Personally, as the game stands now, the Minor Races seem to just sit there with big targets on themselves. They are static, and do not seem to do much of anything. I understand why they were not allowed to colonize, as then they would be no different from the major races, aside from haivng no representation in the UP. However, I do feel that the minor races should be able to build Transports and conqueor planets that way (I do not know for a fact that they can not do this, I just know that in the 10 or so games on Tough/Intelligent I've played I have never seen them do this).
It would really be great to see a minor race able to scheme and build up a small empire, rather than just being a tech-merchant that is sitting on a high PQ planet. I am no programmer, so I do not even know if what I am suggesting is doable, but isn't there a way to simply disable the use of the colony module from all minor races and give them on of the other Major Race's AI (at random) set to a difficulty 1-2 levels below the current game setting. Given that they are slightly less intelligent than the other races, can not get other planets until they research or trade for the Planetary Invasion tech I do not see them becoming too threatening, but they would be a fun dynamic addition to the game.
To make them more colorful still, the following few additons would really add a lot to them:
- Once a Minor race reaches 5% of galaxy influence have a trigger that allows them to join the UP (essentially making them a Major Race at this point). This boost will allow for a lot more diplomacy on smaller maps where you only have 1 or 2 opponents.
-Espionage for Minor Races (both ways)
-Allow alliances with Minor Races
Essentially they would be no different from the major races aside from being slightly less intelligent and having a much slower start, I think the result would be a much more dynamic game.
Minor grip aside (pun intended), as this is my first post I do feel I need to properly express how I feel about this game. The game as a whole is outstandingly addictive! No two of my games, so far, have even been close to similar, even when I choose to play in a similar manner...nor do they tend to play out the way I intend them to. In one of my more interesting games, in which I actually had tech trading turned off (10 players, large galaxy, abundant planets/stars), I was working all game towards a Cultural Victory by building up starbases and paying the strongest military forces to fight each other (so they would be too busy to fight me). In an instance my entire game shifted into military only as the Drengin and Yor saw what I was doing and stopped fighting each other and turned on me. Totally not prepared, and unable to trade for military techs, of which I had very few I found myself having to go all out on research to catch up in the military game and lost 2 planets. I was eventually able to drive out the empires but was at constant war throughout the rest of the game until it was just the Mighty Arcean empire with 55% of the map, Terrans with about 10% and me with the remaining 35%. My cultural victory was now an impossibility, my military had become much more advanced but was far smaller and I did not have the population to take over the what seemed like a hundred or so Arcean planets. And so I had to do the only thing that was left to do...once again shift to full gear research and become immortal. Arceans sent countless ships at me non-stop but I was able to hold them back and managed to pull out a Technological Win (with no tech trading)!
The game went from culture to diplomacy (even had an ally until I cowardly let them die) to technology to miliatary and then back to technology for climatic engame. About 12 more weeks and the Arceans would have probably overwhelmed me...they were actually going after my influence starbases and my research planets. I think they were trying to lower my influence they can sneak out a cultural win, while trying to cripple my chances at the technological win. It was amazing.
