[Taqwus]

Hrm. Did they fix Emotionless so that when rioting planets surrender to you, you can actually get them to *stop* rioting?

Yes, for Religious, the Talisman is VERY nice. A heavy beam weapon on a ship normally can have a range of 8, but against an legendary crew with ECM III it might not hit that often -- without a Talisman. And a Starbase with max-mount beam weapons and a Talisman will *always* hit at even the maximum augmented range (something like +5 or so, IIRC). You can then ignore the very-expensive Sensors tech area, getting Hyper-Optics instead. The nature shrine is also good (saves a LOT of facility slots in a decent system), and the time shrine will tide you over until you build the System Robotoid Factories (which give higher bonuses IIRC).

Incidentally, that Talisman probably makes even regular weapons effective against fighter swarms.

In my Last game, I boosted ground combat for role-playing reasons (playing an utterly uber-competitive, selfish, cunning, brutal race without any advanced traits at all -- just bonuses, reducing only trade [arrogance angering off other races]). I never invaded anybody, although at one point I did produce heavily shielded troop transports each carrying ~150 Large Troops (2xShield, 3xGround Cannon, or something like that) just in case I felt the urge.



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-- The thing that goes bump in the night