Ok, so I've played four or five games of the GalCiv DEMO (yes, I know its a little outdated - but I was bored waiting for the full game download as it still has 2 days to go!)

As I'm sure you know, its limited to 140 turns, 3 races & a small map. I play on beginner because I suck

I am basically looking for a bit of help on a number of aspects of the game, and I hope someone here can help.

1) Population/approval. As I understand these seem pretty intrinsically linked, yet I seem to have had pretty random results with the few games I have played. How do I consistently keep this up?

2) Planet specialisation. I've read about this a bit on the forums. Clearly it makes sense mathematically, but I always seem better off not using this tactic atall. Is there a trick to it a newb would have missed?

3) Starbases. I heavily invested in these in one game, and they just seem to be a waste of time (mining starbases excluded). Again, am I missing a trick here?

4) It takes me ages to win. The AI sucks, the map is small and there are hardly any habitable planets in the galaxy. I've read reports here of people winning a medium size map in less than 100 turns - I havely only won in the time limit once. I can't put a finger on something that is clearly slower than everything else and holding up the process: ie there isnt an obvious limiting factor. Though it is probably a combination of the above, I thought it was worth mentioning anyway.

Any help appreciated

hampshire2012