I've been a baaaad boy.

[Krakenup]

Originally posted by Atilla the Pun:
I've been, well not exactly baiting, Apolytoner's.

Go read the thread and then come back and tell me to leave them alone.

Good job, well, except for the fact that you're wrong.

Originally posted by Big Dave on Apolyton:
The ministers are stupid, untill you edit the text files that control them.

The text files provide goals for the ministers. The underlying ministers themselves are hardcoded. Look at any of a number of threads on this forum for examples of how stupid the ministers are. They send ship after ship through damaging warp points into black holes instead of through normal warp points a few squares away. They strip important planets of population to build up unimportant colonies. They ignore enroute resupply depots and just turn the ship around when it reaches half supplies, regardless of the mission. They build mines for planetary protection but won't launch them. They keep building units on planets with no storage available. They constantly retrofit ships to the same or inferior designs. They can't even find the short way around damaging storms or get out of black holes consistently. You can't afford to turn any part of your empire over to a minister. It will ruin you. The ministers were stupid in the demo, and the ministers are stupid in Gold. Although some errors have been fixed, there has been little done to improve them. MM's time has been spent on really important things like drones. [/Rant]

Sorry about that. It's a great game anyway, but it could be so much better.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Krakenup:
They build mines for planetary protection but won't launch them. [/QB]

Actually, AI never build mines for planetary defence. If there too many mines on planets, it means that this race does not build enough minelayers. It can be easily fixed in AI_construction_vehicles.txt . Check out TDM' Aquelenias and Pyrochette. They pollute the all wormholes with 100 mines very earlier. At the same time they maintain reasonable mine-sweeping fleets. Very annoing races to play against !

[ May 22, 2002, 01:10: Message edited by: oleg ]

[Skulky]

I agree the ministers are pretty useless if you really want to win and destroy the opponent. however it can be challenging, i forget who first mentioned this but this isn't my idea, to play with all but one area of the game under minister control and try to win still. For instance: Designing the ships only, or colonizing only, or controlling one fleet or one system, or finances/facility, or construction. Basically becoming one or a combination of the ministers and trying to win that way.

Also the AI manages to get very good, especially the TDM ones who have kicked my butt hard and good several times, when you are playing against it and not just using the ministers.