Greetings, incidentally, my (Human-Red) territory looked a little like part of Earth's Asia-India-EastEurope continent. Haha. Gave me a shock after I assimilated the Asdar to my left and looked at the map.

Wow: what kind of settings are you using here that you go till Turn 500 and with such rare systems?

Well, I didn't go aggressive as it would end very quickly after I have enough ships, so I just wait for other races to attack me, except for the pirate bases which I'll go destroy after I acquired the [slave collar] tech with buying slaves from them. Most of the time I'd wait to get [planet construction] & [terraforming] tech then with help from my mods, I'd re-create all planets and populate them with peep while racking in the coin/metal.

The setting I used = Brutal, 5(default) faction, Normal(default 60 stars) map size, Box map shape, Sparse star density, Normal game speed & habitable planets, Rare native races, Extreme raider activity.

You have some patience sir

Well, I'm sure everyone, including yourself, who does Turn-based games have patience to a certain degree.

For SiS, it is quite intense for Brutal difficulty until certain stage/tech is acquired, and my setting it to Sparse star density gives me more breathing space/time and extends the time for the inevitable contact, where hostility (at least attitude-wise) is mostly certain when we appear 'weak' to them.

Now I'm trying out a certain thing, that is to be 'friendly' to all contacted races then with enough influence points, I'd send out 'allied' requests to them at the same time, then after maybe 20 turns(?) the game will 'end' with me being the only race/color on the star map. Hehe. But not all things go according to plan, and only 'small territory friendly races' will send 'offer-to-join-empire' requests to me, where races with bigger territory will not...

Meanwhile I wish there's a way to turn off the Galatic council voting as after a certain point when I've got more points to win the game and I didn't for quite a few times should be sign I'm plotting... doing something else.

Anyway, cheers to you, Z! May all be well to you!