That is indeed the secret sauce. I love it to pieces because of that. Not only does it provoke hard decisions, but it also forces you to prioritize really heavily: do you try and snag that capital building now…or do you set up immigrants because you need to acquire a trade resource from a new territory…or do you claim an early place in the pick order…?

It also keeps getting better with more players, because all of those decisions become more difficult. Especially the capital buildings.