by Ochobee
I'll put forward first that I am the one on the 4 game win streak.While events were happening pretty fast and furious in our game, part of that was our fault for having a large number of 2 coin territories from what I recall was a period of not wanting to have any one that was overpowered.
Having said that, in both of the last two games, the person that derived the benefit from the events did not win the game. In fact, in the last game I won the events never worked in my favor and actually went against me on two different occasions with minor cities losing troops and in the process negating my continent bonus.
The events and missions each promote aggressive behavior, which I think is a good way to speed up the game.
I'd say the reason the game has played out so similar is that people have been placing their HQ's in roughly the same areas. Two of us have placed major cities, which gives us an incentive to place our HQ's there, but in the last game especially I was shocked that no one placed near my HQ/territory to prevent me from building up and getting my territory bonus.
As for the draft, in my opinion the most important items at this point are the troop and coin cards and the factions. Everything else becomes less important, and even then it really only gives you a slight edge in the beginning. But the 2 coin card is 1/2 of a red star to start the game.
What seems to hurt the other players (and the missiles played into this) was trying to make a big push and grab 2 HQ's in a turn but leaving a path of lightly defended territories in their wake. It's an all or nothing gamble- if you succeed you win the game, but if you lose you are wide open for conquest. Three (or four) missiles, by a single player shouldn't be an issue if you are making that push because you should have overwhelming force if you are going to try it.
I'd be willing to bet that if one or more players placed closer to my HQ to box me in, the win streak ends. The placement as it was forced everyone to have to worry about players other than me, and that worked to my advantage.
Also, had I not won that turn, the player before me was sitting on 3 stars and 4 resource cards, which would have been an auto win for him on his next turn. I have assumed that these mid games should play slower due to more caution over missile use, but that hasn't been the case. I'm surprised that more people haven't pursued turning in 4 territories to get the winning star since it doesn't require the big military push to pull off.