Very, very differently from the other races. With the powerful, yet only one of them, buildings they get at the start, you probably don't want to expand as fast as before. I could keep up my tax rate up very, very high and still have the main planet at 100% Approval, but then my colonies would have jack Approval.

Rushing (set research slider up to max and focus on research, just buy their starting buildings) the research building, then the industry building, and an economy building (and maybe sensors to get those sweet, sweet 1000bc anomolies more often) is probably the best bet. After that, you can probably just colony rush as normal.

That's my plan for now, at least.

But it's SO very easy to expand with them! With their staring unique buildings and a maxed mil-production, I was cranking out colony ships every 4 turns from very early on-- without setting my military slider all the way to the right or buying the first ship or improvement.

They felt really cool-- like they had a colossally powerful tech set if I could *just* get the resources to unleash it-- which is, really, exactly how the futurebugs ought to play.

The thing I immediately noticed was that they benefit as much as 4 times more right off the bat from having a good bonus tile because of the power of the hyperion matrix. Of course that square can apparently bankrupt you pretty fast too, so it will be interesting to put it on a precursor mine or library and see how big of an advantage it is. That completely changes the early going strategy, which seems like it will be a lot of fun to figure out.

The Altarians could use a few more alignment techs, and they don't get access to any of the standard good, evil, or neutral techs. I realize they're still under construction, but you only get additional techs if you pick "Good."

I think the weapon and defense techs open up normally for evil and good respectively. I know I have access to the defense techs, at least. Just no "Good and Evil."

Sorry, I specifically meant the Good and Evil line, which has several improvements and a few bonuses.

My main beef with the thalans so far is that from the tech descriptions I expected thier research/industry to be head, shoulders and appendages above the normal tech tree at the cost of hideous upkeep. Turns out I was half right. Honestly im just not impressed with the 20>15>10 upkeep for a measly 12 industry/research. I expected at LEAST 14 or so heck I would be comfortable letting the bugs have 15 or 16 if only to balance out thier other major disadvantages.

I really really want to like the thalans but so far they have left me cold. If thier research/prod got a shot in the arm I can see it being worhtwhile to not immediatly tech trade your neighbors for ANY kind of vaugley cost effective factory/lab. One thing I thought would be kinda cool is that if the thalans could have a sort of knock off one per planet building that was a sort of pale immitaion of the hyperion doodad they have, say about half the bonusues and maybe witha bit of upkeep (ie 8 industry 8 research 4 food) it would give them something to build on thier planets before they struggled up to thier (hideously inefficient) industry/research buildings.

Another thing I can see being troublesome is the thalan economy. with no farming tech I can see income being a bit of a problem, though I guess if you blitzed to the econ buildings you could just spam those until you reached theier factories/labs.

Maybe all these problems will work themselves out in a full game but in the brief starting games ive played with them so far im just not seeing how to make them work.

One stratagy im going to try out is to hold off putting down the hyperion thingy and the temporal morale booster on my home world (which would cause my homeworld to have a big morale problem down the line) and just try and find a good/decent world with my colony ship and plop the uber buildings down there. I figure between the capital production on Thala and the hyperion bonuses on the 2nd planet i could run 2 colony ship factories. If it works out I might post the stratagy.

The Thalans are a joke now. Thier super abailty is useless with no factories.

Actually the thalans do have 1 morale improvement under gravitics its a 1bc upkeep for 25% morale booster. pretty good actually. I just cant see why you would need to build more than one on any planet thats not your homeworld (what with the no farming and whathaveyou)

Thalan Starbase modules didn't get into the beta.

What 40 turns into the game you get to research L1. Never mind you only get to build 3 buildings.

I played a full game with the Thalans yesterday, 3 other civs, medium galaxy, common everything, tech trade off, intelligent, Drengin, Korath, and Arcean. I had no problem early on with cranking out colony ships and constructors, whilst keeping my economy afloat. I even managed to keep up with research and military.
The problem I had was when I tried to invade later in the game. With no farms, max pop is 6b on all but home planet. My economy crashed and the drengin wiped the floor with me.
Are the Thalan supossed to have no farm techs?

I'm pretty sure this is a big part of the revised RTM date. I'm confident that enough Stardock folks are also GC2 junkies and we'll get there eventually.

That said, I have to break down and whine just a little bit about my suspicion that a lot of the economy tweaking that follows from the "more money" theme is not balanced yet for large-map players.

Basically, it looks like it will be a real hat trick to figure out how to manage your sluggish economy on Gigantic and Immense maps until you encounter enough other civs to start earning this Disney money. Add that to the Thalan's new-found responsible attitude twoards population growth, and, well, I'm likely to play my next couple of beta games at a lower than usual difficulty.

There good... just different... it would be really nice if their hyperion matrix didn't have a 8 farm points but instead like 10% to econ, moral, loyalty, etc... maybe a few of these I have listed so you dont need a second homeworld please... OR plan B the Thalan just came to this universe so their homeworld isnt neat and fixed up nicely like the other homeworlds that have been underdevelopment ie 16 billion max population, it should start at 8 or 10 billion... Now its still level 15 planet but just change the max population limit. But I would rather have the first one I stated...

If they are from the future give them a little research bonus. Also their penalty to diplomacy ie the -30% make it -20%, they are not evil or as bad a diplo like dregin and yes they are from a different universe but still come on now... And yes they are a bunch of bugs that are not that creative but still.

Also I will say this again just to state this else where. The factories and research centers that the Thalan have. Yes they get less upkeep but come on increase them each time ie level 1- 12 points(same), level 2- 14-15 points, and finally level 3- 16-18 points. The describtion for the level 3 being the best research or industry building in the universe come on now not really...

Though the main problem is if you put research on very low ahhh they are seriously in trouble... I mean its really hard to do anything. I am goint to try this but I know and from what I heard this wont be fun...