Yup seems small to me also.. figure a galaxy is pretty big. In the few games I've played it appeared that some of the solar systems were almost touching each other. The milkyway is suppose to a fairly large galaxy and it has an estimate of about 100 billion stars. Now i'm not suggesting that GalCiv2 have anywhere close to this, (but maybe Galciv50 could). Maybe the stars should be spread out a much further distance to give the appearance of larger galaxy.

Sure its a bit more scrolling action but with the minimap this should alleviate some problems. You could slow game play down if you end up with alot of ships in all the sectors, but then if your having issues with that you should scale down the size of your galaxy.

the few games I've played it appeared that some of the solar systems were almost touching each other.

I'm guessing you set the number of stars to a high level? But I do know what you mean, the map can look a bit cluttered when playing with alot of stars/planets, but I suppose thats personal choice. I prefer playing with a low-mid density of stars/planets.

Just how big *is* the Gigantic map, anyway? I

A gigantic galaxy is about 210*210 tiles. The closest I have seen star systems is 7 tiles off center, which gives room for a maximum of 900 stars.

I hope it has at least 100 star systems (I'd prefer it had more like200-300, but I don't want to sound greedy)

My guess from the games I have played is that there will be no more than about 100-300 stars in a game with the abundant and tightly clustered settings

Incresing the density crams the stars together, so there's more space for other stars, which they cram in with the other stars.

Okay, just a stupid question here: How does adjusting the cluster/density settings affect the number of stars in the game? Wouldn't that just affect how far apart the stars are from each other? Or does increasing the density improve the odds of the map having more stars overall?

A map is made up from a square grid. Each square is a sector. Larger maps contain more squares, as Martok said the gigantic is current 210 sectors by 210 sectors. The settings toggle how stars are placed, setting high density attempts to put more stars in each sector, the cluster setting adjusts the distance between the stars. The more sectors you have the more stars the game can fit on the map.