I had that event at about the midway point. But it really led towards it being a much more interesting game. All the planets (about 20) were at a remote corner of the galaxy, near the then weakest civilization, the Korx. It also occurred while the two strongest civilizations (my own Iconian Refuge and the Torian Confederation) were wrapping up their first and last Great War. This greatly hindered my ability to grab those planets.

By the time the dust settled from the second colony rush, the Torians (whom I clobbered to within an inch of their life) dropped from strongest to second weakest (out of 6) and the Korx were at the beginning of their galactic dominance. I only grabbed about 1/4 of the planets while the Korx had about 2/3 of them.

The military buildup and later wars that ensued were just amazing (I played with only conquest victory). In the end the Iconian Refuge won out, but it was truly a difficult war, especially after multiple other civilizations surrendered some planets to me that very negatively affected my economic situation for a short time.

It's stuff like this that makes the game exciting.

I agree. It would be great to be able to set approx. how many random events u could have in a year from setup. I see very few, example 2 yrs in on gigantic map, no random events, would a galaxy full of 100's of billions of people/different races be so quiet?