KzintiPatriarch

Join Date 05/2007

+95

expansionist minor civilizations

How often have people seen minor races take other planets and start to expand? I've only seen it twice in all the games I played, and never more than one planet in addition to their homeword. Aside from the Jagged Knife type of events, has anybody seen a minor race expand into a reasonably-sized empire with mulitple planets?

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Hi!

has anybody seen a minor race expand into a reasonably-sized empire with mulitple planets

Only in GC-1.

BR, Iztok

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They don't colonise,ut the AI occasionally forms allainces with them in my games and immediatly declares war on me, and the minors sometimes attempt to invade my planets...if I don't irradicate them first.

But other than that, no, they don't expand.

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I've OCCASIONALLY seen them carve small empires for themselves, if they get their hands on the invasion techs. However, their fleet management is HORRIBLE, often clogging their homeworld so that they can't build ships other than their fleets of freighters, whatever their tech level. In addition, they rarely even do more with attack ships than sit there!

I can appreciate them being less capable opponents than majors, but I'd hope they could be something more than braindead!

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Occasionally I pick a minor race I like and give them loads of planets as I take over Other Races.
Not the same as them expanding on their own but hey.

Marcus.

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They don't expand, but sometimes they offer techs stolen from a major race.

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Heh I like MarcusCardiff's idea, give the minor race some crappy planet and form an alliance with them - just to see how they fare. I'm going to try this in my next game.

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Quite often I find the minor race's build gigantic fleets of constuctors and start building influence star bases everywhere.

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KzintiPatriarch

Join Date 05/2007

+95

I don't know if the minor civs in my two games where they expanded did it by conquest or influence. I think there should be some mechanic in the game where a minor can beomce a major at some point.

Sentient species taste better...

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I can appreciate them being less capable opponents than majors, but I'd hope they could be something more than braindead!

you know, this makes me wonder - i'm guessing they don't get the benefits given to regular AI opponents from higher difficulty levels, and i'm also guessing their CPU usage is set to 0, and that they don't have assigned AI personalities or super abilities.

i wonder how much of that can be modded.

I don't know if the minor civs in my two games where they expanded did it by conquest or influence

AFAIK they don't produce influence like a normal player does; they don't have cultural "boarders" and i'm pretty sure their planets can't be flipped.

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Yep. Their construction of influence bases is ANOTHER braindead move they make with alarming regularity...

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i usually don't play with minors because they're such poor players. it'd be nice if they got a bit more attention and were made into a more interesting part of sandbox games. after i got used to playing with 32+ in Civ3, 10 players seems like small beans.

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I like minors (hey, why do you think I call myself 'Minor Race'), but they are terrible in GC-2.

The main idea I want implemented is a Mega Event/Event like this:

The (insert Minor Race here) have recently developed advanced hyperdrive, and a change in government has made them eager to expand. They have claimed several star systems in the sectors near their home planet.

Or, it could be an U.P. issue where you vote how many systems that minor player should get near their home territory (from one to ten or something like that). That's the best way to turn minors from the fools that they are into useful opponents.

What irks me the most is that when I used to played on the lower skill levels (Easy, Simple, Beginner) the minors actually research advanced weapons tech and such. Every so often, I'm looking to see how much I can sell something for, and find that the minors have researched something like Harpoon II, when everyone else except for me is in the Laser/Stinger range. And they are still minor. Has anyone else found something like this?

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I had a game where Akillians had taken the other planet in their system away from a major (they had gotten that 'spied out all the tech of X' event), and they were at war with my last competitor. They had some quite potent raider ships that were periodically slipping in and blasting the defender shell off certain enemy planets.

I didn't want to go to war with the remaining rival for a variety of reasons, Trade being one, so I sucked up to both of them, but I would periodically give the Akillians a fully loaded super-transport, near a planet they had shown a tendency to raid. They did the right thing with it consistently!

Eventually I offered alliance to the beaten down remnants of the last major, and got an Alliance victory. The Akillians ended up with like 9 planets.

drrider

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They don't colonise

they will colonize if you give them colony ships

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They don't colonise

they will colonize if you give them colony ships

Not on their own, though, which is the fundamental point.

I'd personally rather have useful minors in a game than asteroid mining, spore ships, super abilities, and the new espionage system (Which asks one fundamental question- why weren't minors improved in DA?)

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