Thalan Super Ability

from GalCiv2 Forums
The Thalan Super Ability is Super Hive, which gives a boost on factories- something like quarter the cost, or you can buy at however much it would cost to build normally.

Unfortunately, I can't find factories ANYWHERE in the Thalan tech tree. And by the time I had realised to trade for Xeno Industry I realised I would also have to trade for further factory techs, and that the Thalan LVL 3 Hyperion Industry buildings or whatever they are called are MUCH superior to factories. Does the Super Hive ability need tweaked for TA?

Unless of course, the Thalan unique factory buildings get the production bonus.

Side note, the Thalans are fantastic. With the 3 Galactic Wonders on your home planet you have an EXPLOSIVE start- I had the normal colony ships out for about 3 turns per. I thought that the large pop growth penalty would be terrible, but selecting Pop Growth in abilities, and using the Universalist Party was fine by me. If you pick the Creative ability it's even possible to catch a free ride to your super unique factory buildings.
14,365 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am also awed by the Thalan's colony rush. In my Thalan game (medium map, 5 opponents) I had more colonies than all my opponents put together without really trying very hard. I obtained an unassailable lead in research even before I could build any labs!

I have to say, though, the higher tech factories/labs aren't worth it in my opinion, because they cost so much more to build. If you need to boost econ. you're better off increasing your trade building tech than trying to reduce your maintenance. Also, your research buildings aren't nearly as hot as your factories - Research Academies match your highest level labs for production and maintenance, but cost half as much to build (plus, they come with that 1/planet 25% boost). No neutrality centers is also painful. (though the slewof passive bonuses you get instead - +speed! Extra creativity! My god.)

Oh, and your starbases are pretty good. Not as powerful overall as Korx but the fact that you get your bases to full power with a single module, and make 'em essentially invincible with two more, is pretty helpful.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just started a game using the Thalans, and they're completely ridiculous. I didn't even need +pop growth, its pretty easy to keep %100 approval and yet stay competitve due their powerful unique buildings. You don't need very many production/research buildings because theyre so powerful, I just filled my planets with econ buildings. Once I got going it was just insane.

However, their unique production/research building also provides food. If you stick it on your homeworld you're doomed to 24 billion thalans later on! Goodbye approval :(. There's simply no other way to get started with them, however. Yonkers...
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, they do have approval buildings so the combination of powerful unique buildings & a few empty tiles to be filled with approval buildings and a political capital is quite ok.
I did tend to run into financial trouble later on though once I had more of the Thalan research & production buildings (they have considerably higher maintenance costs per MP / TP than the normal factories and labs)
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I filled all my worlds with econ buildings, then just added factories and labs as I could afford them- most worlds only had a few factories, a starport and a lot of econ buildings. I play them with industrialists and milk all their civ-wide production bonuses, so I didn't need to fill my worlds with factories to out-produce everyone else. Its easy to get an early lead in colonies which will see you through until you can reduce your maintenance costs. The Thalans' end-game is just obscene.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, they do have approval buildings so the combination of powerful unique buildings & a few empty tiles to be filled with approval buildings and a political capital is quite ok.I did tend to run into financial trouble later on though once I had more of the Thalan research & production buildings (they have considerably higher maintenance costs per MP / TP than the normal factories and labs)
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I have actually been purchasing Research buildings from other tech races. I find that the exchange rate is a lot better. Sure my research per building is lower, but with some of the bonus buildings you can get, plus star base adjustments, plus some of the civ wide bonuses you can get from other tech trades, I still swamp the rest of the universe in technology.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, they do have approval buildings so the combination of powerful unique buildings & a few empty tiles to be filled with approval buildings and a political capital is quite ok.I did tend to run into financial trouble later on though once I had more of the Thalan research & production buildings (they have considerably higher maintenance costs per MP / TP than the normal factories and labs)I have actually been purchasing Research buildings from other tech races. I find that the exchange rate is a lot better. Sure my research per building is lower, but with some of the bonus buildings you can get, plus star base adjustments, plus some of the civ wide bonuses you can get from other tech trades, I still swamp the rest of the universe in technology.
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Actually, the Thalan Research/Production buildings upgrade in efficiency as you research down their tree. They always produce 12 research/production, but their maintenance goes from 15 to 10 to 5. They really do get obscenely efficient in the endgame. (Especially compared to, say, the Yor, who get less and less efficient production-wise down their techtree to the poinr that its usually better NOT to advance those techs)

To me, the most efficient way to use them is to leave lots of tiles empty at the start, (relying on their MASSIVE output for low-level stuff) and fill them up later, as you get more and more efficient.

Using the non-production/research tiles for economy buildings is also good to feed the excessive maintenance early on. This also leaves you rolling in cash as you progress down the tech-tree, which is always nice. :-)
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have actually been purchasing Research buildings from other tech races.
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Tech trading is even more powerful in TA- every race has some weakness in its tech tree they can make up for with trading. I tend to go after AI techs that give civ-wide bonuses, and watch them stack and stack... :P
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have actually been purchasing Research buildings from other tech races.Tech trading is even more powerful in TA- every race has some weakness in its tech tree they can make up for with trading. I tend to go after AI techs that give civ-wide bonuses, and watch them stack and stack...
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Me too. I always search through what is in the offering by other races and really focus on those that provide some Civ wide boosts. when you have more than one, they really add up.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Like having an Iconian Huge ship with 709hp with an insane repair rate?

Yes, I'm insane and it was overkill....but man did it feel good.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Like having an Iconian Huge ship with 709hp with an insane repair rate?

Yes, I'm insane and it was overkill....but man did it feel good.
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Good grief Charlie Brown! It would take so much firepower to take that thing down. You wouldn't even need any armor on it.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good grief Charlie Brown! It would take so much firepower to take that thing down. You wouldn't even need any armor on it.
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Sadly, I think I have 1 of each of the best defensive modules on (good alignment w/ the GA for defensive bonus) and at least 1 Doom Ray on w/ a speed of 16 (2 +5 engines and then +5 in passives). I can double-check that if I remember...

Tech trading IS a bad thing when you see this ship floating into your space. Especially if you consider a Logistics of 68...allowing 6 of these bad boys in a fleet.

Buying every darn +hp tech from all the races in the game, stacking on the hp modules until I ran out of space, having a desire to do things VERY against the grain causes me to do things like this. That would also explain my AAR of me blowing up every last star in the Large galaxy, culminating in one big boom of me and another race going on the last star.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Er, wrong ship above for the defense and speed.

The 709hp monster had a movement of 5 and beam attack of 478. 9 Doom Rays, 2 Hyper Warp mk3, 31 Organic Hull Platings.

Due to passive bonuses, the base hp went from 338 to 709.
As for the attack, it went from 198 to 478.
Regens 6hp in space, 25 in orbit.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So basically it is a Dreadlord ship.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I've had one like that that even the Dread Lords couldn't beat - it started out with I think 900 base hp, and after killing a few hundred Dread Lords, it wound up at 1.5k hp.  Quite awesome.