I've been lucky to play this 3 times already since I received my copy on Friday. Here are a few thoughts:
I'll start with my final takeaway. This is a game where the players' capabilities diverge very quickly. By contrast, in Vital's previous games, all the actions are generally the same for everyone for the duration of the game. However, in Lisboa, you immediately receive a "clergy tile" which modifies some action or result for you and you alone, and you can then accumulate more such bonuses--many of which are cumulative with each other--very quickly. If you hammer those bonuses, you will crush. If not, you will have slow and linear progression, which will not be enough to win. In this sense, it feels quite different from his previous games, but in a very good way. **You NEED to specialize, and use your specialization as much as possible.** This is a significant difference from the previous games.
Next, though, is a big similarity to one of his previous games--Gallerist. This one is obvious. You want as many free actions (during other people's turns) as possible. So, take as many "favor tiles" as you can, and don't be shy about spending your influence.
Finally, it is quite a heavy game. 237
But, re the "complex for the sake of bring complex" comments, I fully disagree. Once you understand the theme and think about the game mechanics for the actions they represent, they all make sense and are much easier to track. For example, the variable influence cost to visit a noble represents the number of other people you have to elbow your way past when you enter his salon.
My first game was 4 new players. I won that game with 108 points; second place was 100. I had no particular strategy, but i did let my starting clergy tile choice guide my actions as much as possible (I took a tile that let me "follow" without spending influence, and made sure I had favor tiles for all 3 nobles as often as possible).
Last night was my third game. It was me and another guy who had played already, and two new players. This time I had a strategy in mind and better understood how the parts all fit together. I won with 124 points; second place had 87. I pursued an aggressive building strategy, thanks to a couple of treasury cards that gave me a discount when building. I eventually got to a point where I only needed a couple more rubble cubes to trigger the end game, and then took a zillion decrees. I was not shy about spending influence to follow noble actions--my influence hovered below 5 the whole game. I even spent 3 wigs to follow at one point. My final score included 36 points from decree cards (!!). 366