I wish we had access to more stage 1 factories when playing the Galatic war. It's not much fun when you only have vehicles athe the AI sends many planes to distroy you. I think all stage 1 factories should be available, t0o give the players a chance. What do others think?
When you play the campaign, you gain access to more commander loadouts. The Commander I use is the "Assault" commander which gives me access to all of the basic factories, but no defensive structures. Here's a list of all the available commander loadouts: http://pamatches.com/wiki/game-types/galactic-war/galactic-war-commander-loadouts/
There is an existing loadout mod giving you more options to play GW. Further more, you can find my "cheat" loadout which modded from trialq's GW loadout mod here -> https://forums.uberent.com/attachments/com-pa-trialq-tgwloadout-zip.19244/ there is no much fun with the "cheat" loadout added by me, it's too overpowered. ps: you can even customize you own loadout by editing the mod files the same way I did to add tgw_start_cheat.js for the "cheat" loadout, you need to edit the gw_dealer.js and gw_start.js as well.
I would prefer to have all basic tech unlocked from the start but make most of them cost twice as much until you get tech unlocks for them. That way you can still win a war with naval if you need it, but it will be a lot harder until you find the tech to improve them. Just totally shutting them off can make it really hard to break some stalemates.