The technology would be based on environmental and class or race of the colony. That way in late game you could have a united ally benefit to combine technology and advance to end game. Think of it like resources in those fore-mentioned games. Some times you would stick with mineral field or gas vents to build your primary army. In this sense you would have a larger number of fields, though depending on location you have only so much available to you. You options then are recolonize locations with needed resources and take extra time developing you mastery, or uniting with other to skip mastering and still get the benefits. You could have up to 3-5 allied colonies with mastery with in their own environment, finally mastering advanced technologies once you’ve got all resources and masteries available to you. In the mean time, your legacy system is growing and your troops, hunter, farmers, politicians, engineers and so on are passing down generations of history.
Kind of like my original post