) until Mecatol Rex is taken

Objectives / Victory

-game is played with 5 unrevealed stage 1 & 5 unrevealed stage II objectives. Two objectives revealed once the everything is set up. Then 1 objective per turn (no stage II until all stage I revealed). No way to see unrevealed objectives. When an objective is to be revealed if it cannot, then game ends. So game is at most 9 turns

-10 VP to win, there is also a 14VP option

-tie breaker for VP is initiative only

-secret objectives return, receive 2 at start, choose one to keep, there is a deck, you can draw more but max between hand & qualified is 3 secret objectives (if draw more than 3, choose one to return), whenever a secret objectives is discarded the deck is shuffled

Qualifying for Objectives

-can qualify for one secret and one public objective during the status phase

-can qualify for one secret and one public objective during each step of the action phase (where the card permits), no limit to the number per turn

-need all planets in home system to qualify for public objectives (not secret)

-if an objective requires “destroy” the destruction can come from hits in battle, action cards, technology, or any other ability that uses the term “destroy” (i.e. not reducing fleet supply causing a unit to be removed)

Agenda Phase

-after status phase, all planets are refreshed, vote on top agenda using influence and exhausting planets, vote on second agenda using remaining influence, refresh planets before new round starts

-only occurs after Mecatol is taken

Strategy Cards (differences, not re-writing new abilities)

-leadership: no limit on number of CC that can be purchased

-diplomacy: cannot protect mecatol rex

-construction (replaces production): used to build space docks & PDS, can place space docks on newly acquired planets

-trade: no contracts, produces commodities instead of trade goods (max commodities = number on race sheet), used for transactions

-warfare: remove token from board, secondary is to produce at 1 space dock in HS without activating
-tech: 4 to purchase now

-imperial: 1 VP if control mecatol, used to get new secret objectives

Transactions

-commodities exchanged during a transaction become trade goods for the receiving player

-active player may negotiate a transaction (does not count as an action and can occur anytime during his turn), one transaction per turn between players

-transactions during action phase can only occur between neighbours (adjacent ships and/or planets they both control)

-transactions can involve any number of trade goods and commodities

-binding deal: a transaction which has a component which will immediately occur (i.e. don’t shoot your PDS at me for a commodity), these are binding agreements

-non-binding deal: a transaction which has a component which cannot immediately occur (i.e. next turn I’ll attack Joel’s Home System for 2 commodities)

-transactions also allowed during voting (no require of being neighbours), one transaction per player per vote (binding?)

Technology

-tech tree has been removed

-instead each technology has pre-requisites (aside from ones which don’t) which are based on having X number of techs of a specific color (the specific tech doesn’t matter only the color), for example a tech could need 2 blue techs and 1 red before you research

-unit upgrades do not count for pre-requisites as they do not have a color

-planet tech specialities: exchaust the planet to ignore one pre-requisite of that color (do not gain the resources too)

Promissory Notes

-can be offered as part of a transaction (one note per transaction)

-offered face down to receiving player

-you can give your promissory note from one player to another player

-there are race specific promissory notes

Odds & Ends

-planetary shield prevents L1Z1X from using Harrow, does not prevent X-89 Bacterial Weapon

-if the planetary shield is negated by a Warsun, then Magen Defense Grid does not work

Okay so my take on all the different things aka streamlining.

1. Well it is to be expected that not everything from 3rd edition is going to be in 4th edition by default. Possibly to make room for expansions or possibly removed permanently just to keep the game simpler. They have made units more flexible (PDS for example) but have made cards more stricter more likely to avoid misinterpretation.
2. Setup has been designed with more benefits for those who might be at a disadvantage due to location. So better balance on that part especially for those odd games.
3. So buildings are now separate from units, perhaps there will be more buildings as well as units in future expansions. Can you imagine embassies being built on other homeworlds?
4. So Mecatol Rex is now an automatic VP to the first person to get there. Also no assembly until some one takes it. Seems like they are promoting the race to the center approach to invoke more interactions between the players.
5. More of a turn limit to keep the game from reaching 7 hours long. Well still a turn in TI can easily take an hour so, but I can see where they are going.
6. So very standard in must control your home and in destroy a little more flexible so you are not stuck with having to find a military solution.
7. Agenda phase to get more agenda cards and laws in play instead of relying on politics to be picked
8. Strategy seems to get more interactions between players and actions on the board. Such as commodities replacing trade contracts and Imperial only scoring points if you hold Mecatol Rex.
9. More of a focus on economic diplomacy as well as military diplomacy. You have to be friends with at least one of your neighbors or else you will not have any trade. Doesn't mean you have to keep the same friends through the entire game.
10. There is more of a unit upgrade system to get better units as the game advances instead of a tech card that could make the unit better. We could see something like cruisers with sustained damage in the future.
11. Again more of a focus on diplomacy instead of military with these binding treaties. You could also use them to sweeten trade deals. A larger focus on non-violent interactions between players in the quest for dominance.
12. X-89 is still a ****.

So all in all this does seem to bring it closer with the newer 4x board games (Eclipse, Star trek Ascendancy). I see a bigger focus on other non military interactions between players which is something many 4x games struggle to do. Often times 4x games become another military strategy where war is the only recourse to winning. Don't get me wrong it looks like there will still be plenty of star ship fighting and planetary annihilation in TI, but it appears diplomacy will take a stronger approach with the new trade system and promissory notes being in at the start. Units are more directly upgrades instead of getting a small benefit on route to the top of the tech tree. So Hylar V assault laser is now replaced by advanced cruisers tying in closer to the systems that is used by other 4x games. No personalities though like representative or mercenaries despite the rule book showing a wide arrange of conspicuous characters. More than likely there will be a new hero system in an expansion. One that could merge the representatives with the heroes from 3rd ed. So all in all an interesting game, I am going to save up to pick this game up if I get the chance. Right now I am not preordering it (I have more pressing expenses and just started to get an income for my budget). I might borrow some things from 3rd ed and simply throw them in while I wait for the expansions (the heroes should be very easy to add in).

Just noticed, artifacts are missing as well.