I've been lately playing this with escalating no fog 5 players seq terminator.
It seems to me that the way to victory is to be conservative with your troops. Most who are unfamiliar with the map immediately waste all their troops going for the very scarce bonuses. Play it conservatively, don't worry if you don't get a card every turn even if it's escalating.
Go for the territories with smallest numbers of neutrals, this way you get a card with minimal waste of troops. If you can pick a bonus or two along the way it doesn't hurt, since they help you grow your stacks quicker, but don't go out of your way to gather them.
Eventually you'll have the largest stacks, and then you can start picking out your opponents which have a chain of 1:s leading to their reefs...
The same tactic would probably also work on no spoils & flat games as well, but in those you just have to be even more conservative...