by Becq
The situation in our campaign is that the player with the least glory is the one who has Ker as his colony, so he is always going to go last in the first year of the current game. There are only 10 glory separating the top person(me) from the bottom person(64 vs 54), two of the other players have 61 & 60 glory. The bottom player tends to play too cautiously and hedges his bets, he has now realised he needs to take risks if he is going to get ahead in the game.
There is a thought in our group that going last in the first year can have distinct advantages, you get to see what everyone else is up to and if you're more PVP inclined then you can raid the other players ships once they have bought goods from the islands, thats worked well enough for me so far!
So applying that logic, you think that starting the game with more game VP should give you more bonuses? :p
I generally felt that going first was an advantage during the first year -- you get your pick of goods, buildings, upgrades, advisors, explorations, and just about everything that has value in the game. If you want to raid but end up player 1, then using that first turn to upgrade your ship -- or even just tax -- is going to put you in a better position than not getting to act before other players.
During the second year, I felt going last was an advantage -- it lets you react to other player's scoring actions better, and prevents them from reacting to yours. That's especially valuable on the last turn, and even more so when the last turn comes unexpectedly (as it often does).
But yeah, that turn order question is ambiguous, and it seems unlikely that you'll get an official answer, so I'd say have a vote or roll a die to decide the matter, then stick with that answer. If you decide that automatically going last should be a feature of Ker, then your group meta will determine whether that is an advantage or disadvantage, and raids against Ker will either be more common or less.
