Attention Forum Moderators! Put this where it belongs! I haven't posted in years! And I don't want to again!

Some years ago I figured this out, and never bothered to share it with anyone because you were all retarded.  I just got Twilight of the Arnor and tried it again and it still works.  Nice work on Twilight of the Arnor, Terror stars suck. Why can't I destroy individual planets? Why does it have to be entire star systems?  I like voting them out with a UP resolution, then leaving the UP.

I want to start a Yor game and leave UP at the very beginning.  Mmm challenging.  Will minor races still strade? I'll let you know.  In a few years.

Now then, how to get minor races to expland.  I've heard the argument before that this shouldn't be done because then they wouldn't be "minor" races, but they will still be quite minor, I assure you.  Actually, it's up to you just how minor you want them to be.

In the RaceConfig file in the Twilight folder, under Data, then under English...yes that's it, the RaceConfig file, you edit that (don't open it with firefox, edit it with notepad...make sure word wrapping is off)....

Find those AI Personalities.  Yeah, them.  Minor Races are all 5's.  Dreadlord's are 3.  The rest are all 7,8,10, or 11.  8, 10, and 11 will all work for minor races.  In my experience minor race 7's have never colonized  But, 8's, 10's, and 11's will all build colony ships and colonize.  So just change the minor races' personalities to 8's, 10's, and 11's.  Mix em up for variety.  It has nothing to do with alignment - you'll notice Yor and Drengin are 7's, while Korx is 11 - as is Altarian.   However.

There must be plenty of habitable worlds for them to colonize.  They must have the ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY advance in Twilight of the Arnor.  Put it in the race file or give it to them in the game. They only start with 1 billion people and I think 100 bc.  They also start with less advances.  I advise having stars, planets, and habitable planets all set to abundant if you're going to do tight clusters.  I like tight clusters.  Hard to get a good balance.  Assign customization points for all races before you start the game.  The computer assigns them randomly and it's stupid and makes for an extremely imbalanced game (usually).  The evil races still suck, spend as many points as you can on economic and morale bonuses, then put the rest into weapons/defense/soldiering or whatever you think they should be in.  I've noticed that the Arceans, Drengin, Yor, and Korx almost always suck. They don't expand for crap.  SO this is what I would do.

Timing is crucial.  If you're not cheating and you want to see a minor race build up - to make a future ally or what have you - give them about 3000 bc and one advance if you want to see them build a little, or 5000 bc and more advances to see them build up even bigger.   At 5000 bc on a tight cluster map with abundant stars and planets, the minor races will develop and be comparable to some of the major races. With 3000 bc they will generally always be smaller than the major races - unless one of the major races gets the shaft and ends up in a corner.  Control-N generates a new map.  Keep em coming.  Get the right one.  Control-U (with cheat mode on) reveals the map.  If you want all the minor races to colonize, use that and Control-M a couple times to give you money.  Then 8 turns into the game, contact all the minor races (and if you're like me, all the evil races too), and send them all a few trillion credits.  Watch them flourish.  I love a good balanced game.

To sum it up: change the AI personality of the minor races in the RaceConfig file, and grant them Artificial Gravity either in the race file as a starting advance or through diplomacy in the game.  Starting cash helps, but be careful - most minor races have huge military production bonuses anyway.  They will not get out of hand if you don't give them any cash, but they WILL build colony ships and colonize worlds, providing there are enough to go around. With abundant habitable wordls, common stars, common planets on tight clusters, most minor races would manage to get 5-10 planets before the major races took the rest.  (of the universally inhabitable worlds)

Have fun!