Personally I liked the number that was there previous and don't understand why they lowered the number of minor nations. Each city helps keep the number of wild things down. I actually liked pockets of unruly areas of monsters, but they dropped that too. So now it is a big, empty world for several beginning turns of a large map.

Well, the problem isn't the reduced amount of minor factions (though I wish they kept it how it was originally). 

It's that I never get minor factions. Ever! 

will they return? I only started with 1.08

I have one in my 1.08 game.

I wish it was moddable :/ 

i wish there was no such thing as a minor civ. it's an obtuse and arbitrary distinction just like it was in in GC2. if you want smaller factions that fit the lore of the world and serve all the same purposes then just make them lack channelers, have lower stats and use a less expansionist ai.

I've only ever seen one in my games. I would like a minimum of ten for large maps.