Num+: Speeds up the game, but not permanently.U: Upgrade a building (e.g., peasants to citizens or a small market building to a medium-sized one).F11: Open extra menu which includes the permanent fast forward button.You can also focus on any of your ships with TAB Q: Change focus between ships which are not on trading routes.
This is why the FF-categories have a rather heavy focus on execution: iIn order to go fast you should be familiar with the most useful hotkeys (and their default bindings): As these notes focus on the fast forward categories it is assumed that at the start of every chapter you permanently fast forward (done by pressing F11 and then the ⏩ key).