Use of Ministers

RavenHand · #1 July 29th, 2002, 09:21 PM

Is there a link to a document that explains the effective/how to use of the Ministers? Now I know the term effective may be a stretch when used in the same sentence as Ministers but I would like some insight on there use.

Baron Munchausen · #2 July 29th, 2002, 09:56 PM

Unfortunately, everyone who has learned enough about playing the game to write such a document has come to the conclusion that the ministers are useless and you have to do everything yourself.

The AI is the biggest flaw in the game.

geoschmo · #3 July 29th, 2002, 10:04 PM

Hehehehe. Too true Baron. I was trying to think of a way to answer that question. You hit the nail on the head there.

About the only ministers I have ever head of anyone using are the population transport minister, and the sattelite launching minister. Even those though have to be watched so much I am not sure it's worth the effort.

If you are looking to reduce the micromanagment and not have to check with all your planets every turn, about all you can do is give them lots of orders queued up. Planets can now be given launch an repeat orders, that's nice. Ship build queues can be given orders to send ships to a waypoint, that's a nice feature for a large empire. Transports can be given repeat orders for mining warp points, or moving pop about. Sentry orders can take your scout picket ships out of the ship list when nothing is happening.

But use the ministers themselves, not so much.

Geoschmo

RavenHand · #4 July 29th, 2002, 11:36 PM

Thanks for the info. I thought as much do to the fact that know one seemed to like them very much.

capnq · #5 July 30th, 2002, 12:01 AM

The people who know the most about the ministers would be the ones who've modded AIs; they have the most experience coaxing the ministers into doing something resembling what they want them to do.

Andr�s · #6 July 30th, 2002, 12:39 AM

IIRC the facility construction minister not only needs the individual ministers of planets but also needs that the production minister is turned on. Can anyone confirm this?

HEMAN · #7 July 31st, 2002, 03:16 AM

I have the same problem too.
Quote; from DUNE,Paul artraides; They tried and failed?.Reply benijenert witch, They tryed and Died.
All i can do is orders related to repete order for pop transport.

Question; Has this been address to MM?.Will this be in the next patch?.

Baron Munchausen · #8 July 31st, 2002, 04:36 AM

Unfortunately it's not 'one' issue. An 'AI' is a huge library of functions, not one neat little 'run AI' unit in the program.

So there's not likely to be a 'patch' (singular) that fixes all or even a large number of the problems with the AI. It's being fixed, bit by bit, but very slowly because there is so much to cover. I think a large part of the problem is that the game is so customizable. The AI has to be able to handle a much wider range of circumstances than something like the the Master of Orion I/II AI or even the SE III had to handle, and both the Master of Orion I/II AI and SE II AIs were pretty good.