Thalans, beam weapons, general help needed....

Game is eating my lunch ... not sure why - HELP!

In my games I am noticing that the Thalans, in addition to rapidly consuming the known universe through colonization, field massively powerful small/medium ships. I am seeing small ships with 10 beam weapon ratings and mediums with much high. This should be impossible due to size constraints given that it is just leaving the first 3rd of the game and entering into the middle phase....

I've also noticed the Krynn rapidly expand and eat up people - I have yet to see a game where any other empires except the Thalans and Krynn go crazy - these two are always destroying everyone else (I play in an immense galaxy with common everything and AI set to tough with 9 opponents and no minor races and Super Abilities off - in fact, everything is off except tech stealing and alliances)

Do they receive some sort of ungodly fast beam technology? or ultra-powerful weapons? Just curious.... I thought I had a good game going on an immense universe with the Terrans and, for a while, was the leader in tech/economy. Then, even though I had researched up to banking centers for economy and the 4th level research centers (forget name) my tech rating fell to 80 and my economic to 90-110. I obviously kept researching and, at the time this happened, had a star democracy.... but within 50 turns I was 4th in all rankings???

Not sure how I lost my lead so fast.... it seems strange. So now my game has me 4th, with Thalans with Beam 10 weapons on small ships flying around and, even though I have 5 planets at 20+ quality evenly divided between tech/econ, not to mention the other 25+ planets and their buildings, I cannot keep up at all. The Krynn are about twice my size in terms of space/planets, the Thalans are equal size.

The only race I've played successfully so far are the Yor. I won my first two games of ToA with them but, now that I'm trying the Terrans, I'm getting slaughtered.

Any thoughts? Ideas ....?? I'm happy to answer any questions. This is my 4th restart with about 5-6 hours per game where I give up b/c the Thalans become so massively powerful. It is getting discouraging.

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Well, I think the Thalans get a miniturazation bonus, which would allow them to add more weapons, and they might have weapons bonuses with their racial points as well, maybe even the war party political set-up. But I am unaware of any race getting beam weapon tech bonuses, except for the Korath, they get that weird ion weapon thing.

Have you actually fought the ships? Are they using psionic beams? You can get those fairly early.

As for the Krynn, I'm not sure why they are doing so well, other than the fact that they are a pretty good race because of morale and influence bonuses.

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Mistralok1

Join Date 05/2006

+22

at the time this happened, had a star democracy.

It seems that while you were researching up the diplomatic/influence branch of the tech tree, the Thalans were researching weapons. Diplomacy will only take you so far- in the end you are going to have to actually fight.

As far as your falling behind in research goes, the re-written AI is much better at managing these things. You don't have to have the absolute tech lead in order to win this game. In most of my games, I tend to lag behind a bit in tech, but I win nonetheless.

One more thing; don't be so fast to give up. Some of my most memorable games are those in which I came back from a seemingly impossible situation. A lot can happen in this game. Play smart, and you may surprise yourself.

Good luck.

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If you're playing with super abilities off that might suggest why the kyrnn do so well - they have by far the best starting race bonuses, and this is usually countered by them having the weakest super-ability (meaning with no super abilities they get a relative advantage over all the other races).

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Would the research cost bug be the cause for this?

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I have noticed this in DA as well, at the end when there are only 2 or 3 civ left (other than me) Krynn has been there on all of my games and they are on the same level as me or stronger.

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Hi!

I am seeing small ships with 10 beam weapon ratings

Well, for DA that's nothing special. Im my games I've met yor's heavy fighters with missile attack ranging from 20 to almost 40! I put om my mediuns up to 150 points of missile defense to counter them. In late mid game that was still not enough (their fleets had missile attack 300+), so my large ships got about 300 missile defenses. Yep, I've been fielding battleships with three harpoons(!!!) and 20+ aeron point defenses!

BR, Iztok

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10 beam rating is nothing special - that is only 5 plasma weapons and a couple of miniaturization steps.

I would normally expect to be producing small hulls with 10 beam attack early into the 2nd year of the game. The Thalan will be much quicker because their tech tree in TotA means they have nothing much to build on their planets early on, so they only need to divide output between (and fund) military and research.

With the Terran diplomacy bonuses you should be able to keep them friendly (use trade routes and get a research / economy treaty with them). I've found them very useful allies.

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Pfft, this is nothing. I get Korath "heavy fighters" with attack ratings of around 150 after the first year and a half or so. It's like they do nothing but research weapons...

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