Minors need a mjor revamp.

And now for the gratuitous bump.

Save the minors.

I'm with you, but i find minors useful in stealing techs and not bombing MY planets just a couple of idea's, if you make an allaince with a minor race can you get bonuses eg.+25% esponage or gain extra abilites like the chooseing of which planet to bomb or destroy which starbase etc.

Or simply make them own every planet in there system insted of just haveing one puny class 15 planet

An event which makes them form their own "UFP" league would be good (effectively meaning that all the minors become allies). Or a UFP vote to allow one/all minosr to join... they often rack up quite a bit of influence.

I think some people have reported "breakouts" by minor races where they do become powerful, but this is rare (and it should be); it shows that they have the potential. But it does seem like they get the sh1tty end of the AI stick; nothing worse than giving you Minor buddy half a dozen cruisers to defend himself with then watching as he just leaves them where they are for 50 turns!

Yea, but the problem is... I give them planets in their system, but they just don't expand.

I have been playing since the day it came out. I've played hundreds of games, and only once do I remember the minors doing anything of consequences. that's just not enough.


One more thing... there needs to be a way to tell the AI to GTFO of your sphere of influence, it is obvious what it is trying to do.... I see the new algorithm where it is massing it's forces before attacking, but in my sphere of influence where I can see it??? that's just dumb. I am about to unleash holy hell on all of it's small fleets.

I bribed a minor into attacking a major and they just sat there and did nothing.

In other words, they took your money and ran.

Sucker.

Seems they are not so dumb after all.

Actually had a minor attack me in a recent game. He delcared war and sent a fleet. No troop transports though.

Another use for minors is to give them any low-class words you get early on, and let them pay the maintenence and development costs (not to mention PQ when you sell 'em Soil and Habitat) then get them back later when you can afford them.

i had a minor race that would have won the game, but i got tired and started a new game. they eliminated the altarians and almost whipped me out to! the minor races in my games are something to hate. they often kill of a major race or two, one time i got help by a minor race (the snathi) then i played as the yor, i won the game becuse of them and my evil allies, they destroyed the arceans.

Conversely, it wish it were possible to allow the minor races to "join" your civ, by peaceful means as apposed to invasion.

If you sign an alliance with a minor, then their world and population then becomes yours, etc, rather than having to culture flip them (which is difficult for the homeworlds).

If you sign an alliance with a minor, then their world and population then becomes yours, etc, rather than having to culture flip them (which is difficult for the homeworlds).

You can't culture flip minors, only the planets of the majors.

I also would like to see limited expansion from minors. The suggestion of letting them colonize their home system is a good one, but I might go a little farther and give them a radius arround their homeworld, say 20 parsecs or so that they can expand into.

All good suggestions. My point is, we need them to be more proactive. In the game I was describing last night, lo and behold the I-League appeared (I was happy) and they lasted a whole 5 turns (sad again).

The minors need to be able to culturally flip a few neighboring worlds, build some good fleets and truely defend themselves. Maybe even invade a world or too.


But at the moment their AI is weird. So, here is an example. The Snathi are fighting the Humans, and they are holding their own, and instead of making a few good fleets to kick the humans asses, they make small fleets of 3-4 fighters and send them to attack nearby human worlds, and almost leave their homeworld unprocted. Humans send in a few escorted transports (bravo.. about time) where even the transports have basic weapons and shield (I am getting excited here) and lay waste to the Snathi and take their homeworld (booooooooo) while maybe 6 or 7 small fleets just watch.

Minors work as designed.

Sometimes the minors can cause a bit of chaos, notably the Snathi since they are famous for trying to pick fights with almost everybody. In one game (on a lower difficulty level) the snathi managed to grab two, maybe three other planets.

Otherwise, they either make good trade partners when they are distant enough and they always have juicy high quality homeworlds

Frogboy. I realise that minors "work as designed", is there a way to redesign them a bit so they could play a slightly larger role in the game?

Frogboy. I realise that minors "work as designed", is there a way to redesign them a bit so they could play a slightly larger role in the game?

Not really. We went through this with GalCiv1 and it was always a right along with requests for tons of options to control minor behavior. It becomes a never-endign time sink. In GalCiv1, the minors colonized, invaded, expanded, etc. to the point where the galaxy was sometimes dominated by minors (not often, but it was possible and did happen occasionally).  This time we decided that minors would stick to their home world and mainly exist to trade with, establish trade routes with, and invade.

Not really. We went through this with GalCiv1 and it was always a right along with requests for tons of options to control minor behavior. It becomes a never-endign time sink. In GalCiv1, the minors colonized, invaded, expanded, etc. to the point where the galaxy was sometimes dominated by minors (not often, but it was possible and did happen occasionally). This time we decided that minors would stick to their home world and mainly exist to trade with, establish trade routes with, and invade.

Ah. Game feature. Got it. I guess I shouldn't feel bad for the "game animals", everyone has to eat something. Kool. No mercy.

Ah. Game feature. Got it. I guess I shouldn't feel bad for the "game animals", everyone has to eat something. Kool. No mercy.

This is a great quote!

Minors work as designed.

Food.

Not really. We went through this with GalCiv1 and it was always a right along with requests for tons of options to control minor behavior. It becomes a never-endign time sink. In GalCiv1, the minors colonized, invaded, expanded, etc. to the point where the galaxy was sometimes dominated by minors (not often, but it was possible and did happen occasionally). This time we decided that minors would stick to their home world and mainly exist to trade with, establish trade routes with, and invade. [Commander]

Brad, could you make it so that minors expand to fill up there home system and no more?

Not really. We went through this with GalCiv1 and it was always a right along with requests for tons of options to control minor behavior. It becomes a never-endign time sink. In GalCiv1, the minors colonized, invaded, expanded, etc. to the point where the galaxy was sometimes dominated by minors (not often, but it was possible and did happen occasionally).

This sounds like a perfect solution. Too bad it was dropped. Why cannot the smaller races also have a chance to win (although a much smaller chance than the big guys)?

Yeah it would have been nice if the minors (have them included or not, but once included), would act as aggressive or as passive as their designed nature. So some minor races would be a real nightmare to be close to and could actually destroy you if you are not careful.

I never waste time trading with them (use trade to make friends with people I dont want to fight yet), so minors are just something I eat up fast (yum) if they are near me.

Minors work as designed.

This time we decided that minors would stick to their home world and mainly exist to trade with, establish trade routes with, and invade.

I have no problem with them not expanding, but I kind of dislike the way they're designed to build large numbers of fleets that park themselves a couple of parsecs from their home planet and then never move again, even while they're at war and being invaded over several turns. They should at least be able to utilize their ships for defense.

They add a lot of flavor to the game, and I love the fact that they're in there. I just wish they could act a little more intelligently seeing as they already have rules in place to handicap their ability to become a major galactic player (i.e. no colonization).

One bug I'm waiting to get verified with minors is their ability scoring. Their list of ability scores in RaceCongig.xml does not match up with what you see in the game when viewing their profile. This kills the ability to effectively mod your own minors if they're truly not getting the bonuses applied to them in the XML.

A previous post goes into more detail on this.

In a savegame I have, the Carinoids have actually wiped out my only enemy the Drening completely by themselves. They own everything but some other minor race planets and of course myself. But yes, their only advantage over me is their sheer amount of star systems and that the AI doesnt feel patience to go through them all... but well, my ships are as good as they get .

In other words I dont really feel like they need a revamp. Remember that they are just that, minor, a little nuisance.

Heroofsorts...


can you take a couple of screenshots of that save game, I am very curious...