Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

It doesn't seem to do anything to production or whatever.

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

All it does is,

If you turned on your Facility Construction Minister, It tells it that you want this planet to make minerals.

Same with Farming Colony, Refining Colony, and others.

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Look at Default_AI_Construction_Facilities in the \AI directory under your SE IV directory. This files tells the AI ministers what sorts of facilities to build on what sorts of colonies. There's one for every AI empire, too.

Like TerranC said, selecting a colony type just lets your minister know how to treat that world.

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

Does this mean we can make our own files, so the ministers are actualy useful?

i.e. we could designate our own 'blueprint' for a farming colony design, if we really don't need much organics and would rather use the space for a heckuva lot of research facilities or storage. Then we just have to actually select it. In simultaneous games I get annoyed that the AI picks the wildest sort of function for my colonies. Maybe I want to designate my new colonies myself, at the start of the turn they were colonised.... kinda hard to pick them out when they already have one set....

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

You could call your designs MyFarm, MyMineral, etc. Then it would be easy to pick out the new colonies.

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, you can do that. What is being built on a planet you can set in the ..._AI_construction_facilities.txt, the designation of new colonies is governed by the ..._AI_PLanet_types.txt. Rather than editing one or more of the races you could make a new folder under SE4/AI (that's the folder that has the folders .../aggressive, ../neutral, ../defensive in it). Call it SE4/AI/mystyle or whatever. When you create your empire you can then choose "mystyle" for the minister.
BTW, if you don't like the choice of the minister about a new colony, you can set a new type in the planets screen. there is a button "change colony type" or some such.

Hope that helps,
Rollo

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

These responses seem to answer another of my 'newbie' questions, namely: do you use Ministers routinely and why?

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

There's also the "Display Select Colony Type dialog when colonizing planet" toggle under Empire Options, which defaults to on, IIRC. Does the Colonization Minister override that?

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

What happens if an AI gets hold of one of my planets? Will it re-designate the planet or does it just build facilities according to what I designated?

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, because I get far better results by micromanaging everything myself.

The only exceptions are: </font>

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> when I'm running a test game and don't want to bother with the things I'm not testing; and </font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> the Turn Blitz #1 game on Play-By-Web {link}, where you can't avoid using them. (Said game is still looking for players, BTW.)</font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The AI will never redesignate a planet. We consider this one of its major flaws. When it's running low on a resource it won't look and see if a current colony generating an exces of some other resource has a decent level of the short resource and could be converted. It will just force the next new colony to be whatever type it needs, regardless of the planet's value in that resource.

Re: Is there any real point in designating a colony as \'mining\', etc?
 

Krsqk - No, it does not. The dialog box will still come up with what colony type you want to set for the newly colonized planet.

dogscoff - If you set a planet to minister control, it will not change the planet type, it will build facilities according to the planet type and the corresponding AI file.

Elowan - Sometimes yes and sometimes no. It depends on the game and the situation. I will never use ministers if I have not previously modified the corresponding files first. The stock AI files are just plain stupid and cannot be trusted.