When governments first debuted, I went into the xml and tripled all the defaults. Has worked pretty well on Immense and Gigantic maps for me, ymmv.

I have a Mod tool that scales Governments with Galaxy size. Adding administrators.......

Anything else might need scaling?

lol.

Anything doable, Modable.

Can you link this mod.

You can set the number of colonies each map size supports by adjusting % per map size

e.g. Huge has a default change of +30%, so.. 

smallest Government now supports 5 instead of 4 

largest Government now supports 62 instead of 48.

You run the tool select the map size you are going to play and run Gal Civ.

It copies the games relevant xml to a mod folder and modifies the values you have set in the tool.

Adding administrators to it as well, where you can select base admins and amount you get through techs.

Also adding checks for any existing mods that use the same files, so it can modify them instead.

Will add a link when all testing done.

i think the intention was to force very large empires to split off puppet empires.

Fair enough call, but this discussion seems to have had it's genesis in the "Can You Win With A Wide Empire V Can You Win With A Tall Empire" argument, which ultimately had it's genesis in the "What's The Best Way To Win GalCiv3 And How Obvious Should It Be" argument.

For me, admittedly as someone who's yet to use anyone's mods, the split of possibility of winning (talking purely single-player here) in the base game doesn't feel as anything like 50-50 as it should. In other words, you're still better off inhabiting that shitty 4-Class planet than just picking the good ones ie the 12-Class plus.

Or maybe the simple thing is the Commonwealth feature needs work in terms of how much each Commonwealth, while being independent, still gives it's "Boss" race...

Well if you look at the post I compiled from real charts. Wide empires are more likely to do anything than tall empires in research, economy, or military. They have a higher average, but if you don't have a lot of people the numbers per person is higher on the average.

I think we forget about average when we think this.

What would you guys think about a path on the Colonization tech trees (for all races) that would allow for more planets allowed to be in the fold of the government du jour?  ie "Expansion I: Increase maximum allowable colonies by 15%", "Expansion II: Increase maximum allowable colonies by 10%", "Expansion III: Increase maximum allowable colonies by 8%", etc ad nauseum?

This would solve the situation by allowing players that want to build wide to do so by investing resources in the (administrative) technology to oversee more subjects.  So you can build as wide as you want, but doing so does have an opportunity cost of foregone research. 

Another similar tech tree solution might be to modify/increase the amounts/types of resources that your commonwealths must supply you - I haven't fiddled with the commonwealths enough yet tho to have any specific suggestions as to what these should be. 

Yea, I mean, totally fair: maybe an "Enhance Empire" tech path that gives both: more colonies and better commonwealth bonuses.  It makes it straightforward what to research and allows the player to go either way (wide/tall micromanage/delegate).

I would actually push back against the benevolent/malevolent dynamic dictating wide vs commonwealth.  I would push for any alignment being able to pursue either path..

Governments and administrators were designed to contend with micro.  Micro only gets worse with size, hence the governments remain fixed.  You may not like the design, but I would not consider it an oversight.