Minor Civs: Befriend or Conquer?

I usually befriend them, because I really like them for some reason. Except the Snathi. But I always make friends of the Carinoids and Akilians or whatever the devil it is they're called. Plus, you can usually milk them for cash with a few nice pieces of tech, or build a super-powerful line of ships and hand them over to help the minor civ fight a war you want to support, but don't want/can't get involved in directly.

The Snathi are great. They declared war on me once, and never attacked, and then years later they sued for peace and gave me a whole bunch of technologies.

It's much easier to trade techs with minor races because their diplomacy is a lot lower. You can get tons of goodies for a couple of crappy techs which you can then trade to the major races. I try to keep them around as long as possible, but if they're about to be conquered I usually swoop in and take them over myself.

-Dewar

I remember someone going to war with me that was minor cause a major race, let alone three of them were at war with me (Pretty much all of the Major Races save one were at war with me, and even though my military was the worst, they were losing the war) and after one turn they asked for peace cause I mopped the galactic floor with them when I didn't lay a finger on them cause they weren't worth my attention.

Oh well, small miracles I guess.

I love minor races. I trade them all my military, logistic, engine techs. They wont ever use em against me..so it works out well .

I love minor races. I trade them all my military, logistic, engine techs. They wont ever use em against me..so it works out well .

But won't they just turn around and trade those same techs to other major powers? That's usually how I build up my tech base and outstrip the computer opponents. Wait long enough and the minor powers generally get techs from the other civs and then you can trade them a boat-load of glass beads in exchange.

I slowly get there tech and when the time is right and i need to exspand my empire and its infulence borders, i will kill them off to make way for a new military planet. And maybe a new trade highway

depends on the settings/number of habitable planets. if there are a lot of planets, i say live and let live. when every planet is precious, let alone 15's, i say send in the marines. Whether i destroy them or not has a lot to due with the way the galaxy is set up, and not a general kill the minor or save the minors rule.

Befriend, then when they've expended their usefulness, conquer.

Definatly depends on the galaxy, but i really love it when i have a minor in my space cause it gives me a stable trading partner and make it easy to line the route with +trading starbases. Plus they make good low-maintainence pets, and I like destroying the fleets of those who would despoil the pets of the Emporer.

If they're close to me, I drain them of their techs then conquer them. If they're not, I'll trade with them heavily, then milk the cash back out of them.

Destroy them immediately before the drengins do! Also gives you time to develop the planet! Nothing beats another class 15 planet!

This is not even an option for me. The luscious class 15 I get in the early game beats anything they could give me through trade.

"Buy a fish from a man, and you eat for a day. Steal his fishing boat and you eat for a lifetime."

If I'm looking for an Alliance or Technology victory, then conquering minor races becomes the modus operandi. If I'm looking for a conquest, though, I love the minor races, because they're low-risk trade partners. Plus it's fun to see the little guys make an impact for themselves with the right support. With my techs and trade the Snathi have taken 4 Arcean worlds. So proud.

Wow... its amazing how a race of sentient squirrels can take on one of the major races in the galaxy like that. The Snathi are by far the best race out of any of the civilizations. I would probably kill most other minors, but how can you kill off a cute little species like the Snathi?

Trade, then conquer. I actually had one set up a couple of influence starbases in my territory once (do they even have influence?), and rushed a constructor to a resource before I could.

One tactic I often used in GalCiv1 and am now testing how well it works in GalCiv2:
Don't Conquer them, but make them 'protectorates'. When their planets lie completly in your space and all your traderoutes lead to them, your traderoutes are quite save. Traderoutes to majour races often get disrupted every now and then when wars break loose with serious impact on your economy, but having like 3-5 short traderoutes to 1 minor race planet (all from your nearest planets) provides a source of income which is quite hard to disrupt, even if you're at war with several major races. Good way to build a strong, war-save economy.

Aren't super-near traderoutes not worth much money though?

Personally I conquer Minor races as soon as it's convenient to do so, they're the easiest targets because once that first planet is taken there's not going to be anyone to take revenge. In the game I'm playing through right now, the nearby Paulos have also claimed two resources that I want, a military and an economy bonus, frankly I'm glad they took it instead of the Drengin who border me. I'm definitely going to position some constructors to nab those things fast once the Paulos home planet is mine

I try not to trade any techs with other races, even when I have a diplomatic advantage I'm never able to find enough takers for a particular tech that I'm able to come out good on the deal. And you should know within as little as 2 - 3 turns, an tech you give any alien race will go into the pockets of every other alien race. I guess it's to make it harder for the player to 'abuse' tech trading, but if you weren't going to abuse it anyway it really sucks. However I have noticed the minor races will give you the best deals, probably because you're so much more powerful than them.

The Snathi are great. They declared war on me once, and never attacked, and then years later they sued for peace and gave me a whole bunch of technologies.

Uhhh, why is that 'great'? Isn't that a major problem with the AI? I mean if the AI declares war and doesn't attack, and even worse gives up technologies for peace, then isn't the AI for minor races completely broken? I don't see why that is great at all.

I never conquer minors. If they are trading with an enemy sure they must die then but other than that I keep them alive for two reasons. The first is because they are the best trading partners, I don't have many +diplomacy bonuses so I can trade with minors and get 2-5x the cash from selling techs to them then I would to a major race. Secondly, because they are like ants to me sure I could kill them but I'd rather save my ships/transports for my main enemies. But if I get a class 15 planet like the people above say hmmm I might start conquering minors after I have sucked out a lot of their cash.

Snathi are cool.. I usually 'try' to get along with peacefully with minors. However sometimes I invoke wars of 'necessity' just so to have a fighting chance... As in its a necessary I take that 15 PQ planet. If I don't do this I generally benefit from them as a trading partner... every now and then some minor would sell a weapon tech when the majors tell me over their dead body or ask if I've been drinking again. Plus years of freighter BC.

Some Minors like Fundamentalists, Vegans and/or any other terrorists deserve to get wiped out like the plague.

Depends on the circumstances. I once wiped out a minor race just because I had few planets in my territory and needed another ship producer, and they were sitting on a class-27 world, so I rounded up a couple fleets of frigates, wiped out their defenses and landed troops.

It was also revenge for polluting my space with influencer starbases. God I hate that.

I mostly like minor races, in my gigantic game they are the first ones at the moment to research new techs. The AI is set to beginner or something, but I don't understand why the little people outclass the big races (except me of course). Especially the Snathi and Dark Yor are cool.

I really wish the minor AI were more sucessful at conquering planets They just seem "ready for the taking" to me. I milk them for as long as they're useful, tech wise, then I conquer their planets.

Class 22 planet? Yeah, sorry Snarky, I'm gonna have to evict ya...

I find the minors to be worth more to me alive than dead ..

The way I see it, since both races get credits from the trade routes, I might as well give it to a minor civ than another major civ that I am going to need to kill at some point. Plus if I keep the minors making money, that is just more cash they will have to trade. Basicly, I end up with that one trade route being worth 2x it's value, plus they are much more stable than trading with major civs. The only time I setup trade routes with a major civ, is if they are getting beat down by the other major civs, and I am not ready for a major war to knock someone's power down.

Plus you can get more money from selling outdated ships to minors than you do from decomission. I even give the minors some of my lesser planets sometimes just to keep them around. I always hate when the AI takes over ALL the minor civs!

Actually, I once "swapped" planets with a minor (give them a 10 class planet, declare war, take over the nice 15+ planet, declare peace). but even that is rare.

They are cash/tech cows. Unless the galaxy is small the advantage of having more people to sell stuff is bigger than the one of just conquering another planet.