Rather than having subjective colours (needlessly confusing) or numbers (needlessly complicated) why not have a pool of 8-10 character colours that you can select (Unless it's already taken, of course!)

However this doesn't adress the problem of 'games blurring together.' I honestly cannot count how many games I've botched the first land grab because of that.

Whoops. Sorry, I skimmed the 'bugs' section topic titles and probably missed it... .-.

My apologies.

The game often will 'speed up' to catch up to where it should be, allowing animations to be played smoothly through lag (at least I believe this was intentional.)

However, when a computer (tested on mac - singleplayer) is put to sleep, the game considers the entire time the computer was in sleep to be 'lag time' - for instance, if the computer was in sleep (such as when the lid of a laptop is closed) for 10 minutes, the game will run at MUCH faster speeds until those 10 minutes have passed. This can make auctions nearly impossible and grabbing land plots equally so. I have only tested this in singleplayer, and I believe multiplayer is likely a different situation (as internet signals stop being sent/received after hibernation.)

(However I have on many occasions started a game and placed my computer in hibernation for an hour simply so I could play it through in fast-mode. I invariably come in last.)

Only tested on Snow Leopard on a Macbook pro:
Computer was put into hibernation by closing the lid. Speed up occurred.
Computer was put into hibernation by letting the battery fully drain. Speed up occurred.

I am running snow leopard on a macbook pro. The screen has a widescreen aspect ratio, but fullscreen mode doesn't compensate for a widescreen monitor - the aspect ratio is out of wack and it loses its pristine pixel feel.

I don't think this is a mac-related bug, but rather a universal one, but I have no confirmation for this. I intend to test this on other widescreen systems (Another mac and a windows) later - will post back with results.

Yep, I can confirm this.

Another thing: Apple Arrow keys won't change spaces whilst the game has focus.

I did the same thing.

Agreed. Definitely.

So does this, too, apply at the end of the game? Thus selling all your stocked up resources at the very end would yield the same result?

The point isn't a gameplay effect, but rather a graphical one. Adding this could help 'polish' the game. I always thought that animation was very 'wonky'

I'd really like a way to 'pause' a single-player game (unless this is already a feature I am not aware of) I realize it brings up concerns of not being 'true' to the original game, but it's a simple pause button for one player -not a whole new mechanic.

Or are there exploits and concerns pausing could bring to the table?