Alliances: Both races need the tech and you must be at Close relations.

Thalan's influence...are you speaking of the pink blob of dooom in the beta? If you aren't playing the beta and they are pink blobbing with embassys....then I don't know what to tell you. In DA they rocked with the fast building factories, so their empire got built the quickest.

The Yor in DA/TA just have one of the best defensive abilities in the game and thus when they are at war they have a good advantage.

Hi!

Unfortunately that's quite close to the thruth. The game, like most other 4x games, favours constant growth. Conquering planets also means growth. At the end the race that grows the biggest usually wins, by simply crushing all oposition with sheer numbers. To counter that you need to grow (conquer) too, as in this game you most of the time can't organize a real alliance against the biggest "monster".

BR, Iztok

The last game I played on DA was a doozy. Gigantic map, painful level, 5 random AI all of whom were evil. I was a custom race and ranked no better than 4th the entire game. The Yor held half the map, were 1st in everything, and declared war on me when about 90% of the planets were settled. When they came at me, I don't think I've ever seen as many ships in any game I've ever played as these guys had. They were everywhere. This is how the game played out---

My first step was to take out all the Yor planets and resources in my territory to cut back their base of operations and which gave me crucial research whenever I took one of their planets. At the same time I had to shore up (via transports) planets they were trying to take over - I was building more transports than warships. Their fleets of transports kept pouring in on my planets. And, my weapons were never as good as the Yor's the entire game (we were the only two races that were using missles). My game was one big delaying action while I worked hard to build up defenses for the weapons the Yor were using.

In the meantime, the AI were making treaties with each other, with the Yor getting the best end of the deals. I was on OK terms with the other AI and tried to bribe them to attack the Yor, but none of them were ever interested in attacking anyone, much less the Yor. I had good diplomacy, but was never able to trade for anything the whole game. Worse, as the game progressed, the Yor began forming alliances with all of the AI. Interestingly, throughout the whole game the other AI constantly put up warnings about the increasing influence and power of the Yor although they never offered me any support whatever - however, they never declared war on me either. To protect against the other AI attacking me, I built up close relations with each and formed alliances with all of them. Key to this, I believe, was trade. I held the Galactic Privateer and the Yor was never able to cripple my trade which gave me good relations with the AI and crucial income.

Once I got strong defenses for the Yor's missles, I started on a grinding, planet by planet, advance on the Yor. I kept pushing until the Yor economy finally collapsed and I then won the game because of my alliances with everyne else.

There were several unique things about this game that I've never experienced before. My largest hull was only a medium - I could never spare the research to get to large hulls. My most powerful factory was an enhanced factory - I don't think my economy would have supported the expense of a more powerful one - I was always at the edge. I never had many spies - just enough to cripple the next planet I was attacking - if left in place too long, the Yor would neutralize them.

Quite a game.