Back to the strategic simulation, the AI will respond to the player’s aggressive move by placing its expansion bases far away from the player’s reach, in the Pacific Ocean. At the same time it will attempt to lure the player into a never-ending cat and mouse game near the harvesting sites in the Atlantic. It will fake the harvesting from those sites and at need, will sacrifice some UFOs with few members and loot to keep the player busy in that area, while it finds new harvesting sites and develops its bases and tech in the Pacific area.
The player will have few resources to collect from UFO recovery missions and they will slowly develop and upgrade their bases. The AI will be miles ahead by the time the player will have enough money to expand into the Pacific area. This doesn’t mean that the aggressive play style doesn’t have good odds for success, it only shows the AI’s reactive style of play, to counter the player’s style.
The aggressive style of play must be backed up by scouting and planning in order to be successful, because you can’t win the game with pure rush play style. An attack early in game at the aliens' bases is out of the question, regardless of difficulty or the player’s skill and experience, as any veteran TBS game player knows.