So population uber alles? Population improves production too, not just economy? More than factories?

Doesn't that density of economic starbases prevent mining ones? (I have never tried more than 1 economic per system.)

A: One can estimate number of the average player in the game.  At Gifted - Godlike AI just after the colony rush the AI typically has anywhere from 50-100% of your number of planets. (Should you be decent at colonization).  Anywhere below that most likely 25-50% of your planets.  Otherwise the only other way to get the exact number is through the diplomacy screen as you suggested, plus one, their homeworld.

A: This would be a nice addition to tell the player what the tech does when they demand it from you.  It assumes an experienced player that has a general idea of what the tech is.

A: This means this tech is not in your tech tree but, you now have it and can use it.

A: Attempt to adjust your display settings as I have no issue seeing everything in this view.

A: Yes, please.  Although if you added factions to your game it shows you a picture and, assuming you don't have several factions with the same portrait one should be able to figure out who it is.

A: This varies depending on your tech/game speed, however, you can see the value by looking in the XML files, which I know is a pain, however, one can locate that there.  I do agree with you though it would be nice in the game to be able to see the value of each tech so one could make an educated choice on which techs to unlock.  One can still guess on it by the number of turns it takes to research and the number of research points you produce per turn.

A: I agree with this point, however, I wouldn't hold your breath these changes take time as Stardock appears to me more focused on adding/changing larger issues atm with a few little things tossed in.

A: Turn off auto-upgrade in the star base screen. (un-click check box)

They built their star base first.  The game is first come first serve.  Destroy other players star base and now you're first .

A: I don't have a great tutorial to point you to, however, I can provide you some suggestions.  Start searching for habitable planets right away with your survey ship (while surveying manually) with your exploration ship (auto explore) and with your colony ship.  If there are many planets, upon your first colonization ideology choice choose pragmatic and take the 3 constructors.  Now place them in orbit in either your shipyard or planet.  Upgrade them to colony ships.  Next turn launch and have them go colonize new planets that you either already know of or in search for new.  Next ideology choice choose Benevolent and take the free colony ship.  After that I normally shoot up the top row of benevolent to get the 2 extra planets.  Also build colony ships from the beginning.  Focus heavily on manufacturing and research with only limited economy as you don't get a huge economic boost at the beginning anyways. If you have the Mercenary expansion buy the survey ships to collect more anomalies quicker (this give free credits, ships, techs).

A: Don't do this the first several turns are key on getting going on colonizing quickly, one can always adjust this later.

A: Budget can be negative (loosing credits per turn) as far into the game as you need it to be, just don't let your balance get below 0.  I normally keep about 1000 credits in the bank to help.

A: No, the AI doesn't cheat until Gifted.

A: Cheat... One is unable to do this in the standard game, need to enable cheating and reopen game, there are posts on how to do this.  Then remove FOW.

A: I have no problem with the random map generator, some games are great others suck, is the randomness of the generator. 

A: The automatic ship designer does great at designing the ships they are intended to design such as Missle ships with shields ect...  It doesn't make that specific ship for every need though and that's why you can design ships of your choosing.

Why? These bonus's stack.  Use this to your benefit.

I think in a game of this scope there will always be a need for UI improvements.  That said, things have improved consistently since launch largely based on player input.  Post in the New Ideas....

1.  The control of a resource is dependent on who gets their mining starbase up first.  You would have to destroy his or try to have him give it to you in a trade.  

2.  There is a ton of video and guides out there for GalCiv3.  There are some pretty decent guides on the Steam Community Hub for GalCiv3 as well.

3.  Ya RNG is RNG.  But the map generator has no inherent bias against you.    If you want to ensure you get a reasonably good start you can use the map editor.  It is not necessary to edit the whole map.  Just pick a spot and setup a good system or two and then set one of the plants to random human start.  You will start on that planet.

4.  The auto ship gen will try and construct new models to use as much available space as it can, so yes, I believe it takes advantage of miniaturization and added hull space.  That said, I do all my own designs.  So the auto generated designs are fine for what they are, but you will do better if you design for specific situations.  For example, in the beginning you need ships with good beam defense because the roaming pirates and the pirates found in the ship graveyards all use beams.  So early on I focus on getting beam defense going first.  Get yourself an escort that has beam defense to run with the base survey ship so you take down graveyards without taking any damage.  To take down pirate shipyards you will want something with one defense module for all damage types.  In short, the auto designs are good in terms of maximizing space, but designing to handle the specific enemy you are facing is better.  In addition, since the start is so important, I always design cheaper colony ships and constructors for the start.  You do not need life support as everything initially is close range.

There is also a strategy of designing a non-moveable sensor barge straight away and upgrading something to it or buying it to get that first initial look at your surrounding area.  This may not be as good as it was pre V1.7 because they did change how sensors work to nerf the massive sensor barge strategy somewhat.

At the end of the day you will always do better with your own designs.  And to a large extent, i find this key to a good start.

5. A techapod hive is a trade resource.  A trade resource provides adjacency bonus and has a global effect as well.  There is still a problem with this because the tooltip on things like techapod, harmony crystals, etc... say player achievement 1 per player, however they do in fact appear to stack for global benefit.  So if you destroy one you do lose global benefit.  In addition, they do not seem to be ever worth trading because they do stack globally the AI seems unaware of this and undervalues them.  This is a confusion that Stardock has been aware of but for whatever reason has not cleared up.  

As a final suggestion ... going pragmatic at the start to get the 3 free constructors which you then upgrade to your cheap colony ships is a given strategy.  You can have 3 colony ships in turn 2 or 3.

Anomalies 

I might have to try FAST with my next one. This one I've started (with your suggestions), I kept getting beat by a couple turns colonizing planets. But, finally, I had enough colony ships.

I usually play immense tight clusters with 5-6 opponents.  This is probably an advantage for the player.  It lets you get setup and going before you immediately have to deal with a major.  The AI does not seem as fast expanding out of their initial cluster, but then again, i go pretty fast and heavy for speed.

Awsome!