by Creamsteak
With my play group they need to get the ball rolling early to be competitive. If they can get into a fight every single round, they will steamroll the game. If they have to hang back or get dealt circumstances that dictate another strategy they seem to fall behind.Best possible situation is when you can guarantee an early military tech like sentient hull or something similar. One guy picked them to start in our seven player game this time around and that was just a bad decision in general. Getting last pick of techs and then failing to draw aliens prevented him from even getting started it seemed.