TA .95b.002 - minor race behavior

Minors grab all the resources, and then sit on them

from GalCiv2 Forums
I've been noticing in game after game lately that the minor races wind up with nearly all the galactic resources. If I work quickly, I usually manage to snag a handful; the other major races are lucky to have one or two in an Immense galaxy, with a difficulty of Tough. My guess is that this behavior results from the fact that the majors (including me) are busy churning out colony ships, while the minors are busy churning out constructors, but what it means is that most of the galactic resources in the game are effectively useless until someone decides to wipe out the minor in question. Maybe this is the intended behavior, but I don't remember the major races getting this few resources in DL and DA.

Anyone else had problems with the major race AIs having difficulty getting resources?

3,676 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
The minors have always been resource hogs as far as I can remember. It would be nice if output from a mining starbase was treated as a trade good.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In GalCiv 1, players could trade ships and starbases with minors. This would be a nice addition to GalCiv 2, given how minors do get the jump on the majors. They should be expensive to acquire, but still on the trade list. The AI could trade for them as well as the player, so balance would not be affected. Just an idea!
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well their starbases ARE on the list, they just will never give them up even if you offer your entire empire.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah about the only reliable way I have found to pry the minors greedy little fingers off of resources is either take the obvious route and blow up thier starbases and replace them with your own or a slightly more devious approach.

The way to remove that bothersome minor starbase without declaring war on them is to send a combat ship capable of destroying the target starbase and a constructor to the starbase. You then gift the combat ship to a race that the target minor race is at war with then 9 times out of 10 the AI race will blow up the starbase leaving the resource open to your waiting constructor. The only catch here is you have to make sure that the ship is within the AI's logistics range so it can actualy attack the starbase. Well that and you might have to engineer a war with the minor to pull this off but you know what they say about making an omelet XD.

Edit: One way I used to get starbases was by buying them outright. Course this lead to a mildly cheesy victory method which involved me getting enough surplus BCs to buy an economyg resource base outright then using the increas to buy another econ starbase etc. I accidently won an infulence victory this way.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It seems as though maybe the solution is to alter the trading priorities of minors; as it is, their behavior seems a bit odd. I mean, they can't make colony ships; why are they willing to trade so much for the extreme colonization techs? Perhaps they should place different values on their resources (relative to major AIs) to reflect their different status, so that they would be willing to trade a resource base for less than an entire empire.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
While the minors trading for colonization tech seems wrong, I don't really see a problem with the minors grabbing resources. It prevents any one major from becoming too powerful without taking out a minor or two which should hert their reputation with other civs. They could make this a tipping point. If an evil race declares war on a minor, it could bring retribution from the good races. This might also might help balance good/evil more.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I once had a game where the Paulos started with two planets. I've never seen that before, or since.

Oh and more on-topic - no, the real pain in the ass, IMO, is that they grab the resources while you're doing your colony rush thing. The only way to counter this is to stop the colonization and build constructors. HOWEVER, minor races cheat and know where EVERY resource is. From the first constructor, they've got them beelining for them.

Actually, EVERY AI cheats like this. Disappointing :(