Buying resource mines from minors

The only time I've ever been able to buy a mine base in TA is when they contact me begging for help, and even then you'll pay out the nose. I've never seen a minor sell a mine base at all.

Your best bet is to pay someone to kill them off for you, or at least destroy the base.

You can not buy ships from minors as far as I can tell. As you said they don't even show up in the list. Starbases and mining resources are in that category for the purpose of trading.

And I've never been able to get one from a major without offering all of my planets and techs.

I thought that might be the case. I was just wildly hoping that someone had learned how to get the Ships list populated on the minor's trade windows. I'm used to putting lurker-constructors in the field to take spoils from other folks fights and and I occasionally get blunt and take the things myself. Just wondered if there was "a third way."

I have no qualms about blowing away the starbases from the Dark Yor.   Anyone who introduces themselves as saying they need more bone powder and asking if I could donate my bones to the cause.....

yeah, they don't really need influence resources anyway

I've gotten to the point where I just take the mines, blockade the planet, and wait for them to be willing to talk and accept their peace offer.  There might be a diplo hit for starting the war, but I don't destroy their civ, so it's not so bad.  

lol, came here to add the blockade comment. More of a funny way to gain the upper hand then true strategy, but still one of the ways.

I've never thought of it actually, but will minor races turn production to higher percentages, and run into an eight ship on planet non production blockade and start turning production back into cash so I can trade them for more cash at a later date deal?

I never get to buy the minors' and majors' mining bases anyway.

I always blow them up, seem easier to do so.

Actually, when I play, I start conquering all the minors as soon as I have all the Economic and Research treaties in place with the other civs, and I have chosen my Ethic.  (usually evil)  Build the spin control center if you can, so that you can be #1 in Military. 

When you conquer a minor, you will notice a huge influence shift in your favor - much more than you would expect.  Conquer all 8 of them, and you should own over half the map (depending on size).  If you have mind control center, that may be all you need to do to win the game - even on suicidal.

So, I trade with them early in the game, conquer them later.  I would never have a major declare war on them (I want the planet eventually).  Having a nearby minor declaring war on them should work fine.

I wonder if that's because you've taken homeworlds and not just colonies. Do they have a larger influence radius than regular colonies? 

Homeworlds have a high influence value, as do high-PQ planets. Since minor homeworlds tend to be pretty high-PQ, it only makes sense that they give you a huge influence boost - there's nothing "special" about it.

Thanks for making me feel "special" with your 'thoughtful' reply.

Well, the other factor with a minor is that it will never flip because of influence.  Since they have high influence, they tend to stabilize the sector.  Conquering the minor destablizes that sector in your favor. 

On the other hand, homeworlds of major civilization flip fairly easily.

I'm not entirely clear on why you saw that as insulting - all I was saying was that there is, as far as I know, no unique quality to minor race homeworlds that gives them a large influence boost beyond what you get from the combination of their homeworld status and high PQ.

It was the combination of "it only makes sense" with your use of shudder quotes around the word special. I parsed that to mean you thought I was being remarkably thick-headed about the point.

But you remind me that I didn't put my earlier question very clearly. I'm wondering if there is an influence modifier associated with the homeworld status that's separate from any influence effects based on PQ. It would seem logical to me, but I can just as easily imagine the devs having left a detail like that out of the under-the-hood math. If there is such a modifier for major faction homeworlds, that would lead to a separate question of whether minors have the same modifier, and if not, why not. 

DL/DA: Colony 0, HW 30.
TA: Colony 0, HW 50.

In PlanetImprovements.xml.

And q did actually answer your question: Homeworlds do get a bonus, simply for being homeworlds.

However, I am aware of no separate under-the-hood, unlisted, unspecified factor for HWs, minor or major-if that was your question. 

I believe population also contributes, and the minors tend to have decent populations (must be the lack of colonizing ;))