I have been playing a fair amount of Jump Drive lately. Really enjoying it. I did notice though that it seems if you get Comet Zone out early in the first 2 or so turns really seems to predict the win.
Something I noticed about engine builders I have tried in recent years is that they do not let you build a blatantly overpowered engine. Sure, that leads to a runaway leader, but it is the social contract of playing an engine building game. It would be like 4X games that punish you for fighting opponents (another complaint of mine is that all the new 4X games I have tried strongly discourage you from destroying opponents infrastructure…)
It could be sampling bias since I am not following all the new releases and I am not trying many games.