Challenging to Tough and Thalans

Big Pink Blob O Questions

from GalCiv2 Forums

So, I was just mopping the floor with the AIs on Challenging; both as Drath and Terrans; and it's time to move to Tough games.  And, impressed by the Big Pink Blob of Death in previous outings, I decided to play Thalan.  

It's not going well; my first try I was a bit stuck in a corner and the Terrans went wild and by the time I really got going they owned half the map, rather more because than in spite of my attempts to embroil them in conflicts.  I'm on the second run and it's looking a lot similar; I ctrl-Ned to get a decent position, still on an edge but with a lot more Lebensraum, but the pink line is falling behind the Terrans and Krynn in every area, the Korath are threatening me from halfway across the map, and my nearest neighbor, the Korx, sucked up two decent planets in my area that I'd bypassed trying to establish a perimeter and won't give 'em back for less than my liver and kidneys.  Will they turn on me like a rabid dachshund if I start churning out influence starbases -- not that I can afford 'em... 

Is Tough that big a step?  Are the Thalan very difficult to play?  I'm finding them so; the balance of economy and production and population growth seems particularly awkward.  

I'd appreciate some perspective from more-experienced players here.  If I go down in this game I'll probably try Tough with Terrans or Drath.  

Thanks!

strategies
7,083 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Is this TOA or DA?

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

TOA -- sorry, I forgot to specify.  Weirdo tech tree and all. 

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The Terrans would be much easier because their tech tree is the least "exotic" in ToA, in fact it's very similar to DL/DA.

What's making the Thalans hard (other than the mere fact that their tech tree is out-of-the-ordinary):

  • Slow population growth (which in turn has an impact on your economy). Some of this -30% penalty can be offset by researching technologies that increase population growth
  • No factories, labs and econ buildings early in the game. And once you get them, they have a very high maintenance cost

The key to playing the Thalans is rapid early expansion thanks to the galactic achievement (Thalan matrix?) you have early on.

What I often do next is try to trade with other civilizations for their basic manufacturing / research / economy techs and build the according structures. At least that keeps you up and running until you've managed to research the corresponding Thalan techs. By the time you get the L1 Thalan techs, you should have a decent research output which allows you to research L2 (which leads to far lower maintenance costs of your factories & labs) quite quickly after reaching L1

 

I do seem to remember that Tough was quite a step up from Challenging (?) so you might want to take it in strides: either get familiar with a new race on a lower difficulty or try out Tough using a race you know how to play.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Thanks!

My retry with the Thalans is turing out very exciting; it's down to me vs the Krynn, with the Korx left with 10% of the map or so.  The Krynn have 60%, roughly, so it's going to be a good endgame, though they're on the wrong end of the attack/defense tactical missles/drivers/beams game, so I think I'm going to put 'em down. 

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Is that retry on challenging difficulty?

How are you faring against the Krynn? They can be quite tough to finish off once they've grown so large.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

It's still on Tough.  

The Krynn are on the ropes; it's a gigantic map so it just takes forever, but I'm eating them up steadily; they just couldn't compete militarily with my large ships with strong missile defenses.  The Thalan have a great endgame with those factory matrices and everyone else's industry techs to max out resource mines.  

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Sounds like a party!

Glad to see that you're managing well on tough with the Thalans.