Still ,there's no Sovereignty fix, so AIs can literally cheat their way into winning any Minor-Race, any time, forever.

Can you explain what you mean by this? Do AIs get Minor Faction standing in a weird way?

Well, you cannot (other that by Hacking) improve your standing with a Minor Race after you reach a value of 100/100. 

Od course, effects of improve relations can still work their way up e.g you paid a lot of influence while they were 97/100 so it ended up like 140/100. That's overtipping.

Over a certain threshold, perhaps 75, I'm not sure - a Major with the best relations with a Minor Civs gets to be said Minor Civ's Sovereign. If one get's more points than the current Soveriegn - they switch places. Sovereign can assimilate a Minor or use it as a vassal stae, producing resources and goods - like mercernaries.

However, one cannot see other players' relatioship points, so tipping a "sovereigned" Minor is a loterry. Also players usually don't have absurd amounts of influence.

But...

AI cheats. It has various handicaps, bonus resources, boosts etc - as that's its only way to compete with players. 

AI also has a habit of minmaxing through quickly, absurdly quickly assimilating Minors. I think Lumeris are especially quick, somehow.

AI can overtip MASSIVELY a Minor, taking your Sovereignity and instanteously assimilating them, taking their traits permanently. It's punishing you for playing a goody two-shoes larper and not assimilating a civ outright ASAP.

Trying to overtipp a Minor that was Sovereigned by AI is a fool's errand - their relations are let's say 5000/100 and your only weapon is hacking, and 100 hacks, not turns or so, at that.

I like using my Minors as my vassals, providing resources and goods, mostly early anti-pirate mercs, and of course larping merrily along - Vodyani don't kill everyone outright, just suck the life out of civilizations as parasites - and a smart Craver Hive would do the same, Horatio dont mingle with baser creatures, United Empire is a federation...but humanoid-centric etc.  Splash text informing me, that there was a Civilization that was completely assimilated is just a sad remainder that either AI eats them first and get bonuses or I.

Minors in ES2 are pretty meant to be assimilated as quickly as possible. You shouldn't keep your minors as they are even in multiplayer sessions.

And Lumeris is quite minor assimilation depent faction. There isn't much things to do for Lumeris if they fail to take lots of minors.

dustwhit wrote:

PARAdoxiBLE wrote:

Minors in ES2 are pretty meant to be assimilated as quickly as possible. 

Yeah, you're right, but I think it would be better design if it was reasonable to keep them around under your soveriegnty. The Nakalim, for example, have a greater incentive to try to do that, because minor faction science can be boosted through development grants (as well as hacking) and bypasses the Beliefs not Breakthroughs negative modifier.

I would second this notion. One of the things I would have loved to see some improvement on in this game is interaction with Minor Factions. It shouldn't always be a simple "encounter minor faction, begin assimilation" thing. Part of the depth of fun in 4X games is the weight of choice. It would be nice if choosing to vassalize, assimilate or conquer a minor faction had some bearing on the game direction and how your major faction benefited or suffered from those decisions.

Valadeus wrote:

dustwhit wrote:

PARAdoxiBLE wrote:

Minors in ES2 are pretty meant to be assimilated as quickly as possible. 

Yeah, you're right, but I think it would be better design if it was reasonable to keep them around under your soveriegnty. The Nakalim, for example, have a greater incentive to try to do that, because minor faction science can be boosted through development grants (as well as hacking) and bypasses the Beliefs not Breakthroughs negative modifier.

I would second this notion. One of the things I would have loved to see some improvement on in this game is interaction with Minor Factions. It shouldn't always be a simple "encounter minor faction, begin assimilation" thing. Part of the depth of fun in 4X games is the weight of choice. It would be nice if choosing to vassalize, assimilate or conquer a minor faction had some bearing on the game direction and how your major faction benefited or suffered from those decisions.

I said it somewhere before that I would have liked a solution where assimilating is tied to at least mid-tier techs. That would solve the problem of Endless AIs snatching them up at turn 25 or as soon as they notice that you started investing in minor factions.