That is good, along with what I said before (about different tech levels overal, like prehistoric/medieval/pre-industrial civs.)

The problem I had early on is that I would set up trade and diplomacy with the minors. Then the majors would come in and start killing them. So at first I sold them ships. Then I started giving them all tech. I 3 minors Dreadnaught tech and made alliances with them and won a military victory.

You should be able to interact with the minors a bit more, but they shouldn't become any more powerful or aggressive.

P.S. I once got wiped out by minors. The Alexians, I League and Carinoids all became superpowers, killed off the Torians and Drengin, and then weakened me enough that the Altarians and Yor conquered me.

How about having an option to start the game with a couple of "mystery" major races? These races would start off as minors, but if they exceed a certain power threshold they are revealed as being a major race and all the full diplomacy options are enabled and the special abilities assumed.

Sounds interesting but I imagine its a bit late in development to add them. On the other hand maybe not, I suppose they don't have to be playables.

Or did you mean that the minors would become one of the current major's not already in your game? The Scottlingas embark on a golden age and become known as the Torians maybe? At that point they gain the Torian attributes and carry on as normal.

Yes, that is exactly what I had in mind. Shouldn't be that difficult from a coding standpoint. Could make the game really interesting. Some continuity of alignment should be preserved if possible.

Yes, that is exactly what I had in mind. Shouldn't be that difficult from a coding standpoint. Could make the game really interesting. Some continuity of alignment should be preserved if possible.

Totally agree with you, it would make for a nice galactic event/progression.

I find that the 'minor' races add a little more depth to the game.
Perhaps you could create them yourself through modding.
However than you're still stuck with the diplomacy issue.

While the Scotlingas are like Syria or Switzerland.

or the scottish.

I agree with proud diplomat, besides: Are you arguing switzerland is a 3rd World country? I think that doesn't quite fit in my preception of the world today. They may not be a world power, but it is a very developed country and very usefull for other countries as well (or why are swiss banks so successful?).
I agree with the concept of three kind of races (minor, general and major) and the modified diplomacy (protectorate, slaves civilization, etc.). It would add a very nice flavour to the game.

Back to the issue os minor races IN GAL CIV. I say that all races start out as a "Minor Race" Then at the end of the year, The top 6 races are declared major. The list would be updated yearly, so mabey the Yor get severly weakened, drop off the major list, and the Alexians take their place.

Whos with me?

By all means keep the minor races in the game. It adds some flavor, and ways to generate income without giving away strategic technologies to major opponents. They can also serve as nice buffers against aggressive majors, if you supply them with enough goodies.

Changing races from minor to major (and vice versa) based on yearly power rankings does not sound like a good idea... It might work, but it destroys the story line... And think of what it would do to the zones of influence in the game. Would you like your major neighbour, that you have been attacking and conquering, suddenly switch over to be a minor that can be attacked without penalties by all other hungry neighbours?

As suggested earlier, some limitations would need to apply to minors, maybe even with some storyline behind it (I liked the concepts in posts #24 and #25). Some limitations that seem sensible to me:
-1) A cap on number of planets colonized (depending on map size), or on number of sectors with planets, to limit the expansion to the close-to-home sectors. Maybe even NO expansion on the smallest map sizes.
-2) somehow limit the minors to non-aggressive technology... Hard to detail how... Maybe a bonus on defensive properties, and a penalty to aggressive effects... A warship would have double the defensive capabilities but only half the offensive ones.
-3) If new minors enter the game at some point, they did have (in GC1) all available technology up to that point, but were so weak / defenseless that it made sense to always gobble them up... That should not be the case in GC2, if possible. Either less tech, or appear with some kind of defense, but non-aggressive !
-4) do not allow minors to initiate trade
-5) do not allow minors to research galactic achievements... They give them away quite cheaply IMO when I trade with them in GC1...
-6) give minors penalties the further away from their capital that they get (either in range or in numbers beyond 1 planet). A bit similar to #1, and maybe harder to implement.




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