Greetings,
My friends and I embarked upon an epic 10-11hr 5 person game using our own variant. We choose to play with all of the secret objective cards revealed and drafted with snake our position/race. Our rules were that you could only complete one of the mecatol rex secret objectives so you couldn't keep getting 2+ pts per turn by holding it. Once you got a secret objective no one else is able to claim that objective. Only one secret objective can be completed per round and then only in the status phase.
I was lucky enough to roll 98 on the 2-D10 roll for pick of position to pick race/position. I chose 1st pick and with that first pick I chose position(we made the map without knowing our position) which meant I'd pick race last. Sol ended up not getting picked until me so I jumped at the chance. My planets were the nicest and I was far away from everyone(5 player game remember). The races picked before me were: Yssaril 1st, Muat 2nd, Mindnet 3rd, and Mentak 4th. This was definitely a solid representation of the strongest races in the game besides the Naalu instead of the Mentak. Notice 3 of the 5 races have exceptional delaying tactics which despite the BS going around forums is a HUGE deal.
***RANT ON*** The whole idea of going last is only overpowered if everyone else is a bunch of NOOBS is without question one of the dumbest things I've seen on any forum EVER! Going last in a game where you complete objectives means other people can't react and stop you. If you think everyone positions themselves perfectly as to deny people this sort of thing then again YOU are the NOOB!! This is a game I'd be suprised if anyone has ever completed perfectly. I'm constantly blown away by how the sequence of events could be controlled better or resources allocated better. It's all about minimizing mistakes, decisive tactical battles, and cranking out pts no matter what variant you play. All of those goals are easier to achieve if you go last...
***RANT OFF***
Our variant made for an exceptional ammount of combat since everyone was trying to complete secret objectives/deny people completion. All turtling kinda goes out the window when you are trying to make 3-5pts on 1 turn. It also meant that when people succeeded/failed it took some recovery time where you may not be able to complete any objectives at all. Points came in bunches so it made for bolder moves and I think that helps balance races like the Sard'okk Norr(spell check). I was able to complete Focused cause of my awesome tech planets and some cross wormhole tech planet thievery. Sol just doesn't give up ground very easily(so many ground forces) so I was able to secure 2 artifact planets. I stashed a diplomat on my launch point artifact planet and froze my neighbors main navy on the other artifact system using diplomacy. If you think about it Naalu diplomacy is able to signal jam anyone every single time its picked if you choose to use diplomacy that way.
The strat of the day was more ground forces than they can possibly bombard/invade. That not only helped me keep the artifact planet/froze my neighbors main fleet after he attacked but in the end it won me the game. I went out to a rather gaudy 6 pt lead so I had a target on my back. Fortunately people tend to underestimate the ground forces required even if they have the space battle won against humans. It took my opponents until the last turn to remove me from the artifact planet and by then I had 11 anyways so it just bumped me down to 10. In the end the opponent with the most game knowledge besides me decided to come after my home system. The turn before last I lost the system next to my home system due to completing the Technocrat secret objective and thus being a little wide open. My home system was well covered but still vulnerable. Ultimately the troops that were stockpiled there due to gen synthesis just barely won the day after beating the odds in a 5 on 3 after bombardment. I was able to get assembly the turn before and pick bureracy so they only had until I went to stop me. Fortunately only the 1 player was in striking distance of my home world. I moved my counters around in status to prepare to complete the spend 6 command counters objective since by then I was whittled down to just war suns and carriers.
I can honestly say it was the best game of Twilight Imperium I have played because of the constant conflict. I'd highly recommend this as an alternative to using distant suns because frankley those objectives are too easy to complete. Even knowing the secret objectives they are still difficult to complete especially because people can see which ones you are after. It was a constant push/pull of denying and achieving those objectives on top of the fairly bland public objectives. There are many games when people build to no avail and using this style that is just not possible. The races in tis game really aren't completely balanced despite what some boardgame geek poll says so not being forced to stick with one of the bottom 4 races is really nice. Give this variant a try some time and tell me what you think.
Peace!