The ticks in Space Civilizations are 1-3 hours long (depending on the Galaxy). However, the game does not start until a predetermined time, the countdown to which can be seen in the lower right corner of the main window. This start may be postponed if the galaxy is not full by that time.
Currently there is no formal method of declaring a Galaxy “over”. Just start a thread in the forums calling for a final turn. Sending in-game mail to other players in the galaxy is a good idea too, in order to ask them to reply to the thread to get more support for ending the game.
When entering the galaxy you could change the connection settings and tick “I am behind a firewall” (even if you are not). This will use a different connection method altogether, which is a little bit slower but should be lots more reliable.
Space Civilizations uses your 3D chip to draw some of the graphics on screen, in particular the Galaxy Map, but also the Space View box in the Planet View Screen. Some very old 3D chips might not support some of the features that are required to draw 3D correctly, or its drivers are too old to support the required features correctly.
Your only chance here is trying to download the latest drivers for your graphics card/chip, just like you would in order to get any other 3D game to run and display correctly on your computer.
To do so find out what 3D chip is stuck in your computer. There are many ways to do so, but one is to run a little tool named “DxDiag.exe”, which comes as part of your DirectX installation. In the “Start” menu click “Run...”, this prompts you for the name of the program that you want to run. Type “dxdiag” and press enter. A window pops up collecting all sorts of information about your hardware. Click the “Display” tab. Under “Chip-Type” it lists the name of your 3D chip. Under “Manufacturer” it lists the maker of that chip. Find their webpage and head for the “Drivers” section. Download and install that driver.
While you are at it, also make sure that you have the latest version of DirectX installed, which you can find here:
Microsoft DirectX Download Page
Another cause for graphical glitches of all sorts could be any 3rd party software that enhances the visuals of Windows, like for instance “WindowBlinds“. Disable that software and see if this makes any difference.
A player earns Rank 1 if the total fame points earned in all played galaxies exceeds 15 points. A player will never lose his Player Rank.
However, once the average fame over all played galaxies drops below 15, a player is allowed to sign up to unranked galaxies again. This can happen if he performed badly in recent galaxies - for instance because he stopped playing in the middle of the game, or he was defeated early in the game.
Please note that still running galaxies, and Team- and Experimental Galaxies are not counted towards fame calculation.
You can use the F12 key to cycle through all open windows. You can also use this to conveniently jump between the Main Window and the Galaxy Map.
You need to find the closest Sun to your home system. Space Civilizations offers a tool named the “Radar” that determines distances in 3 dimensional space. It basically works like this: You specify an object (a sun, planet or ship) that acts as the “center of the radar”, that’s the point from which distances are measured. In your case you would select your colony ship, because you want to find out what’s the closest sun to that ship.
In the “Radar Control Window” you would select that you only want to measure distances to Suns. On the right (”Radar Marks”) it should list all suns that are within the specified range (which you can change with the slider). The suns are ordered by distance, closest one is listed first.
Now the important bit is that your own sun is listed as well, after all that is a sun too, and it clearly is the closest to your colony ship - which is probably still in orbit of your home planet. The task however is to send to the closest neighboring sun to your home system. That’s what the “Unexplored Systems” tickbox is for. If you tick that, your own sun is removed from that list (since it is already “explored”).
Next that Tutorial tries to teach you that you can’t only send ships to planets or suns anywhere in the galaxy map (which means the planet or sun needs to be visible in the galaxy, which often requires rotating or zooming the galaxy map), but you can also directly pick the target from the Radar Marks list!
To do so, order the ship to “Move to”, now the mouse pointer will change (as usual) - but now instead of clicking a planet or sun in the galaxy, click the top most entry on the Radar Marks list, which is after all your closest neighbouring star...
Sometimes it is required to change the size of the galaxy after it has been opened for Sign-Up, to either grow or shrink it.
Re-shuffling means that the structure and layout of the galaxy is re-created, and the players will be assigned a new home-planet/system in there. That new spot could be better or worse (or the same) than what the player has currently got (it’s all random).
The player needs to give fresh ship- and planet-orders, and set the research goal again. However, Governors, Admirals, Ship-Designs or Shared (named) Production Queues will not be lost during this process.
Well, the truth of the matter is it was mostly done by Erwin, with the occasional help of his friends and spaceciv users. There are also some who insist that Erwin is really a pseudonym for a giant underground organization of uber-programmers, who are being assisted by aliens and the Templar Knights. After all, it’s too good to be made by just one guy, right?
They’re cannibals! They eat citizens and lower ranking military (not necessarily in that order). Survival of the fittest!