May as well knock this out, too. To recap:
You are New Sparta in a 3 player game (against Alpha Centauri and Epsilon Eridani, if you care). The deck hits you over the head with:
- Alien Tech. Institute (Alien 6-dev)
- Lost Alien Warship (Defense 5 Windfall, +2 Military)
- Deserted Alien Colony (5 Cost Alien Windfall)
- Replicant Robots (-2 Cost for worlds)
- Blaster Gem Mines (3 Cost Rare Windfall, +1 Military)
- Spice World (Novelty Production, +2 to trade a novelty).
The panel selected:
- ZZdroman -- RR & BGM, Exp+5
- Alexfrog, Huber, Lou -- RR & BGM, Exp+1
- Frunk -- DAC & SW, Exp+1
- Linnaeus, Rubbo -- ATI & DAC, Exp+1
- Tom Lehmann, Jeff -- RR & SW, Exp+1
- Phil -- RR & SW, Exp+1
OK, apart from ZZdroman, everyone explored + 1. I see one strong argument for exploring +5. New Military Tactics. If you get that, it's off to the races. Keeping DAC for a 2nd turn play is interesting, and one I overlooked.
Brian at the table. As usual, I took a different road. I pitched the Blaster Gem Mines and Deserted Alien Colony, saving SPICE WORLD as my expected first play. At the table, the deck hits new sparta over the head with the explore, given you Avian Uplift Race and Alien Rosetta Stone world. There was a T1 Settle, so I dropped the Avian World, sold it next turn ... on my last turn I played the 6 cost alien production world for free (thanks to Robots, ATI, and Rosetta Stone)... a brutal game for the opponents.
But, was I right? In retrospect, keeping the DAC would have given me a better backup plan (but pretty much anyone will be off to the races with that explore. I can see pitching RR, but keeping them gives options, especially when you've got a very good non-military play (Spice World). If there's a Develop and Settle (which is unlikely, but not impossible), you could drop SW on T1 (at the cost of your hand). More realistically, you can develop on T2, which lets you get SW for free and keep one other card to develop (two if there's another explore).