Apparently, I generated a few too many new Games; as the result was that everything turned black (at least far as the map itself went).

I have noticed that generating a new game (without completely leaving the game) tends to result in the same map as before; but with a different planetary alignment and different starting tiles.  That's kind of nice.

Even so, there seems to be a very, very limited number of possibilities; and, as I mentioned at the start, regenerating a new game (without exiting completely) too many times results in a totally black map.

Yes, yes, some of us do the strangest things; but I do like having the best strategic starting position and an optimum starting planet.

Now to see if loading a saved game and then starting a new one results in the same map...

Nope, it didn't and 9 seems to be the magic number for going dark (or there about; as I didn't really keep accurate track).