Prioritize increasing your production

In the first two rounds, production is paramount, much more important than getting goals for scoring.

The type of production you increase defines your strategy in the later turns.

Color Focus

Grey: Materials. Leads to production of all 5 types. Typically does not score points (though a lot of buildings give 1 general or financier, which are worth at least 1 point).

Black: Energy. Typically leads to Explore (blue). The cards that produce power are a little less common. Allows some scoring with cards that give a point per black building.

Green: Science. Leads to production for all others, but generally not very much. Has a lot of scoring cards.

Yellow: Financial. Typically allows more financial production. Has a lot of scoring cards.

Blue: Explore. Almost all cards are high scoring. There are a couple of rare cards that produce some resources.

Observe number of players

The lower the number of players, the more production bonuses you'll be able to get.

Financier and General bonuses are going to be much more effective in games with fewer players.

Another difference is that the more players, the more effective specialized strategies are. Green is typically not the best color to focus on unless there are 4+ players, for example.