From what I understand, the devs are very busy finishing Political Machine. The entire GalCiv team have been kidnapped to finish it.
This is true. We have all been hard at work finishing Political Machine 2008. It has been a fun project to work on. You guys should give it a shot when it comes out, let us know what you think.
While developer interaction is always appreciated, it's only been a few weeks since ToA was formally released, and I'm presently confident that Stardock will get to this stuff in time. In the meantime, I'm trying to be a good citizen by organising the stuff together so that players and developers alike can be aware of it
Thank you! Give us time guys, we enjoy reading what our players think and finding ways to implement their ideas. We also appreciate being informed of issues so that we can make our games the best they can be.
2) The Thalan lack access to the Battle Stations Mk I starbase module (although they do have acces to Battle Stations Mark II and higher - it's just they can never upgrade to that point owing to the lack of Mark I).
The starbase module "Battle Stations Mk I" requires that you research the "Space Weapons" tech, which is not in the Thalan tech tree. Since, (as you point out), "Battle Stations Mk II" requires the "Battle Stations Mk I", I went ahead and put the "Space Weapons" tech back into the Thalan tech tree. I also put the "Space Defenses" tech back in, for consistency. By doing that, the Thalan now also get access to the "Protection Fields" starbase module.
Originally, we wanted the Thalans to have a faster route to the weapons/defense techs, so we removed the "Space Weapons" and "Space Defense" initial techs. Since I have put these two techs back in the tree, I made them cheaper for the Thalans to research in an attempt to keep the route fast but also fix the starbase module issue you pointed out.
4) The Thalan have no access to farms or any kind of food boosting building.
The Thalans get Industrial Adaptation 1, 2 and 3 instead of the traditional farming techs. This gives them unique access to "Manufacturing Matrix" improvements instead of farm improvements.
Another point is the when you choose neutral or evil with the altarians they don't get any intresting stuff only when they pick good.
another disturbing/disappointing thing is that certain race specific tech trees gain no extra bonuses from certain ethic choices...like the Altarians as neutral only get neutral shipping and learning centers, but if you choose good they get a half dozen extra defensive techs as well as some fleet defense and attack modules.
Also, I can kind-of see the Altarians not getting as much good stuff for neutral and evil as they do for good, given that they are already directed towards good by default... that seems like it might be intentional. I dunno.
The Altarians lean 99% towards Good by default. You purposely get extra techs when you choose a Good ethical alignment when playing as them.
3) The Torians, Krynn and Yor lack acces to Hyperwarp drives. Are they compensated for this in some way? (The Arceans lack acces to all drive tech beyond basic hyperdrive, but that I am pretty sure is intentional as they're compensated with their navigation tech).
The Torians purposely do not have the "Hyperwarp" techs, because these techs are at the end of the engine line of techs and the Torians are supposed to be less technically-advanced.
The Krynn purposely do not have the "Hyperwarp" techs. Further down in their tree, they have a race-specific tech called "Hasty Fleets" which unlocks a ship component that increases the speed of fleets.
The Yor have a race-specific tech called "Stellar Streams" that provides a boost to their speed ability. They intentionally do not have the "Hyperwarp" techs.
The Arceans (you're right) are intentionally missing some engine techs. They have race-specific "Navigation" techs instead.
5) The Krynn has Aquatic World Colonization as cheap as the Torians
And the Krynn version was using the Torian description! Whoops! Fixed.
the Iconians are simply not able to get advanced troops
The Iconians purposely have limited soldiering techs. They have some race-specific weapon techs to help offset this. They also have access to Kinetic Streams 123, Scatter Blasters 123, and Seekers 123, that not every race has access to.
The main Yor issue I found was that terror drones I seems to take way too much tech points. Terror drones II and III takes less. It seems backwards.
If you think about it, coming up with a completely new technology takes the most work. Simply improving upon it is easier because the groundwork is already there. This is the reason why Terror Drones 2 and 3 are less research-intensive than Terror Drones 1.
7) wondering why the Drath and Altarians have Healing Pools, and why the Altarians have Drathian Temples in their tech trees.
The Drath and Altarians have a common history, read up on the tech description for "Divergent Evolution" to learn more. Both have "Temples" and "Shrine of the Mithrilar" techs, but only the Altarians have a tech for "Shrine of Tandis". Both have the "Healing Pools" tech, and that is intentional as well.
