Err, correction i think i see what i did wrong with the Distant Stars mod, i only went with the link for the full version, somehow blindly overlooking the bolded line saying i needed to grab the patch part as well for that version.

Oh, that culture spying tech on the other hand is a good investment (on the AI anyway, human players will just park a capital ship to keep the culture from getting that far). Indeed, friendly culture bonuses are among the best in the game. I just disprove of anything that gives the idea you can completely "win" a game through culture.

Also Devilman a lot of the most popular gameplay mods integrate a lot of the graphics/sound (basically non gameplay) mods with them to provide the best game experience. While you can (with entrenchment and diplomacy) choose to enable any amount of mods simultaneously, they are only likely to work if they modify completely separate files. If they change part of the same file there is a good chance they won't work, which is why they are often built into other mods.

1. The graphics aren't really all that different between versions, the expansions mainly just add new content and features, not change what is already their.

2. Yes for the most part, the only real reason to play entrenchment or vanilla instead of diplomacy is for multiplayer with people who don't have diplomacy or for mods that haven't been updated for diplomacy.

You can stop screaming for 1.

Update your game through impulse unless yur a pirate.

Forge Tools 3 is in the downloads section at the top of this page

Maps are now place in the GalaxyForge folder in the same place your mods are Look here

And THAT was your 1st mistake!

Joking.  Perhaps you're right.    I'm not sure exactly what qualifies posts to be stickied.   I don't feel like there is enough content in here as a solid FAQ thread or something that that should be.   I just say,

"HEY YOU NEW PLAYERS!  POST HERE SO IT STAYS BUMPED" 

and it doesn't need to be sticked.