[great.throwdini]

Re: "I have been picking Gas Giants lately myself. It is an advantage early, but certainly not a game breaker in a game against other people whether they also pick Gas Giants or not."

and re: "If you don't have the same number of planets, you have fewer colonies on which to build, meaning fewer facilities/ships being built at one time."

see my comments in the "some questions/comments" thread wrt how larger planets offer unbalanced production output with the current production model in SEIV. I can perhaps buy the "fewer ships being built at one time" argument, but I seem to be able to find enough gas giants (and build enough off-planet shipyards) to get around this limitation.