SpaceButler

Join Date 05/2006

Minor Races, Major Problems

Long read, but I'm not sure what to do. I've been playing as Altarians on tough in a large galaxy that randomly came out to have very few planets. Going the diplomatic route since all the worlds are smallish and close to the homeworlds, but there is the quality 15 Scottlingas in a system with 2 of my rather cruddy planets. I tried the whole cultural conquest thing, had two influence bases to no effect on them. They managed to get a lot of resources and a very large fleet because, since they were completely in my territory and I was gladhanding, no felt like taking them out. I tried to spy on them, but since they're a "minor" race, it wouldn't let me. I really wanted to know what was on one of their starbases at least. They stole a bunch of tech from the Yor and it said they were going to sell it to me, but they didn't, and they just kept somehow acquiring a hellish amount of military tech and not trading with me, although they liked me just fine, (they said).

Then come the pirates. They destroyed the military of every civ on the map to a man at least twice. Since the friendly Scottlingas had a huge fleet, tons of starbases everywhere, and more money than Rockefeller, I figured they'd help out, since they could have easily defended against the pirates, (the only civ with a chance). They were not attacked by them and did not attack them. I researched, bought a couple of really expensive ships that managed to counter roughly 25 pirate fleets with only one loss, cleared out my territory and that of my two allies. At this point, I saved and just tried to see what would happen if I attacked those jerks, and they completely obliterated me.

Now if I were playing militarily I would have conquered them quickly or would have been able to deal with them somehow. Peacefully, I have no way to counter their slow economic takeover of the whole galaxy, (they sharked up all the resource bases the pirates had taken out). Is this normal and have I just acted stupidly? If they're going to act like this, why don't they give the minor races the ability to become major races or be dealt with in a similar way? If they tried, and I suspect they're hard-coded not to, they could have a large part of the galaxy under their squishy blue boot.

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Minor races can't be influenced to change civilisation. Which seems like a rather artificial restriction to me.

To be honest, I dislike the whole concept of minor races. Sure, some races might have more expansionist personalities, but I don't see why in game systems should treat them any differently. It just seems to be an excuse to sneak in immersion breaking comic relief races like the snathi and do less artwork. If it was me designing the game, I wouldn't have them at all, just have a few more races who weren't so big on the whole colonisation thing, and make them all properly developed parts on the GC setting.

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Well, the whole idea behind minor races is that you encounter a race that is much like humans (real humans) are now: we know a lot about space and weapons and such, but we are incapable of serious space travel. I like this idea, but this is just a personal thing i guess.

Anyways from a gameplay perspective all minor races have 2 purposes: they tend to have a lot of techs you don't early in the game, and they have really nice planets which you need. Therefore, there is only one option for dealing with minor races:

Immediate extermination.

What I do is I park a troop transport and a military fleet outside their planet, and then I trade some of my techs for all their techs and their money and anything else I cann get my hands on. I then proceed to conquer them so they can't implement those techs I gave them. Kills two birds with one swift stone right?

I'm surprised that they had such a huge military when you tried to attack them; you must have waited a long time or something. I do know they keep up on what other people are building, and they match their weapons and defenses accordingly, so don't build the fleet you are going to attack with until a few turns before you kill them.

Like I said, minor races are for nothing more then subjugation. Do it early, and do it fast.

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Yeah, but it completely destroys any possibility of the peaceful sorts of strategies. For non-military stuff, I almost think Civ 3 was better. (Haven't played 4)

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Achronous

Join Date 03/2006

+29

Like I said, minor races are for nothing more then subjugation. Do it early, and do it fast.

So you would say an alien culture should wipe us all now, before we get the chance to get more powerful?

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The minors shouldn't of gotten hyperdrive in the first place. I want to be able to have races that don't even know they aren't alone. Kind of like Stargate, except we never found the stargate and the Gauld come to wipe us out while we are completely unawares.

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Why not let the Star Federation government incorporate them and work more flexibly than the simple cultural conquest?

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Like I said, minor races are for nothing more then subjugation. Do it early, and do it fast.

So you would say an alien culture should wipe us all now, before we get the chance to get more powerful?

Well, the OP seemed to indicate that he wanted the planet, and if you are in a map with low quality planets, minor civ homeworlds will give you a great edge. Besides, the other major civs will get them if you don't, you are in fact doing them a FAVOR by "acquiring" them. And it's not like I'm wiping them out, I'm just...making them stronger...by incorporating them into a part of a greater whole...heh heh heh

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Meh, are there any good peaceful ways to play?

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In under two years you should be able to get economic and research treaties with every minor you meet, if you have researched enough techs. Use them to your advantage. Getting wiped from the map with one of them is still pretty funny though

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They stole a bunch of tech from the Yor

This mega event, I think, really does give the minor race ALL the techs of a given race. That makes the minor race immensely powerful all of a sudden.

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Hi!

Meh, are there any good peaceful ways to play?

Turn off Drengin and Korath and play as a good race. Get lots of diplo tech, trade routes to all neighbours, some fake defenders, and you should have quite peacefull game.

BR, Iztok

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Two things: 1) The minor races add variety to gameplay. They do not have aggresive ai, but they cannot be subverted (otherwise they should all look like wrapped presents and be called "gift one" "gift two" etc.). They add to the trade aspect of the game as well, and so balance out the overall experience. If you research good and evil, these characteristics can be capitalized on. Let's face it, if you are militaristic, then the minor races can become tasty snacks that assist in your domination of the galaxy. 2) As for pirates: don't think being militaristic will help you. Even though random pirates actually can be killed off easier by a militaristic race, if we are talking about the major pirate event, those pirates show up all over the galaxy and wreak havoc on everything - and they match your military rating! I had this happen to me on a game where I had fleets with over 1000 attack and defense - and so then did the Pirates. I can tell you, it took 4 hours for the one pirate turn to finish, and the whole galaxy was cleared of any non-pirate military, cleared of all starbases (some fully loaded with all upgrades and modules for attack and defense), etc. All I could do was limp to a technological victory. Well, it was a memorable experience. My suggestion is that if a non-military strategy is not working, you may need to be more militaristic at times. But - the mass pirate event is shocking any way you look at it (and even though I cursed it at the time - I laugh and enjoy the memory now).

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Think of it this way: the minor races are like the Koreans. They're stuck between Japan and China but they refuse to incorporate into either because of their fierce national pride, and in the meantime, they make some really damn good cell phones (and play a lot of Starcraft). So basically, the only way that Korea would incorporate into either China or Japan would be if they were conquered militarily. On the other hand, they'll happily make trade treaties and such with the US.

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In my most recent game the Jagged Knife event occurred where everyone loses a bunch of planets to a new minor race with everyone strength's. I quickly took back all of my planets which were all left completely undefended. After I stabilized my civ I went for the rest of their planets which was actually in the 30+ range. But they had now built a ton of defenses and were the top military power in the galaxy.

I couldn't touch them. I also could not influence them b/c of their minor race status. So I decided to try and build up my military for a blitzkrieg maneuver. In my long build time however my Altarian Resistance allies all the way on the other side of the galaxy (huge) got a tech victory. I might have had a fighting chance if the jagged Knife hadn't fouled things up badly.

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ok, one thing that just kills me during a game is when that stupid "minor" race, the jagged knife i think, takes over like 30 planets or so of random races.............MOST OF THEM R ALWAYS MINE

then when i take them back and try to make peace with them, even though my military is way stronger, they wont!, and so they get ALL the techs of the races' planets they took over so eventually they take over everyone!

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Really, my question is, if the Snathi can take a resource item 8 parsecs away, why can't they colonize the planet 3 parsecs away?

Either they need to be treated like majors, or they need to lose things like the ability to make constructors, the ability to make trade treaties, and there needs to be a rationally easy way to get them to incorporate for the non-military players.

Right now they're just McDrengin Meals.

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I think Minor Races are a decent idea for the game, and really do save your life in the beginning for trade, but I don't think they were given enough intelligence, at any difficulty whatsoever. Minor races need to be upgraded from a primitive npc to a race that can interact with others more efficiently so to speak.

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sushistrip I disagree. Although they are very annoying, I was able to take back the 37 planets they took control of. Sure it took a few years on the game, which is like a couple hours to us, but I was just starting out.

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wow, gotta just LOVE thread necromancy

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