How do work Ministers ?

[PDF]

Well, after some weeks of play I still don't dare to toggle any minister on...
* Because the manual don't say anything clear about them
* And because I fear they soon ruin my game out of stupid decisions !

If I understood correctly, they can be toggled on/off for each planet, ship/base , and fleet ?
But some of them work on a global level, say research or colonization ? How do all that work together ? A colonization minister will surely need ships, that have to be built ...

I have a rough idea of what will do a research or facility minister (choose things according to AI settings), but none about what they'll do with fleets and ship building.
Will they make them wander more or less aimlessly ?

Are there also special care to be taken with mods such as proportions (that can "break" AI decisions) ?

Help !

[capnq]

One way to study what the ministers do is to change one of the computer players to human control [(F2) Game Menu/Players], and then turn on all the ministers [(F11) Empire Status/Ministers/Complete AI On)]. You can then look at what they're doing each turn, although you often won't see the actual orders given.

Another way is to experiment with turning on a few at a time.

That said, I personally never use them myself; I enjoy micro-managing everything. The few times I've tried them, I was quickly dissatisfied with the results.

[PDF]

Bump, looks like either noone uses ministers, or that those that use them don't know what they do !
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Klebdog]

I personally have only used ministers by mistake when I accidentally turned them on. I was both annoyed and dispointed with results and prefer to get into the weeds with my empire decisions.

[oleg]

Originally posted by PDF:
Bump, looks like either noone uses ministers, or that those that use them don't know what they do !
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, I use ministers in every game for a month at least - I am working on improving AI.
It is quite fun as long as you don't care about how ineffective is your country government. Few hours and you are in 200 turns into the game. Then AI does something stupid I think I can fix and start all over again. Sometimes I took control over tactical combat when battle looks interesting and I am bored.

[Gandalph]

There are several ministers that I use every game. Facility construction, ship design, colonization, production output, mines/sats/drones, retrofit, and ship cloaking. Keep in mind that I have modded my race files so that I know exactly what the Minister is going to do and have these ministers on to minimize in-game management to the areas I prefer to manage.