I'm 11 shards into the campaign and I sort of understand the Astral Plane Screen where you choose your next shard. But I am unclear on some of the features.

1. I have 3 other masters on my screen, 2 hate me, one is indifferent. I have had dialogues with all of them, but don't really have a clue what my goal is when I talk to a Master. Do dialogues with Masters mean anything?

2. I'm spending 3 energy per astral turn, 1 I'm fairly sure is for population happiness. The other 2 I cannot remember what they are for. Is there a way to know the details of your expenses? What does spending energy on expenses actually do for you "in game?" Did my one point per turn on settler happiness grant me a universal happiness boost when fighting on shards?

3. Under what circumstances would you simply skip a turn in the astral screen?

4. When should I start spending energy from the astral screen for perks on my next shard? Should I simply be saving all my energy for now? I can't imagine when I would ever spend 30 energy to get a simple leather jacket in my storehouse on my next shard. Or spend one energy to start my next shard with one extra gold.

5. What is glory? I'm earning it and so I imagine it has some purpose in the game?

P.S. The buttons to post this reply are off my screen to the bottom right. I can only barely click the post button by dragging the box as high as possible and resizing the screen as low as possible.

1. Yes it has an impact on your battles

eg. You and two other masters are vying/ battling for a large shard... one master hates you and the other is indifferent.
The indifferent master should offer an alliance (more of a temp ceasefire really) with you until the other master (which he also hates) is defeated and this alliance can give you a much easier time of it.

2. No it just shows the total income and expenses and has no effect which I’ve noticed yet.

3. I never ever skip a turn... there is a time limit to win so skipping turns is counterproductive.

4. That’s up to you but wouldn’t the value of an early leather jacket depend on your hero preference i.e. do you take the archer as your first hero?

5. Just a way to say how amazing you are at playing this game.

p.s. sounds like your screen resolution settings could use some love.

1. You can get better understanding of the game plot. Later on you will meet Master, which will ask you couple of riddles and right answers you need to get from these dialogues.

2. 2 points you gave to Zarr as payment.
Energy system was a last moment addition, because one of the potential publishers suggested ingame transactions for items(send SMS and get artifact! yay!), you can find rudiment of this in cfg file, youplay or smth. Pretty innovative for 2009 year. Poorly balanced too.

3. Some campaign events need couple of turns to happen. You initiate event on one turn, get result on next. Sometimes worth the wait.

4. Rewards for shards are randomized, so you would never get same rewards every time. I use energy to buy healer/fairy unit (speeds up start), sometimes bow/crossbow/two-handed sword/wand (easier to start with corresponding hero)

5. Mostly, this is for highscore table. You can get some use from it, but not much without honing your skills. http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/what_is_the_use_of_glory

Did you use the "into the past --> back to the astral" option during a fight? That will cost you 2 energy per turn (Not much, but it is better to simply surrender the shard if you want to abandon a loosing fight. The buildings will be available in newly generated shards. Unless there is something unique to that shard - your homeworld, or a main story quest, for example. In that case the back to astral button becomes useful to avoid loosing the campaign)

One of my early favourites is the forge building because that lets me take swordsmen from the get go... each to their own & it’s irrelevant because there is a bug in the new game which stops this any way.

No, I've not had to use the back to astral option yet. I've conquered all shards. I'm fairly certain I got a dialogue box asking if I wanted to spend 1, 2, or 3 energy on "something". And I chose to spend 2 per turn on it. But it sounds like you are saying spending your energy per turn on perks offered by dialogue boxes are completely useless, and therefore should be avoided at all times? Why have these dialogue boxes asking if you want to spend energy per turn in the first place, if this is the case?

The choices you make at those points do affect your karma.

I've only read about karma in some of the threads. Other than pertaining to good and evil I have no idea what it is , what it does, how it affects the game, how you accumulate it, or how I can see what mine is.

Karma is essentially how good/evil you are. Among other things, it affects your relationship with various Masters, how your people perceive you, and how well various units perform under your leadership. (Swordsmen/Monks/Elves/etc have higher morale under a good master and lower morale under an evil one; Brigands/Barbarians/Sorcerers/etc are the opposite.) It may also affect certain events, and in turn is affected by how you respond to various events.

You can't see the numeric value directly, but you can get a general idea of where you stand by looking at your title, which indicates of your fame and karma levels with its descriptors. Titles like "the Pure" "the Terrible" and so on are based on your karma.

No, I'm saying that using "back to the ether" to "save" a normal shard is not really worth it : The advantages of the lost shard will reappear in a new one, so you can simply "surrender". Except if that shard has something unique to it, of course (homeworld, special quest, etc...)
The other decisions you're talking about only happen once, and the loss of a few energy points won't be crippling, so you should choose those as you deem appropriate for your character. It will have an impact (relationships with other masters, unlocked quests and events...) for the rest of the game.