Whoa! How does one even START this game?

[capnq]

Firstly - choose a race and use 3k points.

I wouldn't recommend trying to decide how to spend racial points straight off. It's easier to pick a stock race from the Quick Start menu, or Load Existing from Set-Up/Players.

Click on the Crown and choose Empire Options.

Turn off "ask when ending a turn (second from the top)

I only turn off "ask when ending turn" in solo games, and then only if I have almost nothing to do for long stretches of turns.

I also turn off "ask when deleting the first item from construction queue", because I'm constantly fiddling with those, and very rarely make the mistake of deleting something that's partially completed.

[mac5732]

just remember that if you send colony ship outside your system, you must lst load population on it, this is very common mistake by newbies (including me). they forget to load pop and then colonize another system and presto, no people..

just some ideas mac

[Phoenix-D]

Mac, you have to manually load population ANY time you send a colony ship without using the colonize order.

Phoenix-D