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.