Yeah; the "military/naval conquest" option? That almost NEVER happens. It's FAR too easy to turtle in this game. As such, the only players who got destroyed early were the ones who overextended themselves, leaving themselves too easy a target. Because of that, for most of the time, it was effectively a race to 50 Essence.
Okay, and a couple of players were led to ruin by dint of that
freakin' Behemoth card.