Minor Race Colonized a Planet

Wouldn't that be nice to have as a DEFAULT option during a game setup phase?

Lemme explain;

-- It's all funny and all to witness incapacitated Minor Races just waiting to be invaded in their exclusive system but, the planet alone may be of interest to some major.
-- They take up valuable assets for nothing else but a few transports and high-tech invasion forces.

What if;

-- In YOUR very own system you'd have a Minor planet to handle or to exploit by Alliance.
-- Somewhere out there, a system or two holds ALL minor races in the game. Four to Five planets ready to crush into.
-- Playing only against Minor(s) which can (by modifying their abilities) and most probably will colonize the available nearby planets (say, within a 8+/- parsecs radius or even just with the planets present around the local star).

The basic reasoning for the above suggestion is quite simple; Challenging new conditions and competitivity "rationale". The default wasted elements are obvious, the factors integrated already ENFORCES the gap between a fully developped Major against a very weak Minor, the diplomatic issues are limited, and so on.

Don't get me wrong, the game is strongly balanced as it is. Although, i think it would be interesting to have a middle tier concept as well with a special group of races (another!) right inbetween Majors & Minors. Making such things, optional, of course.

That simple 'bug' you mentioned opened up a line of thoughts in my imagination, i guess.

- Zyxpsilon.

Be careful what you wish for!
Not that it can't be changed, but before you ask for the minors to become viable territory opponents, check out the Akilians stats in the .html files.


BTW, I believe that they have always had the AI smarts to colonize planets - they just don't build any colonists AFAIK. Try giving them a colonist; they'll use it. Same with transports. I've used them before to cut down an opponent ("friend") that I didn't want to go to war with, by giving them transports positioned near the opponents planets.

drrider

Perhaps, but their AIs are extremely limited at best.... they'd need an upgrade to be anywhere near as believable as current major race AIs, let alone competent opponents.

The fragile balance is not in question.
The only reason i made such a suggestion is that, in general, i feel the Minor are slightly annoying (or maybe, it's just that i don't have the mindset nor the gameplay experience yet to figure these things!).

Sure, the xml defs can be altered. Sure, no colony ships won't ever allow these to expand and fight ME and MAJORS beyond their bottleneck.

It simply is a matter of perception, i guess.
The Universe is small, even to Minor races. Stealing/dealing some techs from those is fun though! Show us a small fleet and a few biting mosquito-scouts at least. (See, what i'm getting to with this - a stepping stone set of variables for the Minors in numerous diverse areas including expansion). Not that the Dark-Ages must be their exclusive weight to carry in the clouds rather than space.

Note (again) that i'm still aware of most Balancing factors.

Gimme some more room to react at surprisingly weird Modulated-Races, average and struggling to become a real threat to **some** Majors (not all) only instead of just sitting idle like a duck to shoot at.

Go figures.

- Zyxpsilon.

maybe one of the major races gave/traded them a colony ship

That's possible. Still, in the past I've seen a Carinoids colony ship warp around the map right past Class 10 planets without ever colonizing anything.

Sure it hadn't been traded to them?

I have seen this happen once or twice, and once it was far too early for anyone to have given them a colony ship (LentzLandians, and about turn 5, if it matters). They had to have started the game with two planets.

I've actually seen a minor race become more powerful than a major.

I saw the Snathi declare war on the Drengin once. That was pretty awesome.

HAHA, yeah, I saw something similar to that. I think that it is very funny when a minor dares to war with a major. Usually they are stupid and try to pick on the strongest civs, usually the Drengin in my games. Right now the minor race in my game is about to be destroyed, but they are actually keeping pace with the level of technology of the other races.

GalenEvil

i had one declare war on me.


i won that war. although no shots were fired.


it probable had something to do with me not having a military and five turns later having the strongest navy

Yeah, that has happened before. In my current game it hasn't happened...I think it is because i was very aggressive very early.

How did you go from worst to first for navy in 5 turns?

heavy construction of ships with the best weapons and defenses it might have been 10 to 15 turns

I first saw a minor colonize a second world not long after DA came out. I've seen it maybe a total of four or five times since then. Never actually witnessed the colonization, but the low pop. of the second planet usually told me it was freshly colonized when I came across them. Maybe the game accidently gives them a colony ship every now and then(or maybe it's no accident ) .

Must of been one weak major.
Also, I've seen a minor build a starbase (I think it was Military, but it was quickly destoryed cause it was 0/0/0.

I'm not sure if minors actually colonize planets. I think they might just start with multiple. Whatever is happening, I've seen them own several worlds many times. I like this. Anything that makes them a bit more interesting is good for me.

if they get hold of a colony ship they will colonize.

In a recent "keep all the civs from being conquered" scenario suggested on the forums, the Carinoids declared war on a major and I was like "plz make peace, not war" and they were like playing innocent with "don't ask us, ask them, they don't want to stop fighting" and I was like "well, duh." heh.


I have too. That routinely happens with the "Jagged" event.

There is an event where you can trade techs that they've stolen from some other race in exchange for a planet. I guess someone took them up on their offer.

I had the Snathi colonize a planet in my current game (DA 1.8c I think). I could see it before they got to it, so it was known unoccupied when they colonized. And it was only 15 turns or so into the game, so no one else's colony ship could possibly have gotten there by then, even if they had sold it to the Snathi. I didn't actually see their colony ship, but I can't think of any other way they could have possibly gotten this planet without legitimately colonizing it.

Not really. Said minor had 6 or 7 planets, a sizable fleet, and better technology than I did.

I saw the Dark Yor do this once..

The minor races seem very... unpredictable, but not in a good way.

It always seems like all they ever do is spam constructors and grab every galactic resource in the galaxy, usually a turn or two before I grab it. They are very annoying that way... I'd like to see fewer constructors and more... I don't know. The minor races are never a threat, so if you are playing evil you just roll over them, but if you are playing good they grab all the resources and maybe a planet or two, and you usually can't justify war with them.

Yet another way good is inferior to evil...

Also, are minor races capable of revolting? I surrounded a minor's home planet (which was already deep in my territory) with four influence starbases at about +60 each and it didn't flip...

Which reminds me, you really should be able to spy on minors, if nothing else then so your can see their current influence.

Sure it hadn't been traded to them?
[/quote]

Could have been. Regardless, that doesn't happen often either.