Thalan empire

from GalCiv2 Forums
So I have been playing GC2 TOA now fow about 5-6 days and mostly been playing the thalan empire.  I first tried them on the easy setting to just give them a test drive.  It took me more then a few games to figure them out and I really feel they are under powered.  The first thing I want to talk about is there "super ability".  The super hive  Starts out with a significant range bonus and factories are produced faster.  The race doesn't get factories until much later in the game unless you can get lucky with tech stealing or trading.  I would rather see a morale and production bonus for this ability since it seems to fit better with the nature of a hive.  The second thing I wanted to address is the lack of real social buildings with the exception of the embasy.  Instead of having any real options we are forced into becoming influence machines.  This is a race that manged to not only travel to this dimension they also manged to travel back in time yet they have no clue how to create basic factories and labs to help in its quest to stop the terrans from destroying the multi-verse.  The only reason I won on easy was I had expanded so far and my influence was so high I was making money hand over fist and could afford to send gifts of money to help keep me in good standings with all the races.  Once I moved up a notch in difficulty this became almost impossible.  The computer had expanded almost as far as I had some even more and they did not like my influence push so they would regularly attack me and keep me from making any real progress in terms of research and money.  All in all I really think the race as a whole needs to be looked into.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Thalan's are fine as is, even with tech trading off. They just require an entirely different look on life is all.

They do have a morale building via the Expert Gravity Channeling tech (Zero-G Amusement building). Farms are non-existant, but that is due to story. The Thalans are meant to be a low population race. Lacking a further population throttle, the don't get many soldiering techs, thus their people are seemingly far worse at ground combat than others, thus it seems you're bringing less people to battle.

I personally play them in the 'pink blob of doom' approach (tons of embassies) until I can get Creativity to go off a few times until I get to the factory buildings. It seems that luck of the Creativity proc gets you to the factories faster than hard work will. So I turn my research down to the min I can and still see some time remaining for the techs and build embassies until I'm green in the face.

Yes, they are a very slow race to get started with tech trading off, but once they get rolling they are a force to be reckoned with.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thalans are one of the strongest races in the game, and probably have the strongest end game as their infrastructure built with knowledge from the future comes online. A perusal of some of the previous ToA Thalan threads can give an idea of the characteristics of the race.

Because they become invincible later on, they are a hollow paper empire in the early game for balance, but they expand rapidly and that early in the game you shouldn't be getting creamed anyway by the random jealous hum drum pedestrian empires.

When you go to war, concentrate invasions on civilization capitals. Good luck, and have fun
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Thalans are a very good race, other people have posted that they are actually the best race. The computer tends to do very well with them.

The one thing that is tricky about them is knowing when the build the manufacturing and research matrices. You can cripple your empire by building them too early. And really you should probably only build the lvl 1 structures on bonus tiles, otherwise the upkeep will shut you down. Then you also have to know the best time to research the upgrades. The creative trait helps, it seems cheap when you get the upgrades after one or two turns (so maybe creative shouldn't even apply those techs)
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've found that the upgraded Thalan tech buildings simply aren't worth the research. Thalan economy is founded on their unequaled colony rush - build your hyperion matrix on a production bonus tile and you'll build a colony ship once every two turns from then on - and an early adv. market center spam. Once you can afford to research and build factories and labs, you get a much bigger financial boost from boosting your market centers than from reducing the maintenance on your production structures, not even counting the cost of upgrading those structures (in turns and bc).
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I really like the Thalans, though they do take some getting used to. In my last few games I didn't bother researching the main research and manufacturing buildings. The early ones simply cost too much in maintenance and the later ones are very expensive to research (unless you have creative, as noted above). Instead, I've found it much easier to simply trade for the manufacturing and research building techs I need when I need them and put my research into other areas. Also, I've found that researching the main economy building early is a good thing since it will help your economy recover from the early and fast Thalan rush as well as give you something to build besides embassy's. I also trade to get the tech for recruitment center to help offset the Thalan's slow pop growth.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I probably lost my love for the Thalans somewhat (they my absolute favourite during DA) but still they were doing pretty good when I did 3 games with them on ToA.

For what it's worth, here's how I handled them:

1 super-production planet (usually homeworld) where I early only build a fleet of Colony-ships then Constructors to grab as many ressources as possible and then try to build as many Tradegood/GAs there as possible.
I usually tried to get Harmony Crystals (helps a ton to stay at 100% morale for deent pop-growth), Diplo Translators, Eyes of Universe and whatever else I can get my hands on.

Rest of my planets where usually left pretty empty early on - just building econ buildings there slowly

important: ferrying pop between your planets (Mainly from homeworld to the others) so they pop grows faster there.

And finally trying to get techs in whatever way possible (early on trading), later I just get my techs by taking planets from the AIs...

With my usual very slow/Slow research settings my games were always over before I could get to the later parts of their tech tree...but probably I still don't like having so many "empty" planets for so long...that's why I try other races now.