I believe the Thalians are probably noy suited to a conquest victory, especially on the larger maps.

I have also had no difficulty staying ahead in econ and tech and an influence victory on small maps seems relatively easy. While I have not played any huge+ games, the issue of sustaining the economy on huge or immense maps with the population limits would seem to be problematic.

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 keep tinkering with the thalans on a medium galaxy normal. The economy crash due to population and expansion is troubling but I will find an optimal solution around it.

All in all however this is the way a BETA should be

Alot of players who play different ways sounding off

The finished product should be winning some awards

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.

If that works out in practice for you then I must be wrong. Meanwhile, I built one of those mega ships in a recent game but my economy would not sustain me on a large map so forgettabout huge and immense for my level of ability

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.

Well, I really rushed my research to get out the top level economic buildings in my systems (as well as the second Government tech) before I even attempted to expand in this game.

Most of my worlds are dominated by Stock Exchanges (even still this late in the game) and I made sure to get Economic treaties with each Major Race as I met them, even giving away economy techs to some of the more... peaceful races (ie: Altarians) that I had Economic treaties with, just to make them more effective.

I never built more than 1 of each of the Thalan's Industry/Research buildings on any planet until I researched the better ones, but I tried to make sure every planet had 1 of both (favoring research).

Basically, I really had to work, wait a long time, and hold off expanding to make my economy work, but it really paid off in the end.

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.

I find it interesting to note that the first, most easily obtainable regular planetary improvement available to the Thalans is the simple Embassy. heh.

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.

Friendly nature, lots of money/tech, high diplomacy. Lots of Civs are willing to exchange an Economic Treaty for an Economic Treaty (and maybe your research treaty), at least in my experience. Some Civs, though (like the bloody Terrans in my current game) just seem to NOT want to give the damn things away, no matter how much you offer them.

Also, I can't believe I (or anyone else, for that matter) forgot to mention this earlier... but if you are going to play the Thalans... take Creativity as a racial ability pick. It will save you a lot of turns trying to research their basic infrastructure.

Creativity proc'd a lot in the beginning, but it seemed to happen a lot less as the game went on... hmm...

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.

Spending points to be Creative really helps their 70 turns to research a tech...ha, more like 5 if your creative.

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.

Agreed on the Creativity thing. It took me 2 turns to get a 19-turn tech late in the game. What was really cool was researching Tri-Strontium, and getting all the Tri-Strontium, Kanvium and half of Adamantium for free, thanks to Creativity.   

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

Having played and won a game as the Thalans (with econ and creativity bonuses to ease the pain), I decided to play against them only to find entire planets covered in cultural exchange centres. With the "xenophiles" event in place, they now have about 25% of the influence in a large, reasonably sparse galaxy (also inhabited by myself and four other races) despite not seeming to be otherwise pursuing a cultural victory. If I colonise, buy or invade a world in their territory it almost instantly flips back. I'm currently debating invading Thala itself (about 15 CEEs + homeworld influence) and seeing if I can use it to flip other Thalan worlds, just for a giggle, although playing as Altarians this is more of a challenge than it would otherwise be. Time to research mystic soldiers...

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

You could invade several closely spaced worlds at the same time, reducing their influence in that sector to a reasonable amount. Or you could send in a few sacrificial empty transports and invade with Tidal Disruption to clear out the embassies and weaken their influence that way.

I almost always go for the homeworld first unless their fleets are so strong I can't get a task force through. Send in enough troops to take Thala without resorting to destructive invasion tactic and give it a large population right from the start and you'll be flipping the surrounding worlds in no time.

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