If you want your medals to show up you need to be logged in and go into "My Account" you also need to be either at the home page (www.galciv2.com) or you can be in the Metaverse area. If you're anywhere else you can go into "My Account" but you only have a limited set of options you can do.
So if you're in "My Account" from either the homepage or metaverse, you'll have an option to "edit my characters". You need to click this and then press the blue "default" button. You need to do this even though you only have one character, then your medals will show up in your posts.
There's a lot of good stuff on strategy scattered throughout these forums. Also just ask any specific questions and you'll probably get more answers than you'll know what to do with. This game has a very steep learning curve, but the more time you spend with it the more fun you'll have.
A bit of advice as you move up the difficulty levels, when you get around tough or painful you'll get a big shock at how much better the AI colony rush is. Don't get discouraged, it's something everyone goes through.
Also it might help prepare for that time by avoiding the rush buying of colony ships and instead develop your home planets production so that you can produce colony ships at a faster rate. In the end this is far more efficient. The goal to shoot for is to be able to produce a colony ship every other turn. This usually requires your manufacturing capital and 3~4 factories dependent on bonus tiles. Anyway, good luck and have fun.
