nine races only?

one can only say wait and see whats in the expansion pack then

The amount of races you can be is only limited by your imagination I add in tons of custom races just so I have a wide variety to choose from

Actually, there are ten races - the humans and nine aliens. And then there are the custom races of course.

the fact that you can design your own races makes this post topic moot, if u want more races make em urself

in reality there would be more like a milloin races, and how could they fit them all on a game only 2 Giga Bytes large, it would take at least 5 Terra Bytes. A satalite is only 3. Any way they can add more in expansion packs and mods.

There are 11 races by chosing "random" number of enemies and making your civ the custom civilization. Then all you need to do is to select the last civ (that is greyed out) and presto, you got your own civ and 10 enemies in the game = 11 in total (12 if you mod the game a bit and add the Dread Lords).

@spazzykid: Could you make a little tutorial on adding functional major/minor races to the game, pretty pleeze??

For gigantic maps, a total of 20 + the player would make for a much more epic feel. the minor's are nice, but ufortuantely are currently bound by too many restrictions to fill the gap.

If there were 20+ then the foreign relations screens would have to be redone... but it sounds possible.

Can you imagine what it would be like late game with twenty races, and 12 frieghters each, with God knows how many other ships, and hundreds of worlds? It would take half an hour for a turn to go by. Unless you had an Uber-processor.

I think it would be easier, and just as fun, if some restrictions were taken off the minors. Maybe let them colonize or something. Just make them less aggressive, and maybe give them some stat penalties, to simulate their status as a minor race.