Options for Minors in Dark Avatar.

Honestly, I think the minor races are seriously underutilized in this game. They're kinda just speedbumps more than anything that adds flavor to the game.

Not that I don't like them, I do, I just think there's more that could have been done with them. Like having them retain their race specific attributes even after they become a part of your empire through conquest or alliance. One part specialist addition, one part sounding board/Greek chorus. Something that does more than simply add another heavily populated planet to your empire when you're done whoring them as a captured market for trade relations and technology theft. Something akin to Star Trek: Birth of the Federation.

I agree. Minors need some loving too. I want to see the minors become more than just someone to be conquered.

Co-Sign. Minors and their roles need to be expanded. I'd love to see minors get one of those crystal events. Perhaps even allow minors to colonize after say, x turns?

I hate to keep tapping BOTF, but I think that game more than any other out there handled the idea of second string races better than any other.

Some minor races didn't build ships, others did. I ALWAYS put effort into assimilating the races that did through peaceful means. Even though compared to high tech ships I could build towards the middle game, their fleets weren't uberpowerful, they DID give you a nice edge in the early game when my own fleets were gimped by the need to do the colony rush. Some races built light raiders, other built large cruisers. One race, the Yridians, made cloaking scout ships. If I could get them on board early, they could wreck shop with anyone that stepped up.

None of the minor races colonized, but they did put spectacular effort into building up their homeworlds. If you took your time courting them, they could develop their worlds into spectacular research, financial and manufacturing bases that took a LOT of pressure of your own homeworld. This is something akin to what the GalCiv races do now.

All the races had a unique race structure that provided a bonus when they were brought into your empire and allowed to develop. Some offered research bonuses, some offered academies where your ship crews could train outside of combat, some offered food, manufacturing and financial support. Each was unique that made each race something special, and some races EXTREMELY desirable. There was some overlap, but only a few cases (the games where I contacted both the Vulcans and Trill before anyone else were damned near guaranteed wins in the research game, even on Impossible difficulty), but the fact that each race had something to offer your empire through assimilation made each something you treasured when you got ahold of it, and something you fought tooth and nail to keep intact. There were times when the Borg showed up, I'd sacrifice my Federation colonies for the chance to put a fleet together in the defense of a minor race homeworld.

That's kinda what I'd like to see the minors here become. Not something individually uberpowerful, but something that when they were assimilated, were something that made you even better than simply adding another star to your individual constellation of influence.

Definitely think that creating unique minors would cool especially if they could be split into different AI/categories i.e. three types

Type One, able to expand outside their system;
Type Two, that stays in their system colonizing only their system planets; and
Type Three, that live in a unique ecosystem like a gas giant that you could never conquer... or barren worlds without atmosphere like a silicon based life form or even one that lives only in ocean worlds.

Just my two cents…

I agree with JanuHull, minor races in BotF were very well designed. Even though not all the minor race ships were that great, it was heaps of fun just trying to collect them all. I would but a GalCiv2 Expansion pack that focused purely on minor races with no other changes at all (but heroes would be good ) there is much more that could be done with them, such as getting them to join your empire peacefully (that could even fit in with the storyline - how about the Terran survivors trying to build up another galactic alliance to combat the Drengin/Korath?), unique buildings for a minor race, unique ships (that don't have to even be real powerful, just new interesting hull designs) and also Lord Null's idea with two or three different AI's - I imagine the Jessuins would act a lot differently to the Dark Yor/Snathi. However I don't think minor races should be able to colonize, the player can easily gift them planets if they want them to expand, while those that don't want them to expand have the current system in place.

btw, has anyone else seen minor race systems having usually great planets in them (apart from the homeworld)? I often see minor race systems with 2-3 class 15/16 planets in them plus the homeworld. Its fairly rare to see less than a class 10 in my experience.