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Playing a 2P boardgame tends to be different from with 3+ because, unless it's a total multiple-solitaire game, such a large part of winning is about making your opponent lose. Factory Manager is no multi-solitaire game: you have to watch what your opponent's up to and watch out for what s/he might do to you.
Auctions: These usually don't matter much but are occasionally critical. In rounds 1 and 2 cash is so tight that a discount is just as valuable as having first dibs on what stuff to buy. OTOH going first can be a huge advantage in round 4, as you may be able to starve your opponent for example by buying up most/all of the remaining storage. For that reason, using round 3 to position yourself is important: my guess is it's an advantage to go 2nd in round 3 so that you can see what your opponent does before setting yourself for round 4.
1st round: Cash is so vital in the 2nd round that I think neither player can afford to fall even one notch behind the other in building up their capacity in the 1st round. Typically each will buy 1 or 2 extra storage plus enough machines/red robots to get to 4 capacity. But it doesn't have to be that way: the first player can pull down anything, secure in the knowledge that s/he'll have the pick of whatever the 2nd player pulls down (unless discounts make a difference, which can happen). Usually the game will remain very even at this stage, with the 2nd player mirroring whatever the 1st one does.
2nd round: This is where the players' paths diverge, as the 1st player in this round will typically aim to buy one top-of-the-range tile while the 2nd may make the most of discounts by picking several cheaper tiles.
3rd round: I think of this as the "set-up" round, with the 2nd player looking to create an opportunity to squeeze/starve the 1st in the next round. Spare workers rather than cash are at a premium because of the importance of the auction in the next round, and the game is especially vulnerable to AP in this round.
4th round: This is typically the "showdown" when the game is decided. Going 1st is much more of an advantage than earlier because this is often when key top-of-the-range tiles become affordable and accessible to both players. Therefore the auction should be competitive to compensate: the player who goes 2nd needs to bid high enough to ensure that the 1st player doesn't have enough available workers to buy up more than one or two good pieces of kit.
5th round: There's rarely much need to think about what to do now - not that this round is pointless, because it may see the completion of vital unfinished business from the 4th round.
If I'm right that this is the optimal way of playing the 2-player game, then you can see why some people criticise FM for having limited replayability. Maybe, but of course this is just the 2P version - and personally I'm still enjoying it. 8/10 for me.
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