One thing that always bothered me about galciv ever since it went hex map was that the actual map is always static. This is especially impactful when you look at pirates.

Right now a pirate base spawns and occasionally sends out a ship or two. Even from a gameplay element this doesn't make sense. It doesn't provide a challenge and it doesn't portray a story element as these pirates are mostly xp farms or target practice. The first reaction people have is to buff them.. but this is a mistake. If they were capable of attacking you meaningfully they would basically become a minor hostile race without any way to actually win the fight against as pirates will just respawn indefinitely.

So instead... 

Why not make them area based? We already have this system in place with area of influence and it would add a fun and challenging mechanic to wartime.

Let's break down exactly why an area based system would be better especially for creating a living breathing universe.

Say I have 3 small clusters of colonies. Two are military shipyards with ships always either in orbit or near the shipyards for logical reasons. The other is a cluster of research and coin production planets.  A layout let's say like this(My paint skills are terrible):

Basic Map

Most players wouldn't fully garrison a huge force on those economy worlds because they can respond with military force from either(more important) production worlds. If we took a page of history this means that without any kind of military or paramilitary forces(military starbase) near these economy worlds piracy would develop simply because it would become possible. If an event such as a war happened and local military forces suddenly dropped drastically piracy and smuggling have a marked uptick because of the void in security. These types of events in real life history practically create a narrative for heroism, debauchery, and other critical story elements to an interesting history. A history we desperately need for the relatively static world of galactic civilizations. So let's tell the story and spell out the game elements.

Using the above planet layout your faction gets hit with a surprise attack at another colony cluster. These colonies are currently out of the enemies range so you feel safe enough to send forward your fleets to help out at the boarder. As the turns go on and the war turns in your favor and you begin to press rapidly forward into the enemy space. You've completely forgotten about your undefended backfield because really? What possible risk could it have so far safely in the rear?

Oops. You forgot that low police presence plus rich trade environs means opportunistic freebooters. Aka pirates. They've grown in numbers and fully entrenched themselves for 6 light years(hexes) out from your main economy worlds. You can't do anything about it because your frontier is now 30% larger and you are locked in a still undecided war with your neighbor.

Yellow areas simulated pirate activity

In these yellow areas you suffer the occasional loss of shipping and if possible ships themselves. Gameplay wise -10% military shields, coin, and research production. There would also be a 5% chance per turn for any fleet containing only non-military ship to be "lost to pirates" in these zones. 

You decide to just ignore it for now. You've got a strong warchest and your people are still mostly happy. A little bit of piracy wont kill you.

Twenty more turns pass and your boarder war just flips the other way with your opponent rolling out their mk2 ships. You screwed up and let them get time to research countermeasures to your fleet. Right now you are holding simply due to production power but you have exactly zero ships to spare to handle any pirates. Oh wait the pirates..

Due to your inattention those zones have grown more dangerous. The pirates know you are pressed and are making a quick buck(or are being paid to make that buck by another empire) The zones are larger now and the closer to the planets and mining colonies is getting pretty bad. The pirates have gotten bold and rich enough in stolen ships and treasure to now be plying their trade across the gulf between starsystems.

Spheres of pirate malus have expanded and begun to link up for nearby worlds.

The malus closer to the planets is now nearly 20% of your shipping! Workers and citizens are now starting to notice missing friends and are crying out in anger (-15% moral)

This trend would continue until you brought back and garrisoned military units or built enough military starbases to ensure the area was properly patrolled until the pirates gained enough power to start raiding military assets and buying(or just overthrowing) local governments forcing planets into rebellion. For gameplay reasons I would cap the physical production malus near 30% and only use a stacking moral penalty to highlight the "rebellion". All effects would be limited by time/wealth equations (because really pirates wouldn't care as much about a poor farming world unless they were paid) and the chance for construction/trade/colony ship destruction would remain random. After so many turns military ships would gain the chance to flip to the pirate side perhaps as "pirate captains" began spawning and began carving out empires for themselves. 

This type of system would give pirates a meaningful place both in early game and late game play and make your story visible on the map. You could SEE how your empire was being stressed by your actions and the added strategic depth of having to actually pay attention to your empire would give more value to the quality of that empire. You would actually be faced with real empire choices of "can i really fight this war and win?" or even create situations where you might have won the war but due to unrest now have to quickly rebuild your empire and redistribute your fleets before some other opportunistic empire takes advantage of your weakness.

You could even throw in random events in space similar to this. Say between two miner bases they have a trade war that gives a movement penalty and chance of random damage. Weird alien spacebats that apply a 5 turn maintenance malus. The potential is relatively endless and would allow a more living universe. Having to replan your route because of power cable eating spacebats would be dynamic.. as would having a weird area of space that grants 5 tiles of free movement/turn suddenly change the tactical map.

The best part about it is also that they are not impossible concepts for an AI to handle or really even difficult ones.

Whelp thank you for looking at my terrible paint skills and listening to my random ideas. This engine is awesome and really has the potential to become something truly legendary in the 4x game world.