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everyone has different rules

if you and your friends are new to stellaris i would recommend a few things

tech/tradition costs as low as they can go
habitable worlds as high as they can go
either leave crisis difficulty at base or turn it down to minimum (not off, just the lowest setting you can get it to while still being on)

this way you can take time to get used to the game and its mechanics
once you've settled into knowing what you are doing you can tweak tech/tradition cost back to normal
keep habitable worlds where they are and revert crisis back to default (assuming it isn't on default)