I really wish Stellaris had a way to tell which planets/habitats we're causing the issue. In huge wars between federations on large maps, I spend so much time looking at hundreds of systems to find that one outlier that my allies skipped over when they took the system.

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If you are interested in victory conditions, here is an article with some interesting reflections: https://explorminate.co/seals-victory-in-age-of-wonders-3-mechanical-wonder/

A few of my own reflections on victory conditions, though they may apply more to full-on 4X games:

1. I'd want them to kick in/be achieveable reasonably soon after it's clear who has won. Some way of forcing the remaining players to challenge you without resulting in long downtime of event-less turns/play time.

2. I'd want some flexibility to achieve them. I find it unexciting if in the first 10% - 20% of a game I already need to decide what victory condition I pick at the end. Let me build my engine first and then decide, based on how the game goes, what will be the most effective way to end it.

3. Shared allied victory would be nice to not force pointless wars at the end.

4. Similarly, I liked the concept of a diplomatic/peaceful victory, focused on gaining allies. Maybe minor factions can play a role here.

(Linked that, not really a VC, it would be nice to take over planets through means other than military e.g. culture.)

5. The research victory was ok in Sins 1. It was the turtle victory to bring a stalemate to an end. Maybe something involving one or more structures to make it easier to interrupt?

6. Rise of Nations did a Wonders victory which was also a nice touch to control when the game would end.

Gotta go but I might add a few reflections another time.

A few more reflections on victory conditions seen elsewhere.

A victory points condition. Seen in many board games but there are also video game examples. Settlers 7 is one example. Humankind another. Northgard's fame conditions is also similar. Their beauty is their flexibility. You can achieve dominance in more than one category and can shift your focus depending on how the game goes. The downside is theme. It can feel really artificial for one player to win because they achieved enough victory points even though others were more dominant in the classic sense (territories, fleets/armies).

A way to win by culture would be nice. However, that doesn't have to be a separate condition. If culture can directly switch ownership of planets (instead of just turning them neutral through de-population), that could feed into an area-control-threshold victory. That being said, culture would probably need a few more tools to rise to that role e.g. some active forms of spreading (specialised ships? maybe some interaction with envoys to introduce a risk/reward dimension?) and some macro-policy switches to increase culture outputs.

Endless Legend's quest victory was pretty cool but I doubt that can be replicated closely for Sins. However, there might be room for different victory conditions for different factions, reflecting their different lore philosophies and objectives. Say, Vasari have a VC to collect X resources, Advent want to wipe out all TEC factions/ x number of TEC planets, but don't care about Vasari.

If we can make the AI treat its flagship with the respect it deserves, could be nifty.

Yah, it feels like they always take it out of combat when it could give them the easy win at a vital gravity well.  It is a powerful ship that needs to be used and cared for.