That is typical of the Thalans to finish one of their wonders the first turn (which takes place during YOUR first turn before you hit turn).

Yea. I figured it was something like that. This, however, took place before I even hit the OK of the "The puny humans have given us hyperdrive. We'll use it to abduct their sheep and probe their rednecks" line.

I didn't get an opportunity to rush buy it. Somehow, being deprived of an *essential*, 'only one can be built' wonder before you even get to make a move strikes me as being... I dunno... somehow flawed?

I would agree there. Make those buildings Super Projects and the tech requiring them be untradable/unstealable. That would stop the entire galaxy from having the buildings, yet allow the races with those tech trees to build their essential buildings.

~rings the "hey you guuuuuys (and girls)" bell~

This could potentially be fixed by making all these Racial-starting 'Galactic-Achievements' be Super Projects. Of course, there is a side-effect there that it becomes potentially possible to build and own more than one of these buildings if you lose the planet they are built on and later recapture it...

I'm not sure if it is possible, but that could be avoided by making them Destructible Super Projects. Then, when you lose the planet, the buildings get destroyed, like other race-unique buildings. Of course, that doesn't stop a Thalan player from getting another set of these buildings if there happens to be a AI player with the Thalan tech tree... but, that's a different problem.

Another option might be a "Racial Achievement" class of buildings, which a number of can exist in the galaxy, but only 1 per Race that can build it.