Heh, tell that to my Huge ships with 400+ attack each. I kept my homeworld as an economic capital and had it cranking out transports to avoid the high pop penalties. I'd have no trouble doing a Conquest victory if I wanted to.

The Thalans are probably pretty well suited to Conquest victories, as much as any other race, anyway. Heck, they have easier access to Weapon and Defense technologies, tons of +Weapons boosts, a number of unique Speed boosts, and a strong Soldiering boosting tech to boot.

The Altarians, with their -20% Weapons penalty, on the other hand...



Sure, they are stated to be the best, but they also aren't running on the power supply the buildings were intended for. No Gravitronics, no super powerful buildings, basically.

Really, to me, the best solution to the Thalan's troubles would be to have one tech group that gives both their Industry and Research buildings, instead of one tech group for each. "Technological Adaptation" could easily be re-flavored as the Thalans trying to make use of more "primitive" power sources to power their Industry and Research capabilities. Move the description of how they research/produce into a History tech (or just keep it in the first tech *shrugs*).

This would also fit in, IMHO, with the original design goal of the Thalans a bit: multipurpose planetary improvements.

Also, I have to say that it is a damn shame that the Thalans are both insectoid and time travelers... so much can be done with both of those themes tech tree wise, and, right now anyway, the Thalan's tech tree is playing up the Time Traveler bit a helluva lot more than their insectoid nature. But, man, I'm really digging what was done with them "Time Traveler" wise, though...

I really like the Thalians. (I also enjoy Very Slow research) From the games I've played so far their is a bit of a trick.

They really are like a hive. Try to grab planets but don't worry about not putting improvements on them. Treat planets like starbases.

The first techs I reach for are the economic ones. You will notice that getting those techs is easier then trying to acquire the manufacturing and research ones.

Once you have your first banking tech. Turn your homeworld, and every colony into a bank. As you progress in the game and research the other improvements slowly remove banks for other improvements. Unlike the other Thalian improvements banks are inexpensive and having a planet full of them allows you to finance your VERY expensive buildings.

One more thing. Invest in spies. With whole planets dedicated to making money. You can have a small army of spies. These are useful in stealing the mundane techs. (If you choose to play with no tech trading.)

/Just my experience so far. Your mileage may very.

I took the issue from another angle and decided to test how the Thalans would play as an opponent, and more specifically whether I could just rush them early on and take them out. I played a large galaxy, crippling, very slow tech and no tech trading as the Korath. Luckly, not only did I start out adjacent to the Thalans, but I also had a precursor library on my homeworld.

Now I didn't just go straight for planetary invasion which I probably should of, but I did have to balance my economy somewhat first, get my economic and technological capital and even got a couple weapon techs as well so I could build small ships with 2 guns and engines as well for example. I was also slowed down by spies as well that I had to take care of.

Netherless, by the time I got my transport in range of the Thalan worlds, he was building small defenders with 5 beams on them (which were effective 8's in orbit). So I decided to take out the Terrans instead who had the audacity to grab Kora II while I was rushing for other planets (and was effectively holding on to it thanks to an influence starbase). The Thalans and Iconians quickly declared war in response to my attack of the Terrans.

Unlike the Thalans, the Terrans didn't develop any weapon techs and had defenders with 1 armor on them, and I quickly grabbed almost all of their planets except one before making peace(this is to keep from getting the 'tends to conquer others' diplomatic penalty).

The Thalans became a big enough nuisance that I just gave them my technology mining starbase in exchange for some money and peace with the intention of isolating and going after the Iconians, although admittedly, all but their homeworld would have been easy to invade if I could get past their defenders due to their really low population. I sent a spy to see what the Thalans actually built that got them such good weapon techs as early as they did. Aside from their usual galactic achievements all they built was an economic capital and dozens of embassies on all their worlds. I don't know if they did this before or after the 5x tourism event that happened while I was invading Terrran planets, but considering that the computer doesn't rebuild stuff, it will be interesting to see where the game goes from here.

I've found that they have an immensely powerful set of techs and abilities... once they get going. Its the fact that they start with nothing that really makes them different to play. You have to scrounge around to make do in the meantime, until your powerful technologies can appear.

My strategies so far:
*Rush the economy techs, the Thalans NEED them... you typically don't grab many planets in a colony rush, and they're rarely any use right off the bat for anything.
*Aggressively trade for stop-gap research and industry technology from other races
*When you go for the thalan tech and industry buildings, have a lot of research capacity set up so that you can rush to the L2 or L3 techs and sidestep that monstrous maintainence cost
*Take advantage of their primary strength: they don't get many toys to play with, but what they do get is mighty. The weapons bonuses, the early weapons and defense techs... if you play your cards right, those will go a LONG way even in small numbers. Just watch out for the maintainence.

My two planet empire is thriving on a medium galaxy (9 opponents, tough difficulty), and I'm starting to gobble up nearby targets of opportunity to expand, now that I can afford to.

This may seem like a dumb question, but how do you get Econ treaties with more than one civ? I've only ever been able to get one civ to agree to an Econ treaty with me.

Civs can only have one outgoing treaty of each in the game. If you don't see the option for a econ treaty for a race, check the treaty tab and see who snagged it first.

Aye, Creative seems to outweigh the issues of maintenance cost and slow research for the Thalans. It's in you better interests to just sit on 100% social and hope for Creativity to proc you the upgrades for the Factory/Research buildings. Early on it's tons quicker than trying to ride it out with research.

Yep, that would be why all the AI Thalan planets are filled with them.

You could just, invade and then destroy the colony. At least you'd be making some sort of headway lol.

Damage from destructive invasion tactics only occur if you win the battle.