Randomly generated minor races start off too weak

Eventually as the decades roll by new minor races start appearing. In my current game a race called the Arvintians has appeared in the Vesta system. Now Vesta I the Arvintian homeworld is only class 16 and is only bringing in 2 bc in money. The Drengin promtly declared war on them. There is a shred of hope for them I suppose beacause the Altarians recently declared war on them beacause they were at war with their ally (and my ally) the fundermentalists and agreed to help all three races in their war against the Drengin Empire. The Fundermentalists are drengin who didn't like the Drengin Empire and (with the help of my destabilisation money) decided the nice way was nicer and rebelled (so much for the encycylapedia claim that every drengin soldier, civilian or worker are pure eviL). In order for the new civilisations of the galaxy to able to build their own fleets and genrally survive I propose they start with the following (if they have the correct tech.

A planet with a population of 1000 mil and of at least class 18 or greater.
An economic capital.
Enough freighters in orbit to fufil all the trade routes that the race can establish.
A planatery defense
An entertainment Network
A manufacturing center.
Three defenders and one battle axe in orbit.

You would still be able to conquer them before they became powerful with a reasnable fleet and you would get an economic capital as a plus. Give me your thoughts on this.

Agreed, at times I wind up conquering them even though I wouldn't mind a trading partner--just because I know if I don't that one of the AIs will. If that's not the intent, they need a little more to start with, something like what you have with some variance depending on game stage.

You don't actually have to conquer them. With a minimin of effort these races can be befriended and turned into allies and then the other alien are far less likely to attack them. Currently the arvintians are happy in my goody guy alliance with the Altarians and Fundies and are beginning to establish trading links and have built a defender and a corvette.

Forming alliances with these races isn't just alturism it makes sense. By allying with them you monopalise their trade routes (the other races won't bother with them) which can be 5 or more routes. This way you can make a reliable small fortune in hard cash for minimin
effort.

I'd also like to see logos for all the minor civilizations in the game, not just the carinoids, alexians, I leugue and scottlingas. It can't really be too hard for stardock to make static 2D images for all the minors if they can make a game like galactic civilizations could it.

I've always considered the late-game minors to be a bonus planet for whoever reaches them first with a transport...

I want to say that Frogboy once said that late game minors were nothing more than a free planet to whomever got there first. So AIL, you are correct. That's exactly what they are.

That is certainly what they are, unless you want to take the effort to help them out to make sure they survive.

But the point is that they don't add much to the game as a "free planet" for anyone who gets there with a transport. If they were given the starting bonuses I suggested then they might spice the game up a bit and make the game more varied and thus more interesting. At the moment they add nothing to game even if the "free planet" is taken. You could still take the free snack attitude towards them as they aren't going to stand up to a determined attack and as I said above the presence of a Economic capital on the conquered planet could affect the game in a kind of aztek gold phenomanon with civs fighting over the riches of a dead race.
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Well, I often find them useful for cultural attacks. It gives me a planet closer to the enemy, which I can build a starbase near to increase production and influence.

Yes, perhaps "adding nothing" was exagerating slighty for narrative effect but I just think that by making the late gate minors purely "free planets" they are making the game far less interesting than it could be. As I said earlier if the new minors had a good chance of surviving for longer than a few months or even, heaven forbid until the end of the game then it would go along way to making every game truly different and interesting every time, an opertunity stardock were foolish to ignore. After all you are supposed to be able to play against "up to 35 civs" and that is not likely to happen if every new minor is squashed within 3 months of there spawning. Perhaps they could also modify the above to fit with the stage of the game they appeared at made as suggested by Xenocidal Maniac.
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