I enjoy playing on a minor regime only planet and rebuilding civilization out of an otherwise lawless wasteland
But by mid-game after you've sufficiently developed your economy and infrastructure and absorbed most minors into your sphere of influence, the game begins to feel empty with not much else left to do.
It would really flesh out the game if vic added more roleplaying elements that bring more uncertainty to the playthrough such as:
- Minor regimes having a unique and important role in gameplay instead of just waiting to get conquered or absorbed by you or a major ai. They can give quests/dilemmas that offer some benefit as a reward (rare & powerful item, money, leaders, etc).
Also, minor regimes are all behaving the same way. I'd like there to be more personality to each minor regime. Like during negotiations a nomad confederation has different concerns than a quiet farming community and you need to take into consideration each minor regime's unique interests and concerns if you want to develop your relationship further with them. It makes a generated world feel much more alive and unique with each playthrough.
- Regimes/Organizations that specialize in offering services (eg. slavers raiding other factions and offering to sell slaves as colonists, the players cities may be raided as well if they are poorly defended), mercenary groups willing to raid a regime for a high enough price, curators and independent traders like in stellaris.
- Diverse Major Regime Ideologies/Backstories: (republics that value democracy, socialists that value government control and worker happiness, religious theocracies that shun science (mind) in favor of faith (heart), etc). Major regimes compete with you for influence with minors.
Full scale war between major regimes and the player don't always have to happen in order to compete with them. Instead, cold-war like situations can develop with players and ai majors supporting different sides in a minor regime's civil war or political power struggle and the winner becoming the client of the supporting major regime. Victory can be given based on who has the most influence over the minor regimes of the world.
- Disgruntled governors seceding from a faction (ai or player) and becoming an independent minor regime, especially if the population of that region is unhappy as well.
- Also the mutant attack event is really fun, I'd like to see mutants play a much bigger role in the game. Mutants freaks are fun
