Talking about the Colonials: in games with 10 starting planets and full tech, is a good idea to start building Dreadnoughts from the start, then, they have advantage. But in games with 1 starting planet and full tech, they go lack of resources very fast, and usually have only 1 or 2 attack ships, then in my opinion, they have a big disadvantage with this kind of games.
And yea... in my test games, the Pyrochette are usually in the first place... but I never wanted to speak a lot, because I don't want the people think that I have not an objective opinion.
