Do you buy colony ships in the beginning for faster expansion?

And: Do you open an new game if your position on the minimap doesn't look to good - means too far away from a cluster of planets?
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q.1 personaly i dont buy ships. i put social to zero, research to 25 and keep military to 75. that way you can normally pump out colonizers every three turns. and grab as many planets as you can!!

q.2 only if im in a really bad position. and i mean really bad. i think it adds a bit more fun to the game to get out of a tight corner.

hope this helps
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If you get a bad start (in a corner or no systems near Sol), you can always hit Ctrl-N. That will give you a new map.

For colony rush, most everybody turns Spending to 100%, increases taxes to as high as they can (usually trying to keep 100% morale), and set military spending to 100%. this will crank out colony ships as fast as they can be produced.

As for my start, I usually only spend 60% military so I can maintain 20% Research and 20% Social (I feel I need the Soil Enhancement and Comm Theory as quick as possible, without too much affect on building colony ships).

There is no "good number" of systems to get in the colony rush, as it will be different every time, depending on what galaxy you set. If you start with Rare habitable planets, you will be lucky to find two or three systems on a Medium map.

Ok, like I did before. Somebody rushes for speedupgrade to scout and then expand faster, if possible in time? The Ctrl-N will save me a lot of time, thanks.
By the way why don't I need the CD in my CD-Rom, is this normal?

guess so. dont need mine either. kinda strange though.. stardock must be rebels against the norm

Not for Galciv. It can run without the CD once installed.

As for the colony ship question, I am a sucker for 100% military spending to crank out colony ships every 3 turns or so for the first few turns. Just be sure to set overall spending to 100% and taxes as high as you dare to take them. For me, the start tax is between 45 and 50%. Colony #2 builds the scout ship right off the bat to help find more systems.

The serial number requirement to install the game takes care of pirate problems. That way, they don't need to require the CD to play!

Sure, that may help against software pirates. Once in the Metaverse, though, one has to deal with the other kind of pirates. Specifically the ones flying the Jolly Roger. ARR!

LOL

Yeah, I doubt a little serial number would stop the G.R.O.S.S. bucanneers!

I take the +1 speed bouns at the begining for starters.
I set the tax rate to around 45% and spending to 100%.
I set the military slider at 100% and crank out colony ships until the surrounding sectors are claimed, then I B-line the tech to get impulse engines.

The first colony ship, I colonize the second Sol planet if there is one, if not, I grab the nearest system with it, build a scout, then colony ships.

When a colony ship is finished, I load 200M pop on it, so it can produce at least one 100M colony ship from the git. When Earth can afford the population, I load 300M on the colony ships. Makes farther systems easier to obtain, as whatever system it colonizes, it can produce two ships close by. If the target system is in a corner, then I only load 100M, as it will not be producing colony ships.

When a planet has <200M pop, I build constructors. I usually only build the one scout from the initial colony ship. Don't need more than that. And I try to send it out in front of the Hero. Sending it in the other direction don't do much good. I might build a second scount, if I have possible colonization targets in several directions, but I try to keep that first scout and the Hero married (half a sector apart or so). (read: first scout hunts anomalies, second scout hunts for planets.)
Then it's constructors for the better part of the game.

Note: While doing a B-line for impulse, if a target comes up, I will monkey the slider to get another colony ship built within 2 turns, 3 at the most; but if nothing is sight, then all tech. I try to avoid the anomolies that are of the +25% to research project until I am researching impulse, otherwise they are really wasted.

Once the colonization phase is over, I go for tech until I get the basic techs out of the way (level one for all areas, up to diplomacy in that area).

After that, I do my social building. Banking/Manu Ctr/Soil enh.
Then best PQ planet gets the diplomatic traslators queued, followed by gravity accelerators. By that time, I can usually build the manufacture captial there, will have met a race or two, sold my techs so I can keep spending at 100% and decide who gets eradicated first. The best PQ also builds all the freighters, as it will be the economic captl as well.

Edit: No, I don't rush buy any colony ship
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Early-game strategy: I carefully balance my spending sliders so that I'm spending either 13 or 17 per turn on Military, and devote the rest to Tech.

Why? Because 13 will get you a colony ship in 4 turns, 17 will get you one in 3 turns, and anything in between will cause production to go to waste. A colony ship costs 50; 13x4 = 52, 17x3 = 51. If you spend 16/turn on military, it still takes you 4 turns, but you end up spending 64 on the colony ship. That's 12 units that could have gone to Diplomacy or Trade.

Personally, I bring up Earth on the right, and in the main pane I set production to 100% and slide taxes over until I find out when I lose 100% morale. Then I go back 2-3% so I can keep 100 with a little growth. Then I set social to 0, and military to the minimum that gives me a colony ship every 2 turns, usually around 82% (depends how good Earth is). I still get some research so I get Comm Theory and Translators fairly soon. I send out colony ships with 100M or so every couple of turns, so no need to rush buy. When I colonize a planet, for the first few I set them to kick out 1 scout, then a colony ship. I load 25-40M on the colony ships from these worlds. Continue until you've got everything you can get, then switch focus to heavy social and research (Trade and Diplomacy) to catch up on these fronts. You'll have to cut down from 100% spending at some point, too. I rarely build an offensive ship for a while, especially if I can find a few with my survey ship. I try to stay around 4th place in military until I feel I'm ready to take somebody out. If you're last, people pick on you, but first place means spending more than necessary on upkeep.