Dynamic Minor Diplomacy

+Please escuse the any grammar and sentence structure mistakes. I made this in somewhat of a hurry.+

Current diplomatic options between minor factions and major factions are incredibly inadequate for such a lore-rich and fantastically designed game. Thus the following are some ideas and suggestions on how such a redesign could be successfully achieved. If you have any ideas or suggestions that you think should be added or modified on this list, please let me know in a post below.

1.]Minor factions are unique. Meaning there is only one iteration of any minor faction and its associated colonies at any given time on the map.

2.]Minor Factions act as true minor factions. Meaning they are minor AI that are not heavily expansionist and advance much slower than major factions along the tech tree. They also only have access to small parts of the tech tree that will keep them somewhat behind major factions technologically, but still able to hold their own.

3.]Minor Factions can and will engage in dynamic diplomatic relationships. Meaning each minor faction must be dealt with diplomatically in a manner similar to a major faction. Players will start out in cold war with them and must move to peace in order to access higher diplomatic functions. These include at minimum the ability to sign commercial trade agreements, population exchange/open migration, the creation of alliances, requesting assistance against an opponent in war, and the flat or monthly exchange of resources. these actions will cost influence and their outcome will depend on the attitude of the minor faction towards the player/major faction. Minor factions can also engage in diplomacy with each other, and will seek to trade with one another as well as form military alliances against aggressors if a threat becomes a major danger to them. this is meant to make minor factions remain an obstacle in the long run against heavily militaristic and expansionist players. In the event of an alliance formation, minor factions may also seek to invite players they are friendly with into the alliance to assist in opposing the aggressive major faction/player. This can also happen the other way around, as minor factions that are in dispute or overtly hostile towards an alliance member may seek to join the aggressor's side in the conflict, especially if they have good relations with said aggressor. This means that after enough time has passed such conflicts can easily break out into full-on galactic war if players are not careful.

4.]Dynamic Assimilation. No longer will players be able to just buy out minor factions and assimilate them with influence/dust. Instead the players must work to improve relations with minor factions to as high as possible by way of favorable trade agreements, support in conflicts with others either via direct confrontation or the donation of FIDSI resources or ships. These actions will provide differing amounts of positive relations gain with military assistance and quest completion offering the most overall. Once relations with the minor faction have reached 100 (per the norm) players can request that the minor join their empire as a client race (assimilate them). Upon which they will be offered a minor specific quest (possibly there could be more than one for each minor to switch things up from time to time) which will allow assimilation once completed.

5.]Incentivized diplomacy. Minor Factions will each possess 1-3 unique technologies in addition to their normal affinities that can only be gained by the player upon either assimilation, the completion of special quests, or traded for at a high enough relations level (90-100) though the player must already be in an alliance with them if this is the case. Allied minors will also, as said previously, come to the player's aid during war if the player has cultivated good relations with them.

6.] Limited expansion. Since there will only be one of each minor on the map at any given time each of them is able to expand to nearby star systems and form colonies, albeit much more slowly than a major faction and the minors are limited to up to three star systems at max. however many will most likely stop at two.

7.]NO MORE ROGUE FLEETS. Pirate fleets will no longer just appear from a minor faction homeworld and proceed to just attack until destroyed. Instead minor faction fleets will spawn as usual but stay garrisoned on their homeworld or patrol allied regions. Only attacking if attacked or at war. The number of ships will be capped by how large the minor population is and the overall FIDSI output of the minor faction as a whole. Pirates will still spawn at random, but will instead be spawning out of the fog of war like in the original game (if there is a better alternative please let me know. maybe pirate bases that spawn at the game start?).

More ideas will be added as I come up with them, I hope to see others add their two-cents as to how minor factions could be improved.