Thalians are weird (TA beta4)

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.

I'm having some trouble with starbases. I've researched Defense Industries and Hyperion Starbases and I'm not seeing any offensive or defensive modules available. Are Thalan starbases supposed to be defenseless?

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.

They are very cool, very different, thats what TA is supposed to be all about.

I just trust the Atrians tech tree will be reworked to be as or nearly unique.

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.

Is that true even after learning Xeno Ethics? I saw their base tech tree and though it was quite bland and Drath-like until I remembered that the Thalan's get a ton of techs opened up depending on what ethical alignment they pick...so I took care of Xeno Ethics and a whole world of techs opened up.

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."

They get the normal neutral techs, they just aren't placed after the xeno ethics but in branches associated with the type of tech that they are (Neutral shipping after trade, etc).

Has anyone tried playing the Thalans under a very slow tech advancement? I would think they would be seriously hurting under such a setting.

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

Quote: "Has anyone tried playing the Thalans under a very slow tech advancement? I would think they would be seriously hurting under such a setting."

I always play on very slow tech. I tried the thalans on very slow without tech trading and even with all money to research it took me forever to get close to their markets,factories,labs. I quit the game and started one with tech trading on and that helped tremendously.

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.

I had the same idea about the 'second homeworld'. Found a nice juicy class 26 right next door

I still have no idea how to play this race though. Right as I'm about to get a second planet up and running, my morale or economy just crumples into ruin. I rushed Xeno Banking and L1 techs but it's just ridiculous trying to get more than two planets running.

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

Also, they have absolutely no morale boosting abilities besides the original building. Since morale always constantly drops with population, what the hell am I supposed to do? When the population on Thala gets around 13B, even with the morale center, taxes have to be dropped significantly to keep morale above around the 60% mark. I've never played a game where I could get away with no morale boosting without significantly hurting my economy, and now not only do the Thalans have to do that, but they have absolutely nothing going for them otherwise.

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)

What? They have factories. Very expensive factories, but factories nevertheless. Considering how cheap they are to make, I believe their super ability is functioning properly in this regard.

The real problem is not noticing the maintenance cost and building too many... not that I did that. Once.

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.

Really? How the hell did I miss that? Whoops

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 taking SD's comment that they still have balancing to do with the Altarians and Thalans to heart

I didn't have a terrible time with them (I won an Alliance victory with the Terrans), but I think that had more to do with a fortunate Class 19 or something that was next to my homeworld. I basically had to fill it with Econ buildings and run taxes at 49% to stay afloat. My homeworld was perpetually at 40% approval because of a 24 billion population limit. Those Morale buildings just couldn't cope with the taxes and the population. I even had Harmony Crystals there.

I don't have a problem playing the Thalans differently, but they feel hamstrung right now - especially with 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.

Their population penalty is effectively only 20% (they start with Xeno Medicine) and later is negated entirely by their two unique Pop Growth techs.

I dunno, I didn't have any trouble remaining the top economic player for basically the entire game. Granted, I placed my Hyperion Matrix on a 300% research tile, bought the other two buildings, and set the slider to 100% research and RUSHED to Galactic Stock Exchanges and the second Government tech.

Picked up shields and stingers, and the first of both the Thalan's research and industry buildings, then I actually started expanding like any other game. Was probably about December of the first year before I actually started expanding. I used my research capability advantage to remain the top in military, influence (well... that was probably just the Stock Exchanges...), etc as well. I also made sure to pick up Economic and Research Treaty from every Major race as soon as I met them.

This was on an Immense Galaxy with 9 random, tough opponents (no minors). Still haven't finished it (not suprisingly), but I am very, very close to a Diplomatic Victory, and could easily just finish the game with a Tech Victory if I wanted to.

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...