Using Ministers

Aub · #1 January 25th, 2001, 02:21 AM

Ministers are really good for tasks that are no more than a chore. From this point of view, only the "Resupply" minister makes much sense.

The computer can calculate how much supplies it will take to get to the closest depot, and turn the ship back just in time. If I have to do it, I spend more time but arrive at the same result. Ther is no way I can do a worse or a better job -- therefore, automating this task makes sense.

I use other ministers occasionally to make sure I do not forget a planet or a ship. The ones like "Colonization" will leave your orders alone if you did supply them. If you have left a colony ship without orders however it will fill it up for you, and I find it convenient.

-- Aub

Drake · #2 January 25th, 2001, 06:15 AM

I don't use them either. Perhaps if the game was on a larger scale, or the ministers were easier to customize. In the former case I'd have to use ministers or go insane from the micromanagement, the latter I wouldn't have to undo the things the ministers do because they're trying to be helpful.

-Drake

igoblin · #3 January 25th, 2001, 06:21 PM

I really like ministers and I used them a lot in SE III to handle all the colonization and facility building later in the game when I had too many colonies. In SE IV I haven't really used them because I had some bad experiences with them. The population minister drained all of population off of my homeworld reducing it to 1M pop instead of balancing the population between all my planets. And the minelaying minister would put minefields between two systems that you controlled instead of on the borders and I had to constantly change what systems to avoid to stop my colony ships from setting up colonies in enemy territory. I also wasn't able to use the resupply minister just for specific ships. I would order a fleet to take over a planet with a resupply depot but they would turn back before they got there even though the fleet wasn't under minister control.

By the way you can customize what your ministers do by giving your race custom AI files. But I haven't really looked at them enough to know whether or not I can fix these problems.