Sadly no. The pc I played on is in a different place from where I am currently 
I did send a ticket to support with save game, so if else, they should know what really happened here.
From my memory:
Actually the large empire penalty kicks in from start, when you start to go over lets say 15 bases(don't know the actual number) your approval goes down if you dont do something about that. So early on i started to fish out approval relics, they do help big time. Later on you can counter that penalty vs techs, ideologies, starbases , events etc.
Come to think of it, once i got Intimidation center from benevolent tree, it gives 50% approval per planet. Built them on all planets. Though when culture flip started those flipped planets initially all were unhappy(0 approval), once the center was built- 100% approval with all bonuses applied instantly. Even got the UP 50% approval bonus so i could really push it.
As you see in 1st post where it shows 0/5.3, once intimidation center was on, everything worked before Drengin war most planets showed something like 20/5 22/8 so on(raw approval/population count). That was true with all 200+ planets. Reaching critical influence mass on average started to get 3 planets each turn.
What Im trying to say here- you get these flat bonuses +1, +4 etc and then there are these % penalties- same thing with research (ascension crystal gives you +1 to research, alterian tech) so with 18 crystals, with 1 lab it summed up to roughly 3500 something per planet. Same goes for food, factories etc. These +1 are very OP and on excessive map you have time and room to get and exploit them.
After Drengi planet was invaded these flat bonues were gone- I had only penalties left.
Why did it happen? What caused it to happen?
And how really approval works? I remember in Gal civ 2 using the same tactic as here, i didnt go bankrupt.
