Since the most general stuff was mostly covered above, i want to talk about good cards to have:
- The 6-cost develop Anti Xeno League is probably the most well rounded dev 6 in the expansion. You can fit it in almost any strategy and, like Setti, it gives you a ton of VP. You can also cheese the military goal and speed up the game by placing it in the correct moment. But it works well if you have any kidn of world.
- Public works is less spammable if you want to make contributions. I would suggest to play it if you alredy have a consume power (for example Rebel Cadre), or if you want to play Consume-produce or Develop Spam. Probably Investment Credits or interestellar bank are better Develop Leechs, however only band and IC gives you cards. The 4 cost develop with a -2 discount is useful too if you have some cards to play with the discount, the repair power may come handy too.
- The anti Xeno develops are pretty neat for their price
- Mining Conglomerate and Diversified Economy are pretty strong, even if you dont attemp to consume. Having good cardflow in produce is pretty important.
- All production worlds with card bonus after producing are good to have. Note that you can donate the good so you are always getting the card bonus.
- If you do want to consume, then the most straight foward way is using an uplfit engine and having a spare world for repair fodder.
Now, for the rest of the new 6-cost develops:
- The Imperium one is useful if you want to spam Rare worlds, not military worlds. The idea is that you can place a few cheap Brown Worlds (maybe with the help of Alpha Centauri), and then with The Imperium dev 6 get a big draw in each produce phase. Notoriusly, the -2 discout works wonders with the most heavy Rare worlds, like Imperium armaments world, Blaster Gem mines or the imperium that costs 5. Those cards will score you pretty high and will give you a few military that is always useful. You can combine this strategy with Anti Xeno League to gain more military vs Xenos with all the civil Rare worlds you will play.
- The uplift one is pretty hard to use. The problem is that you may have at that point enough consume powers for Genes alredy if you have a few of those uplift worlds with Consume powers. However, you can use the windfall power so that you can repair with the bonus instead of using the windfall one.
- The Terraforming Develop can work in specific situations, for example if you get a few Terraforming cards with settle discounts. One cheesy way to use it in a poor tableau is to get another consume power (maybe public works), a production world and a windfall world plus a filler fodder world. The repair power will let you survive while you just consume and produce with the windfall bonus, waiting for the Xenos to end the game so that your opponent doesnt get any bonus. Another strategy is play 3-4 production worlds and then Consume-produce for the rest of the game. This way you will have spare porduction worlds to make contributions and to use the defense power if neccesary.
- The Rebel Anti Xeno is very straightfoward. Play it if you are attempting to play Rebels, you can combine it with Galactic Imperium since their powers synergize with each other. The difference with Galactic Imperium is that GI is better if you attempt to play high value Rebels while AXRF is better if you have a ton of low value rebel worlds to play.
- The allien one is more foccused on Xeno Military worlds than allien ones lol. Dont try to combine it with Allien Archives unless you dont have a better play. This card gives you +4 military against Xeno-Infested Alien outpost, which gives you +2 military and 5+2 points. This card also synergizes nicely with Anti Xeno League since it boosts your military vs xenos and gives you cards in produce for military worlds (in particular, Xeno worlds).
