I thought I got out, and then I got sucked back in.
I don't care about the mega nations. I don't care about tech buying and selling rates. That isn't what made CN the "strangest Co-Op Excel Spreadsheet ever experienced. It was the AAs. As soon as they became stagnate, the game began to die.
If I believed there was some game mechanic fix, I would focus on 2 aspects. First, an NS cap of some kind (not for nations, but for AAs). I haven't thought through it enough to think about the mechanics of it, but forcing AAs to juggle that would be interesting. Second, I would focus on limitting the NS any particular AA could be aligned to, for much the same reasons.
Either way, meh.