Okay, first off, my apologies if I'm re-iterating any previous suggestions. I'll try to condense my suggestions as best as possible and explain them concisely.



~Minor Races

The idea behind this is similar but not equal to games live Civ, Gal. Civ II, etc and is not altogether new. Basically, not every civilization will be a superpower, and to my experience so far, the civilizations that aren't superpowers get killed pretty damn quickly (A problem addressed later). What you want is sustainable smaller civilizations to be a feature you can turn on for a game. These civilizations should have the basic hallmarks of any major civilizations: They can grow, research, build, expand (4x for them too!) negotiate, and all the main features. They should occur at the beginning of the game and have a small chance of sporadically coming into existence (if Minor Races are enabled) during the game. While you could take an approach like GCII and make it so that while they can colonize they have heavy penalties to assure they are never a galactic power I would personally suggest otherwise. Give a Minor Race a negative bonus at their civilizations creation, and if the AI is savvy, lucky, and not killed for long enough, they shouldn't have any artificial barriers keeping them from actually shifting into a more major power. Now the obvious problem here is effort. You guys have to program all that AI, which is no small feat (I know!). The key that a lot of games use, which I would suggest atleast at first, is to make alterations to your 8 major AI and turn the variations into Minor Races. This worked fairly well for other games, where the Minor Races tend to be quirkier, more extreme, or more neutral counterparts.



~Cease Fire Changes

I can't be certain but at the moment it appears the only way to truly get a cease fire is to outpower your opponent. And if you can overpower or stalemate them, why stop? As a player you can usually out think the AI and take all their lovely worlds. The AI agrees, I played a few matches where I let the AI get the jump on me and I have never managed to negotiate a cease-fire. I would propose that cease fires be more common. In most wars (short of major World Wars) cease fires typically occur fairly quickly because a territory dispute has been resolved and both sides don't want to necessarily plunge into years of war if they can prevent it. Even so, when one-side wins, it doesn't necessarily mean the entire destruction of a country, while in Alpha so far it seems that once a side has a strong advantage, the other side is gone.

Basically I think the AI should evaluate cease fires differently. Bullying empires into serving you, so taking some territory but letting them continue, is a viable tactic among many other reasons for not whole-sale slaughtering an empire (Negative reputation for genocide, resource cost, rebellion chances, etc.).



~Racial Tactics

The one thing that stood out to me was that the Hissho are said to be more 'honorable' warriors and the the Horatio are said to be beauty orientated. I often have the Hissho sending small ships to kill my colony ships, which is hardly honorable I would think, as well as raid backwater colonies. The horatio always seem to declare War on me, fairly often, which if they want to turn everything into them makes some sense but it's a little too war orientated to feel all that different from the Hissho or Cravers.



Sorry, kindof tired, so it's a bit poorly written and less explained than I wish. Hope its some help.

Great idea with Minor Races. I would see them as intelligent races that managed to gain control of their own world but do not have appropriate technology to leave their homeworld (20th century Earth). Major races would be able to enter into diplomatic relation with such race and, depending on their attitude, either protect/aid_with_development/enslave/exterminate. Minor races would be great place for all those SF species types that did not manage for Major Race slot (aquatic, silicon-based, plant-animal symbiotes, 'Alien'-like predators, etc.). This would bring more life to the galaxy.

I definitely agree with the Cease fire suggestion; all out, to the death, war is not always tactically advantageous for either side, but the AI seems single minded one war happens.

Not quite sure, as I have not perused the entire diplomacy tree, but is there an option for systems to change hands without a siege? So perhaps the AI could be written to engage hostilities to obtain a system via treaties, and not necessarily through bloodshed. It could offer it shortly before attacking, like a ramp-up: first it threatens dust to avoid war, and if it is no appeased it starts one and, if it thinks it is winning, immediately calls for a cease-fire if you give up said system. The player might not accept, as they might want those extra turns the enemy spends nuking from orbit to build up a new fleet, but it would allow a more lenient AI...at least one that actually thinks of peace and not just war, war, and more war.

Great idea with Minor Races. Maybe they could start out in the beginning of the game as small planets that are set not to try to expand. Or, perhaps, they start out as a planet with a 'friendly' or 'hostile' locals anomaly, then after 10-300 turns they turn into spacefaring species and start to expand. (Once they do so, the locals anomaly will be removed). Or, they could be normal civilizations set in a HORRIBLE system (with the worst planets possible), making it hard for them to start their game...

That goes along my ideas for improvement, especially when you include what "panproteus" said.

Let's keep this thread going! Show the devs how much we want our galaxies to have more life. Let the smaller species live!