Minor races exhausting galactic wonders

Don't forget that minor races start out with lots of cash. They could be buying those wonders on time. The best way to keep them from doing this is to run them out of cash as fast as you can.

Also, if you get their planets, you should inherit their wonders (I have not confirmed that this works). Having them build them for you before you capture their planet or they defect to you should be a big help.

Actually, they are building a wonder every few turns They have 1 gia planet and a system with 3 20+ planets in it. In most of my games, the minor races are the main challenge.

AI players don't buy improvements or wonders.

The main thign about minor races is that they start out with a nicer planet than everyone else since one of the goals is that they're there to be conquered.

So the minor AI races shouldn't get wonders? The Carnoids are cranking out one after another in another game I am playing.

By the time I find their planet, they already have like 20 million people on it and are much farther down the tech tree than me. I don't think I am doing anything wrong, as I don't have too much trouble with the other major civilizations in the galaxy.

The other major powers don't seem to be able to kill the Carnoids in my game either.

Hi, just registered on here. Been playing since beta 3 started, although I haven't had a chance to play with 3Z yet. Anyway, when the AI builds a Galactic Wonder or Trade Good, does the game tell you what planet it is on? It would be nice if it did. Also, a screen that tells you where wonders (and perhaps trade goods) are located would be nice. If they're so wonderful, you'd think word of their location would get out, especially among tourists.

That's a good idea. We should tell you what planet it is on.

Incidentally, I've never had a game (and I play it 8 hours a day) in which a minor race is "cranking out a wonder every other turn".

Kvin,

I suggest you zip up your saved game and send it to Brad. Perhaps there is something subtle he can spot that may have triggered the problem.

Incidentally, what I meant by "a screen that tells you where wonders are located" was that there I think there should be somewhere you could check at any point in the game to find out where galactic wonders were. Presumably, the AI should have access to this information as well.

If it would be too hard to have an extra screen for "Wonders", then perhaps under each race's info screen (the screen where you see the espionage you've collected on that race), it could tell you where that race's galactic wonders were located. This might be a problem for minor races, but there could be some similar indication on the 'Minor Race' page.

My point is, that if I suddenly decide I want to own a particular Galactic Wonder, I should be able to find where that wonder is and mount a military campaign to control it. Afterall, it wouldn't be a wonder if tourists didn't flock to go see it, and if tourists know where it is, *I* should know where it is...

Oh, and BTW, I love this game so far. Good work, Brad and all the other programmers. Hopefully, I'll finally get a few hours between work and sleep to play beta 3Z, but if not, I'll definitely have some stuff to say about beta 4 when it comes out. I had a few other problems with earlier betas, but I want to play the newer versions to see if they've already been fixed.

I can second Kvim's observation. The Carinoids, with two planets to their name are cranking out Galactic Wonders and ships like crazy.

Their capital planet built, in short order: Galactic Stock Exchange, Galactic Exhibition, Hyperion Manufacturing Center, Love Mushrooms, and Diplomatic Translators. When I conquered their home planet they had built an astounding number of social projects.

I have no idea how they were managing to do this.

Brad,
perhaps minor races should not build wonders or trade goods? They are suppossed to be MINOR races. The curent minors do often end up far too powerful. How about reducing their starting cash to compensate?
How about adding icons to the planets (like the capital icons) showing an icon if a wonder exists on a planet and another icon if a trade good comes from a planet. Both then should be transfered if the planet is captured.

Paul.

Since Brad is looking for clues of the balance of the came, and just to be sure the flip side is heard, I think I had better tell everyone that I have yet to see a powerful minor race. Even the Bradians were tame in all the games I played.

I have not seen such a powerfull minor race myself at least yet. My first guess is it could be due to the overflow that I seen in the past that allows minor races to have an extreme amount of cash but it was pointed out minor races do not purchase Galatic Wonders.

I disagree with Solitair. They start with 5,000 gold and are more willing to trade gold for tech than the majors. I aveage 200 - 250 gold for each tech. Finding 2 or 3 minor races early in the game is like hitting the lottery; trade 'em all my tech for lots of gold, this allows me to keep my tax rate at 49% and 100% spending rate thoughout most of the game! My moral averages 74. For the last 6 hours of game play, my spending bars are: 30, 50 & 20. I have the largest military and most technically advanced in a Smart galaxy.

Ted,
I follow the exact approach which you follow. I milk the minors for every credit I can allowing me to totally out expand the other majors. But why should the human player have such a cash bonus in EVERY game. You would be silly not to use it and therefore it becomes a cheesy strategy. I would rather see it removed and see the minor races play as MINOR races, focusing on defensive ships and strategies. Either that or let them be MAJOR races giving them starbases as well.

Paul.

Paul,
If the minors were treated like majors in all aspects, then why have them at all? Brad is correct, they are there to be conquered or milked. How do you know the AI majors dont demand tribute from the minors? Have you ever sold techs to the majors? Beginning techs average 200 gold each, whether its sold to a major or minor AI.

I have yet to find a way to convince a minor race to join my civ.

Ted I know that minors are there to be milked. I milk them! I just don't like it. I would rather have a well balanced AI than have to milk minors to compete.

At the moment the minor races behave like major races. They expand (though not as much), build wonders, conquer other races, etc. Why should they also get a huge financial bonus? Some players are not used to milking minors and the minors become very powerful. A game which has such an obvious prebuilt strategy of milking minors just annoys my sense of right.

Paul.

Minor races are more than a match for any major race stupid enough to provoke what are usually peaceful races, more interested in surviving and getting rich than ruling the entire universe. They are useful trading partners as mostly they are extremly rich and unlikely to attack or threaten you for no apparant reason. If you make friends with a minor then you have a lucrative trading partner while at the same time keeping their militery strong through trade so that they can chew their way through the fleets of any race that believes that they can simply sieze their wonders, trade goods and money without a fight. Plus while those trade goods and wonders are in the hands of a powerful minor you are preventing your rivals from getting them so they're better than yours since none of the other majors will be able to grow to powerful using them and of course you don't have to build them yourself and can focus on researching and building powerful fleets to protect yourself from the gloryfied bullies that call themselves major civs and force them into futile battles against eachother which you take care a balanced so nobody ever wins them.
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The minors in my games (Crippling) are jsut as easy to plow through as ever- they build a few wonders but usually only when I'm not paying attention or going about another strategy and jsut don't have the resources.

They do seem a might bit better at building wonders than the "major" AI's though...

~SDC~

????? at end of game it lists all races in game and how much they payed in leases and the AI's have money paid on leases, so it would seem to me , even being very new, that ai players DO buy improvements, and there seems to be a bug in game, because if an AI player builds a wonder and i conquer that wonder has no effect on my empire, also if i conquer a planet with a trade good, i can't trade that good to other players and it doesn't effect me unless i traded it off them first. i can't tell you how many times i've conquered a eyes of the universe and never gotten the sensor upgrade, it sucks

No this isn't a bug Stardock meant it to be that way. You can't conquer wonders or Trade Goods. And yes AIs do buy Improvements now the thing is GoblinCookie is continuosly responding to beta test threads like this. Frogboys statement about AIs not buying improvements is over a year old, before the game was released.
~SDC~
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Gotta love those minors. i wish there were more of them in the game. Have like 6-8 starting per game.

~SDC~

GoblinCookie
Dang people -- these threads are from the beta days!

Start new threads on these issues if you need to -- this is all too confusing for old fogies like me

In only one of my games did a minor became the dominant power. But since they were fundamentalists, I guess it's an exception.
On the other games, by the time I catch up the AI (in population, & research) I have to help the minors stay alive against AI attacks, so that I can transfer my trade routes to them, when they become available because I attack some other AI.
Then if the minor is really getting crushed, when they have only 1 or 2 ships left on their planet, I invaded, just prior to the AI invasion: in order to save them, I had to take them .
And I agree with Lord Megatron, there should be more of them. Carinoids and Alexians can defend themselves for a while, but the ones that appear mid-game, with a tiny 100 people in the planet and no ship to defend it, are just taken out as they appear. There isn't even a fight: it looks like my invasion fleet just landed on their base camp by mistake (crushing it, but it was not even in porpuse...), and then occupied the planet!

Read my post on minor races Nastanik.