I'm about 2/3rds of the way through my second ever game as the Torians; I'd never played 'em before, even with DL or DA, dunno why really, just preferred the other races. But, I decided to give them a try for to see what they were like...and holy s#!t!! They are by FAR the easiest race I have played with so far. My second game with them, Crippling difficulty, Immense / abundant everything / 9 majors 5 minors / conquest only enabled, I got 80% of the galaxy just from colonising ( the Iconians surrended to me, but only had 7 planets) and now I'm culture flipping 1 or 2 planets every turn without having built a single influence starbase.
I maxed out morale and econ on the race setup, and I'm just finding that they are unstoppable; the population growth bonus makes the economy/production balance easy to manage, and the special buildings - Harvester, Temple of Memories, and especially the Central Mine, give the Torians a totally unfair advantage IMHO. The Central Mine is ludicrously cheap to build and maintain for the output it gives, and to have it available on every planet one turn after colonisation (for just 204bcs) combined with the population growth makes the Torian rush like a green tidal wave swamping the screen from corner to corner! And the Temple boosts morale AND influence 15% for low cost, and you get extra population capacity and growth with the Harvester! Whatever the designers were on when they were setting up the Torians, I WANT SOME!
If you are new to TA, I would definately recommend the Torians as your "starter" race, with the downside that when you move on to the other races you might be a little disappointed, (or need to move back a difficulty level or two...)
Interested to hear anyone elses thoughts on the Torians, and also other races you "avoided" playing only to find you liked em when you did try them! I used to avoid the Yor too, but found their Isolation ability a pain in the a$$ to play against, and wondered what it was like to have that working for me instead of against me...they rock too, just not as much as the Torians!
