Ai ministers problems

Pocus · #1 May 13th, 2003, 05:10 PM

I have problem understanding how the ministers thinks. Whats more is that I'm under the impression that the AI, which by definition, use ministers, is not suffering from the problem.

The problem :

I like to let the AI automate mundane tasks, as mine laying, and pop transport.

What is wrong is that it seems that all the ships for a given task converge to the same location. For example if you switch to minister control 4 pop transport at your HW, they will all head toward a single planet, and you will more often than not get a message that you (the minister) cant unload all this pop to the planet.

Another problem is that the AI send ships without regard for supply usage, and even if there is refuel planets along the way, he wont use them.

So I'm a bit clueless, and annoyed. As of now if I use ministers, they will totally ruin what they do. I can accept they play bad, but not so much that they are completely worthless.

Your experience with ministers???

[ May 13, 2003, 16:10: Message edited by: Pocus ]

oleg · #2 May 13th, 2003, 05:14 PM

Yeap, this is exactly how AI plays

No wonder it needs a hefty bonus !

Loser · #3 May 13th, 2003, 05:22 PM

I, for one, don't use them. These is no detail of empire management too minute for my imperial attention.

For mine laying and population transport, I tend to queue up a long, long list of orders: get pop, go refuel, go refuel, drop pop, go refuel, go refuel, get pop... and so on. With this method, at least in unmodded games, it is nice to use smaller population transports since you cannot order partial loads or drops.

Quote:

Originally posted by oleg:
Yeap, this is exactly how AI plays

The AI doesn't use Resupply?

Xaren Hypr · #4 May 13th, 2003, 05:22 PM

My experience with ministers...

I don't trust them, so I don't use them...'nuf said.

Just my $0.02

Ragnarok · #5 May 13th, 2003, 05:26 PM

I'm on the same boat as most of you. I don't use them.

I used them in my first solo game I played and haven't used them since. Once you figure everything out you can control your empire just as easily as you can turn the ministers on. Plus alot better.

Hunkpapa · #6 May 13th, 2003, 05:46 PM

How do you que up orders for fleets/ships?

Pocus · #7 May 13th, 2003, 06:01 PM

In solo what bother me in the mid and end game is the pop shuffling, garding way points with minefields and other petty things like that. I really dont want to spend half of my turn doing such ininteresting things, I prefer to concentrate on military affairs.

Also I would like to find a solution to handle production list efficiently and rapidly. All these tons of mines, fighters and troops produced each turns by my planets are too much time consuming too.

My current implementation is to have the largest planet of a system as the imperial center, and a cargo on repeat load units produced on the other planets (of the system) and dump them into the imperial world. On this world I know that there is stuff waiting for me, and not elsewhere (for this given system).
Also I tend to only build a single shipyard for each system, on this imperial world, and a slew of shipyard base on this location. With this all the production and military is concentrated on a single world. The other planets either produce units, or do nothing.

In solo, mind you. In multi I would optimize and bean count to death

So, about you, how do you handle the huge micromanagement which appears more and more as the game grow older?

oleg · #8 May 13th, 2003, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Loser:

quote:
Originally posted by oleg:
Yeap, this is exactly how AI plays

The AI doesn't use Resupply?

It does of course. When ship is 50% or less supplies. The original post was that AI does not make small detours to resupply on the way when send mine layers, population transports and like that.