[Cyrien]

I also prefer ice. It is slightly less common than rock but when you take that in with the fact that everyone knows that and then takes rock you actually wind up with far less competition and more space to grow. And of course everyone wants what you have and so few others have!

I ussually take none as well and live off of the moons mostly.

One weakness to this strategy is of course in order to get the same level as others you have to produce more colony ships since each small planet has less space.

One advantage however is that you finish building all your facilities on them and if you work like me and on anything with 6 or more facility slots (Oh how I love you Advanced Storage Techniques) you build a space yard... well you get some massive ship output capacity really fast as well.

Really I think they are all just about ballanced in the early game. Late game anything/none may be at a slight disadvantage being unable to terraform gas giants but this is easily countered by simply gaining another races population. Or worse case scenario having to blow up all the Gas Giants and remake them over and over till you get what you want(flash backs to SE3 anyone?)