Nope. Iconian vs. Carinoid continues on ad infinitum. Minor v. minor wars are so rare I've never seen it happen.
Ah ok, so the game definitely needs the two parties at the table to sign a peace deal
Also never seen the "can't attack minors" event.
It's not even included in the game, but it's contained in the data-mining Cari published. But no subroutines embedded in the code.
[As an aside, in your FW mod the minors are much tougher yet much juicier. I'm the only one of the three majors that attacked them, and once I got started it was hard to stop...]
Yeah, we did try to make them stronger in the CU but it was not enough IMO. I've further boosted:
- Racial bonuses, also more individuation.
- Trade-ability base. Very early trade generates money & makes friends. Plus I find it unfair that they still build scouts and use them to scout for habitable planets when they will never colonize them. Wasted production.
- Restricted techtree barring them from useless stuff like influence etc. The Minor-techtree has also cut-down costs for some techs.
All in all they should gain strength quite early but as each game progresses, the power of multiple planets at hand should be enough to crack them.