#10-- No keyboard shortcut, but if you are viewing one of the planets, there should be a couple of little arrows right above "set rally point". Click on those to cycle through your planets. You can, I believe, double-click on a planet in the right-side "planets" view, then click Done on the main view, and you will be centered in the main map on that planet. Hope that helps--
If you build two or three starbases with all of the cultural maximizing/palace options in the same sector, adjacent to the sector you want, you should see a dramatic effect on that sector. Especially if you have a planet in the sector where you build the bases, but it's not required. Gets harder if they have some big cultural starbases. Consider purchasing those starbases from them... Also, a little destabilization over time goes a long way to help with flipping.
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It can be surprisingly difficult to be considered truly good, especially if you mix "good" and "neutral" choices on the events that occur. If the interface hasn't changed since the beginning of the game, you're basically neutral. If suddenly the main screen is mostly white and silver, congratulations, you're good! (Though you can be close to that and still get a listing of "chaotice good" when you submit a game). If everything goes red, then you must be evil today. If you want to
Just finished a huge game for my largest score yet, and now we're at #22 and more secure on page 1. Got off to a good start colonizing far more than any other empire and never looked back. Never lost a ship! Destroyed a few extra ships at the end of the game just to try to bump up my score a few points. Hadn't looked at that closely, you're right-- nobody else on page 1 has less than 45 games. Don't think I've seen the bird egg event... Welcome Dracil!
FWIW, I'm running Galciv on a T30, haven't seen any issues like that. Running 1024x768 true color, don't seem to have enough memory to go larger.
CariElf-- pretty sure he's referring to the fact that gifting 1 influence point to a major still has a significantly positive impact on relations, and can even be used repeated to stave off war until you're ready to culture bomb them into submission. Haven't tried it in 1.11 yet to see if it works, have used it occasionally in 1.10, and it's hard to resist when you know that the Drengin (for example) who are MUCH more powerful than you, are hostile to you.
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Personally, I bring up Earth on the right, and in the main pane I set production to 100% and slide taxes over until I find out when I lose 100% morale. Then I go back 2-3% so I can keep 100 with a little growth. Then I set social to 0, and military to the minimum that gives me a colony ship every 2 turns, usually around 82% (depends how good Earth is). I still get some research so I get Comm Theory and Translators fairly soon. I send out colony ships with 100M or so every couple of turns, so
Trying to get in some game time around family life-- so I won't have too many submitted for now. Going on a business trip next week, so maybe I can get a couple of games in. Maybe we can get onto page 1 of the metaverse.... Kind of frustrated by the score of my last game. I absolutely crushed everybody else. There was exactly 1 wonder/trade good that I didn't build, and the other races never destroyed a single one of my ships. Yet my score was better in the previous game. Current