Thalan one planet strategy (highest difficulty)

So yesterday I played my first game on the highest difficulty. Some information:

Medium Galaxy (random kind), all things on occasional, slowest research and pace settings, 4 opponents (Terran, Iridium, Altarian and Galactic Empire (a mod from steam) and 3 minor races.

So it turned out I was completely isolated, I had 6-7 stars close to me and ALL without habitable planets. The other races were pretty far away from me. I always prefer to play tall but this just seemed cruel.

Here’s the strategy: Thalans get free tech so I picked the first 2 manufacturing (choosing cheaper manufacturing costs) and then the first science tech. It’s weird, sometimes you get this last one and sometimes you’ll have to research one more turn. I don’t remember what happened this time. In any case I rush buy the technological capital in an ideal location (a lot of place around it). After that I go for hives (an awesome building), then for cheaper technological buildings, then for the research matrix and cloisters. So after a number of turns I have a planet that has one hive, 2 manufacturing buildings and a huge technological district giving me an enormous tech lead. After this I build farms and whatever seems best at the time.
For money I send trade ships (4). I also trade a little with the AI, mainly to get the cheap techs for which I don’t want to waste turns. When I get medium hulls I build some ships, I go for large hulls and build some more, I go for massive hulls and build some more. I got dow one time but never faced a real threat. I used a couple of constructors but they weren’t really necessary. I got one planet from the surrendering Altarians but it had little value compared to my home planet. Eventually I easily managed to build the Ascension Gate and won a tech victory.

So this was a little disappointing. I did not micro manage all that much and still won easily. I thought I was screwed because there were no planets nearby. Instead I managed a very easy win. Are the Thalans simply op? They get some amazing science buildings, they get hives, they get some extra adjacency bonuses, can build both tech and manufacturing capital… Or was I instead very lucky being isolated? Maybe I’ll try another game later.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

They are generally considered to be not op but OP. Of course this only shows up when a human plays their faction.

Successfully updated karma reason!

A couple of things:

1) as Franco says, the Thalans are insanely OP right now. Their tech tree is generally agreed to be by far the best, while their unique buildings are without exception excellent. They really ought to dominate every game, but the reason they don't is...

2) The AI is deeply flawed in a lot of ways which the handicap bonuses (the only effect of higher difficulties) just don't help with. It won't use transports beyond about 16 hexes from where the transport starts, so you were almost certainly immune to invasion. It's pretty bad at sending fleets much beyond the same distance. It's unable to specialize planets, it has very silly build orders for it's colonies (like spamming terraforming before building any buildings, improving existing buildings before adding additional ones, building all types of buildings on supposedly specialized planets etc). It's ship blueprints are so dire that I'm not convinced the person who added them understood how the system works (far too much expensive life support, not enough engines, not enough actual firepower). Several of the AI strategies which it follows for >100 turns are actively detrimental. It doesn't have any concept of morale and just builds a set menu of improvements, so it's not really able to react to changing circumstances at all.

Frogboy is writing massive improvements to the AI for a later patch, and there's several mods which make the AI better on this very forum, but presently there's not a great deal of challenge in the base game.

Successfully updated karma reason!