You can help out minors to keep them around if you want to. I kept a minor race alive from the 2cd year into the 10th year when I quit the game. I gave them money and ships, and would bribe the other ai's to leave them alone and give peace.

After about two years they were thriving without any help from me at all - in fact they kept kicking the Ai's butt.

They took over at least four planets through invasion, (managed to keep one from flipping so they had two most of the game); had a big kick butt fleet that roamed the galaxy; were allied at times with other Ai's; were technologically advanced; built several influence, military and economic starbases and managed to aquire a minig starbase, I guess when an AI who they humiliated in battle gave it to them for peace....

I think the problem with minors is that no matter what their intelligence, it's hard to survive when they are thrown naked into a den of hungry lions.

Yes, they have techs, but not much else. If they were spawned with a full technologically advanced fleet, a fully equipped and populated world, and perhaps a starbase or two then they may have a chance.

In my example, I really did not give them a lot of stuff. I gave then 4 fairly poor defensive ships, 2 empty colony ships I was never going to use; and some cash (about 500bc total) ; sold them some techs, and bought peace three time early on in about 50-60 turns. They did most of the rest on their own. Heck I did not even know where their world was at the time. I could not see it. They turned out to be in the heart of Thalian space, very near three other ai civs. They were kept quite busy surviving on their own.

They researchd and built huge ships first; they built a fleet to fight off the AI after I stopped buying them off; they built troop ships and invaded other planets on theri own.

The only help I provided was to protect them until they could attempt to do it on their own. And I didn't really expect them to make it - I really ignored them after the second year. They were smart enough to survive - (This was a game played on a large map at Tough level). They just need the tools to be able to have a chance until they got their tentacles on the ground.

The minor races, if helped gets crazy powerful on an even playing field, because most of them have +100 economics. The Andians are by far the strongest of all the minors because they get: +100 econ, +25 weapons, defense, soldiering, +30 military construction, +10 social construction, and 8 logistics (4 more than the other minors). So if you help the andians out... watch out later on (in some games, the Andians will beat people all on their own).

Unfortunately, when you move up the ladder to the insane difficulties, these bonuses means very little when the other AI also gets their bonuses. I believe the Minor races also get the bonuses from these difficulty setting, but it's just meaningless because their +100 economics isn't much of an advantage anymore when the other AI gets a similar boost but has a ton more planets.

It would be nice to have colonizing rules at game start for the minors, like:
1. Don't colonize,
2. Colonize own system,
3. Dominate the Galaxy!

Then again, keeping them alive is one of the many fun challenges, so I don't feel all that strongly about the matter. So you can beat Suicidal eh? Can you do it while keeping ALL the minor races alive? I mean, what else am I suppose to do besides waiting for AI improvement?