Minor races

I would like to see the ability to "uplift" (a term I first saw in the Star Control series) a minor race, turning them into a major race mid-campaign. Such an act would have numerous consequences, both positive and negative.

My thought is, what happens when the minor civ is uplifted mid game? Do they suddenly get a bunch of planets to so they can compete with the established civilizations? If a minor civilization is uplifted without proper resources, it would be easy prey for the other civilizations.

If a minor civ is uplifted mid game, but it has no means to do anything, did anything change?

I do remember a game in GCII where they had some minor rebel race form some kind of faction and you would loose planets.  If only they were aggressive like a major race they would have given me a good run.  I think having a minor race evolve would add some new twist in the game. 

i would think that uplifting a minor race would require an active element from a player or other major race

for example you would need to make donations of research points to help that race reach a similar tech level as the rest of the galaxy and protect it during its infancy (the uplifting stage) once it becomes active as a race it would most likely see you as a strong ally due to the help you provided it

however there is a chance that the tech you helped the race with blew up in their faces making them hate you for all eternity....

on top of that if a minor race has a small chance of getting a random super ability (mega researcher, super ship builder, etc etc) its possible that such a race could become a real powerhouse later on in the game even with only a few planets at the beginning

"Greetings, Lord Kona. We're thinking 1,000 bc and Phasors III in exchange for: not elevating the Snathi."

"Greetings, N-1/Elyes/Hithesius..."

I'll admit the option to "uplift" a minor race in GC3 would be a veeeeeery interesting option.  Could it come back to bite you in the ass ala the uplifting of the Krogans by the Salarians in the Mass Effect universe?

It's a very interesting question. 

I can't count the number of games I used the Snathi as a war proxy. Sell them a bunch of ships and pay them to attack someone, usually someone with a mining starbase I wanted but wasn't willing to go to war with over it. Plus they were great for giving my econ and research treaties, then sell them several high end research planets to maximize their research, then sell them all the techs I had in their tech tree to force them to research the things that I couldn't (farms, the Terran morale techs, etc).

Snathi should be a major race really. They are awesome. DLC?

The minor races were way too exploitable in 2. I could just constantly buy all their tech and influence to keep myself ahead, while giving them the tech in the direction I wanted them to research (there was a fun trick to it). There was one game that a random event caused a minor race to take a huge amount of planets from all the major races. They easily became the biggest race by far, but were still considered a minor race, so they didn't do much. I hope instances like this are fixed at the very least, if not allow the minor races to be "uplifted" so they start acting like a major race if they ever manage to become strong enough.

Here is an idea.  Why not have every race start out as a minor race but give the known major races the extra advantage like starting with a better home world .  Then once you reach a certain stage you get upgraded example once you colonize a certain number of planets.  The slower races or minor races would have to reach a certain threshold or number of planets to become a major race and possible have it voted on by the other races as to allow them to become a major race.