[ATDrake]

As previously mentioned, I'm "Alexander the Drake".

E-books from alliances have been recently tweaked so that to get the 2nd alliance book, you now need 25 allies.

To keep City Cores from giving you unwanted stuff when you surge (too much Bliss or Population that you can't handle yet), place assets which produce the things you don't want in the squares around the cores, which will subtract from the core surges 1/2 their value. E.g. You have a Factory Farm that surges 400 Energy and 400 Population with every go which you can't yet feed and you only want the Energy: put some Population assets worth at least 800 combined around the core, maybe 200+300+250+100 and that will keep the core from giving you the excess Population every time you surge it.

The game seems to be trended towards giving free-market libertarians more in the way of Bucks and system gifts (apparently people who're strongly oriented towards that on the selection sliders get 6 per cycle instead of the 3 that I get as a No Party centrist). However, apparently the free market people are unable to buy certain desirable resources which are labelled as Government and have to do without. It is supposed to cost you Bucks to change your political alignment, with a higher price at higher levels.

You can gift & re-gift to random people, not just ones on the alliance lists. At a certain point your hoard will declare itself full and you will stop receiving system and player gifts.