This probably won't happen (and has probably been suggested), but I propose a fleet change that slows down the pace of the game.  It has been long known that one of the main complaints of IC is that activity pretty much rules everything.  A attacker that's on 24/7 is more dangerous than 3 attackers that only logs on 2 times a day.  With the advent of smartphones and casual gaming/social media gaming, IC is under a lot of competition.  Would you rather have instant gratification playing games on your phone anytime you want or play IC on your own schedule to only find that you your schedule cannot keep up with IC and you find yourself feeder for others.

The following 4 proposals I believe would slow down the pace of the game, but still gives benefits for those who are super active as they deserve to be rewarded.

Proposal #1
Limited portals based off # of planets.  I always felt that portals are incredibly overpowered in this game, especially for their cost (since attackers keep low planet count, their portals are dirt cheap =P).  Having a limited number of portals gives more strategy than just simply going full force against a portal or opping them.  A attacker with more planets could have more attacking locations, but as a result takes a bigger morale impact for each attack.

A limited # of portals also means that there's more strategy to station and give surprises.  People only station troops on retakes and to portal up, not many really invests the resources to send reinforcements to defend a planet.  I also feel that limited # of portals would encourage more op use and divide / conquer approach and slows the pace down.

Proposal #2
Don't make portals instant attack.  IMO, this gives big families the biggest advantage over the smaller ones as a small family isn't gonna go attack the bigger one.  What's more likely to happen is the big family takes all the planets in one big swoop.  I propose that portals should still take 1 tick to attack, I think this would work well with my first proposal as not all planets are fully portaled.  This gives a better chance for families to actually fight back without needing to be on 24/7.  Nothing sucks more than to log on to only find your family down 100+ planets in a single tick.

Proposal #3
Make fleet recall not instant.  I always wondered how a large fleet can mobilize and return home instantly without a use of a portal .  Fleets should have to return to the nearest portal (in the case of a shared system with a portal, it should be 1 tick).  A fleet not being able to return home instantly would make more sense, but it would also give some breathing room for less active players and give more strategic reason to send fleets out.  I feel that the current instant recall does not give enough risk to people who send out their entire fleet with no defense, they could always just instantly recall them.

Proposal #4
Make some ops easier to cast, but you can only have one success per tick or every other tick, depending on the op.  A pax can easily reduce a banker's income to pretty much nothing in a single tick with enough wizards.  There should be some benefit of a surprise attack, but at least give a chance for the family to actually be able to log on to assess the damage.  It pretty much sucks as a banker to find all your income production gone in a single tick.  I know people probably quit the game over it.

In the end, high active players should be rewarded for their efforts, but I think that the current state of the game gives too much benefit to the most active.  The player base of IC has changed and probably isn't getting much influx of new members, but only old ones that return.  I am assuming most of the ones that return want to play casually as their lifestyle have changed, I know mine has.  So my suggestion is to put into action all or just some of my proposals to slow down the pace of the game