I am just curious as what group of strategy cards other players use. My group has alternated between: Initiative, Diplomacy II, Political II, Logistics, Trade III, Warfare, Technology II, and Imperial II vs. Leadership, Diplomacy II, Assembly II, Production, Trade III, Warfare II, Technology II, and Bereaucracy.

We find that Imperial II (and Age of Empire option) tends to lead to quicker games as it is quicker to amass victory points. We used to always use Bereaucracy but thought the revealed objectives was a better mechanism. We also preferred Political to Assembly because it was quicker (no need to negotiate the various cards to choose from) and we found with assembly everyone just traded in their political cards for trade goods. Warfare I we find is much more useful than Warfare II (but somewhat redundant with Production and Imperial II).

What strategy card sets do other people use?

Leadership

Diplomacy II

Assembly II

Trade III

Production

Warfare II

Technology II

Bureaucracy

It will definitly change now that we have the expansion but out standard was

Leadership

Diplomacy II

Assembly

Trade II

Production

Warfare I

Technology II

Beuracracy

I agree that the game is significantly faster when playing revealed objectives and Imperial II, it actually makes for a far more strategic game since you can form long term strategies but its also a lot less dynamic so you kind of end up with kind of "obvious best choice" approach to the game and it can become a bit predictable. But I do like it as well for the expediancy.

With the new cards and expansion Im not sure where we will land, we are still in the try it out all phase I can say that I really like the new political system. With Shattered Empire the only card we kind of didn't like was Warfare II, I personally liked it but it usually gets vetoed for Warfare I. I think people prefer it for its flexibility.

We sometimes do swaps just to change things up without any real ryhme or reason. For example we might use Diplomacy I instead of II or swap Trade I back in. I can't think of any reason we do this other than just for the sake of change.