That's the thing I play exactly just how you said
1.When I decide a strategy 1-2 players randomly go that strategy too and in the beginning they had none of the pieces but all of a sudden they have the units at 2 stars? while I'm left with one star units and not able to find any to upgrade them. Because of this my mid game is non existent I can't win a single round and even though I'm on losing streak I'm nearly dead.
I have to make a desperate switch so I end up using most of my gold just to survive but none of my units really synergies they're just 2 stars and synergy is very difficult to find.
The end game, every player has solid synergy and 2/3 stars units so now my board cannot content anymore so I end up dying.
This has been my games 90% of the time,