Hahaha that's..ridiculously terrible.
I might take a break and wait for patches, because the War and Alliances/Federation part of the game (which I've been doing a lot) has all these quirks which take a ton of real time and effort to circumvent.
There was an alliance of 4 annoying small empires, and it probably has been more than 100 years (~5 wars) and there's still more 4-5 wars worth of territory left from 2 empires to take over, and I have at least 4 allies bordering them invading together. Seems a lot silly.
I've seen a ton of threads about Warscore on steam and forums, so I guess it'll be fixed/balanced soon.
Still, I have a ton of praise for the presentation and systems of the game. You have a ton of options and possibilities to manage pops, and it's cool how many different opinions might arise from far-away colonies. Along with government Ethics, it makes for many varied and dynamic empires, relationships and stories. Always wanted to see that, I love it.
PS: I've been reading that assigning Frontier Outposts to Sectors removes their Influence maintenance cost. Anyone knows this for sure? I've definitely noticed this, but it makes no sense.
Just like sectors can 'generate' negative Energy/Minerals, it should generate negative IPs too, IMO, unless the devs made it so the Sector Government actions don't reflect on your actions.. but that sounds way too RP-ey.
Might be a bug.