"Minor" civs???

from Stardock Forums
I just finished a tiny/normal game. The thing that pushed me over the edge was my eventual success against the Alexians who, until then, had been the most populous civilisation by a VERY long way.
Since I was the largest major civ (in terms of number of star-systems held - I had 5, the next was 3) I figured I should easily be the biggest civ. I kept being second to the Alexians.
Grrr ...
Ok. Time to go take a look at these upstarts - they have > 100 BILLION people in one star-system!! 4/5 planets are inhabitable, with 30, 30, 20, 20 billion people on them. Took me 20 Billion invaders and a lucky roll to flatten them - I left the place with less than 4 billion people in the system.
OK, for a good civilisation, I certainly took a lot of joy in genocide :)

After that my culture just rolled over the rest of the place in short order.

~SDC~
591 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I've wondered what the intellegence level for the minor civs is set to. They seem to be far more effecient than the major civs when the majors are at low intellegence. When I started playing the game, my main foe wasn't any of the Fool civs, but the various minor civs who could have 5-6 planets (with high quality planets to boot) and quite an armada of warships.


~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I suspect it's set in relation to the general difficulty level of the board. So if you have a 'challenging' game their difficulty is challenging as well. I do notice different tactics between each minor race though..

~SDC~
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
At really low difficulties (at least in the version on the CD), the minor civs tend to beat the hell out of the empires. At higher difficulties, this reverses.

I haven't played the release version since my first game, and I haven't played the lowest difficulty since my first game, so no idea if it's still like that.

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I played my first game (Release version) with the difficulty at Cakewalk, and the minor races mopped the floor with the majors.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
minor civs work much differently i believe
they are not out to conquer more planets so they can pay more attention to other issues like their economy

now, u should trade with minor civs especially on lower levels to keep them happy, as they will many times have a formidable army :)

yea it can see that minor civs are 10x stronger than the other ones, but just wait til u get to subnormal+ ;)
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I was playing a tiny map with the ai set to incredible the minor civs controled the game luckley I was there trade partners the whole game so they loved me and gave me presents. It was an....intersting game
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
It's at subnormal where the tides turned, yes.

Actually, they're kind of equal. I'd say in one of my subnormal games that the I-League was equal to most of the major civs.

~SDC~
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
The thing I've noticed now, is that minor civs tend to get nifty trade goods, but only have a few planets (if they have multiple planets at all). So far, at the sub-normal and lower ints, the major civs don't seem to make trade goods until several game-years in.

When the major civ int was Fool, the minors would have multiple planets... which I would eventually conquer... but when the major int was Sub-Normal, the minors had one, maybe two, planets... and each was a virtual fortress (multiple battleships, insane population).


~SDC~
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Minors don't settle outside their sectors, so if you have tight clusters, they might have three or four systems. Otherwise, probably not so much.

As for trade goods, I haven't seen a minor get to one before me in ages. :)

~SDC~
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Minor races are random, but generally a little below average.

~SDC~