Where can I find suggestions for a casual game of TradeWars, for about 10-20 people? I was thinking about lowering the number of turns and perhaps starting people off with a bit more money, but it has been so long since I've played, and I've never hosted a game before. Any suggestions would be welcome.

All the games on my server are more for the casual players. You're more than welcome to come check them out, and get yourself "warmed-up".

Game A - Lobby is setup to get a feel for my delay settings, planets go L5 in one day.

Games B, C & D are in progress - 5k stock games, varying low turns, varying turn bank settings. All with gold Ferrengi that are very well stocked.

Game P - My personal game for my most inexperienced players. Same stock settings, and ferrengi, but 5k turns, no turn bank. I keep an active charactor in this game to keep the sharks out of my "guppy pond". Everyone is free to try to attack my stuff, there are at least two rouge bases now if you want to try to invade those.

There are many settings withn the new TWGS which will lend itself to a casual game. That said, imo it relies more on the people your inviting than the actual settings. Food for thought:

Less than 750 turns with a high bank will help achieve what you want. I've seen long term games with much higher. However lower turns = less a player can capitalize on others being absent

I would recommend 99k as a starting credit so your not forcing align and certainly not giving the world away. You could certainly change the starting ship and give max figs to still give good starting cash without forcing align.

Pick a edit which has a good amount of flexibility, like Pirates

Usually the players dictate what they will and where they will play. If your gathering is the exception if there is a setting that isnt particularily popular you can allways tedit it. With the exception of sectors.

30k is a large universe for a low turn game. Almost guarenteed a slower pace with a larger universe.

What's the advantage of Pirates? I don't know anything about these edits, but I've seen them mentioned in the forums.

Pirates is a popular edit because many believe it to be well balanced and offer something for everyone.

I.e.
-The blue ships aren't necessarily hugely overpowered and neither are the red.
-Planets have some advanced capacity like zero day L-4 but doesn't hold enough fuel to cause any serious havoc.
-There are 1 turn per warp ships which can be popular, but there not "cheap" so it may be awhile before a smaller corp is able to retrofit them

Many edit's tend to lean one way or the other as far as favoring Blue or Red. Pirates tends to be a well balanced non-stock edit.