certainly not the case for me. I have never ever seen minor races do anything other than die in EVERY game I have played without supporting them. Now I find it kind of fun to try and help them live. I go as the Drath and if anyone declares war on them, pay off other civs to whack the aggressor. btw it is impossible for minor races to dominate influence wise because they generate no influence. Only major races generate, and are affected by influence. For some reason though you can get the negative "alarming influence" diplomacy modifier with minor races, whick sucks.

Reply #2
The minors each receive starting high PQ planet but lack the ability to colonize and I have never seen them invade another player's planet. With their high PQ home world they could be powerful on a small map with rare colonizable planets but I have never played those maps.

Dear Mascrinthus,

I was playing a game on a gigantic map with tight clusters, abundant everything, random everything at "Cakewalk" and I had just busted 100 worlds in my empire when some class 0 world in one of my sectors suddenly generated an alien race that looked like a green skinned Scottingas. I was the Terrans, good alignment, and had researched my whole Tech tree when suddenly my Quartly GNN report shows me bumped to 2nd place by them??? Then the pirates show up and I'm knee deep in it and they attack my worlds with transports. When I looked at their relations tab (during their demand for one of my worlds) I saw that they were aligned with the pirates and the Drengin... the rest is history.  

If the AI for the minors is not dependant on difficulty like the majors, then at that level they could be pretty powerful compared to a cakewalk AI. Not sure though if the minors AI scales with difficulty or not.

I have seen as most have. The minors are only on par with majors in the early game, since they can just research and build constructors and not have to worry about a colony rush. It doesn't take long though with their limited resources, that they fall well behind all the majors.

I have never gotten a minor race and i have played 20+ games or so. So how do you get minor races anyways?

Are you playing DA? There's an option in the startup screen where you can manually select the # of minor races.

I never pay much attention to the minor races, but i might be able to help. it depend on what level the Major races are set at, if they are set high then they will see most minor races a valued ally. they will often trade with them to raise income because the minor race won't complain. it also depend on the ethical alignments, the Dark Yor wouldn't trade with the Acean because of the good Vs evil thing. the AI's in GC2 Are programed to act like humans and since i always make trade with Minors races (good or evil) i guess the AI's would too.

I have DA. I like playing with minor races. I keep some settings random except leaving one minor race. I play on normal difficulty. I find that most don't do much except give me good worlds to take over. The Scottlingas, when they appear always make a ton of constructors and freighters that zoom purposlessly all over the place, after all their trade routes are used up. I have found playing with one minor race, that if they are conquered another will spring up on an empty star system with dead worlds later.
I did have one really bad experience with minor races however. Not too long ago when I finished the campaigns and started experimenting with the games features, I set a huge galaxy with everything maxed out, except for research and no mega events, with eight minor races. Early in the game, still in the colonization phase, in a system close to my capitol world, I discovered a minor race known as the Dread Lords (just like in the campaign...and I thought I was done with them). They built plenty of ships efficiently and intelligently, denying me access to space. In a few turns their transports were raining on my planets (it had to be less than five turns after initial contact, and I only had a few planets). Before long, they gave me the opportunity to start a new game. If the game lasted 50 turns it was a lot.
After that I decided 1 minor race would be really cool, right? I wouldn't want my game to slow down, or get buggy, or for the major race AI to suffer or anything like that.
If the Dread Lords have been a minor race in your games, please post it.

Dread Lords in DA ARE a MegaEvent. And I am not sure they are turned off when you disable or 0 the number of minor races; to be sure they won't show up you need to turn off Megas.

Now, handling them.
Well, they never neutralize spies, so there was one game where I had every space on their first 2 planets covered by spies; slowed them way down. Unfortunately, you apparently can't steal any tech from them.
When they first appear on the map they are as weak as any new race, that is, their planet is undeveloped, so if you have military to spare, you can whack them pretty easily then.
Surprisingly enough, they respond well to trade. Several trade routes with them can be very profitable. And they'll get to like you enough that they will save your civ up for a late snack.
Probably the best tip is, if the Dread Lords are on the map and they've got their initial planet all built out (they build all manufacturing sectors, and they apparently already have all the techs, and all the money they'll ever need), DON'T be GOOD! Use that Xeno Ethics opportunity to warp your alignment to something that the DL are not going to consider to be a tasty luncheon pastry. (grin)

drrider

PS - they are quite defeatable if you catch them early, or if you can hold them off with good trade relations, etc, until you have late game war techs. Quickly finishing all the Soldiering / Planetary Defense techs & Quir Tran Training after they show up is a good idea; even if they start to beat up your fleet, all the defense modifiers will make them reluctant to invade your planets.

What's red and squishy and goes 5 pc a turn?

A: The Dread Lords when your galaxy gets the 5 speed mega event ...

Yep you heard it right here ... after getting the 5 speed mega event in my 1st DA giga map I thought the game was over. 15 turns later the Dread lords show up and 50 turns after that their still only rated #4 with 2 minor civs ahead of them...  Without their phenomenal speed adj their just a push over (I wacked them with just battleships). Their whole strategy is based on speed. Take that away and they just can't compete - even with the minor civs...I actually got messages saying the DL made peace with minor civs!!!!

I had the DLs show up in the later portion of a DA game a while ago. I had 3 transports nearby and invaded immediately. End of problem. It would have been a different story if it had been early, though.

Hydro

Minor Races are great for getting multiple super projects. Like the capitals and the Hyperion Shrinker. Sell them the tech early, let them build it for you and later you get an extra econ capital or whatever.