Phaedyme,

Please don't misunderstand me - I actually do enjoy having the minors on hand in a game. Now that we have a new ecomony system in place, I find them more valuable for being someone I can sell and exchange tech with during the early game. I also enjoy the tiny bit of B-5 flavoring they add to my games.

I just find it unbalanced that a minor can crank out constructors and gobble up resources at the far edge of a huge map. I often observe them building influence star bases and this has the side effect of increasing their range.

Technically, just what does a minor need influence for anyway?

Heck, I think they need a nerf. Since they are minors, I think they should be forced to research a separate tech branch for building constructors (something the majors can't trade or grant them). I'd like to see them unable to gobble up resources until at least mid-game.

On the other hand, I think the minors could be more useful diplomatically.
Has anyone considered granting the minors the ability to indirectly influence a UP vote?

Specifically, what if they were enabled or motivated to offer their influence to a major one turn before a UP vote in exchange for whatever the minor found useful or wanted?

The major power that offered the most to the minor in question would receive all the influence points offered by the minor government. The major could turn down the minor's offer, but then the player would probably win the UP vote.

I'm pretty sure that currently, their influence is just of value to a player.
Now the above idea also raises the possibility of the player being outbid by another major power. A war of bids if you will.

I think the idea would just add another layer to an overall game.

So now, instead of a minor just building an influence star base for the heck of it, the reason for having that base would be justified. Also, in theory, a new source of influence points would give all the major powers another reason to just not strike down a minor arbitrarily.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Scanner28

The minors are an exploit imo.

Their behavior and trading is downright weird. They need some serious tweaking. They should be flippable as they once were. After all, in a real universe they would be the most likely to succumb to culture. They should have penalties applied that would apply to real minor civs but still allowed to expand somewhat.

They are currently trading whores for everyone and cannon fodder for agressive players.

What the minors should be able to do is grab a limited number of planets, like the ones in their own solar systems. It would give them something to do other then stealing resources and building influence starbases. It would also reduce the absurd amount of cash they seem to have on hand all the time too.