Alright- I just finished up my first game. Nothing special, just a decent win. But I've got questions for folks.

Empires - How do you join one? Something tells me I'm not going to get a nice big splotch of color on the map playing by my lonesome. There's an obvious way to create an Empire, but I'm not seeing how to join up with one.

Ships - It only took me a few weeks (game time, fortunately ) to realize that my favorite custom-made ship hulls weren't going to show up in a metaverse game. Can I just pop those in a folder somewhere, or would that trigger a cheater tag? I'm assuming ships I design in a Metaverse game stick around in later Metaverse games.

Tremendous Power - This game I played, I swear I've never seen so many bonuses and high-quality worlds, yet I've been playing normal games pretty regularly. Did I just get a nice map, or should I expect a dozen-plus PQ 20+ worlds to fall into my lap (albeit some of them having been in other peoples' laps first)?