Posted by: TheDeadlyShoe
« on: September 20, 2015, 03:29:23 AM »there's two games i'm aware of that have pulled that off properly so far. Distant Worlds and Space Empires V (if you use Kwok's mod.)
both use the 'minister' model, with each minister being an independently functioning ai responsible for a particular facet of the empire.
for example, in space empires V, the minelaying minister takes any automated minelaying ships and tells them to automatically pick up produced mines at colonies and deploy them at jump points designated as threat zones. While in Distant Worlds the ship production minister produces new ships dependent on your capabilities and needs (preset shiptype production ratios, whether you are at war, the strength of your economy). they are both responsible for a very narrow slice of activity and competent within that slice. each minister can be turned on or off as the player desires.
personally i've always found colony/city governors to be an unsatisfactory stopgap in most 4x games i've played, but i've been pretty happy with ministers that i can unload drudgework off to.
Aurora/Pulsar are tougher candidates for that for many reasons. There's a reason NPRs don't have to deal with maintenance or fuel or morale in Aurora, those are challenging factors even for players, and expecting an AI to handle that challenge is asking for failure. NPRs run out of minerals and effectively choke to death often enough as it is.
though it should be noted that civilian shipping lines are an existing low micro ai 'ministers' that theoretically should help take the weight off the players shoulders for certain tasks. unfortunately i think theyve mostly just turned into a way to make money. With a minor redesign that could probably be changed. On that note (randomly inspired suggestion), i always thought how tax and the civilian economy interacted in Distant Worlds to be pretty cool, and might bring a lot to Aurora. In effect, your tax level would determine how much money/resources the civilian economy had to work with.
both use the 'minister' model, with each minister being an independently functioning ai responsible for a particular facet of the empire.
for example, in space empires V, the minelaying minister takes any automated minelaying ships and tells them to automatically pick up produced mines at colonies and deploy them at jump points designated as threat zones. While in Distant Worlds the ship production minister produces new ships dependent on your capabilities and needs (preset shiptype production ratios, whether you are at war, the strength of your economy). they are both responsible for a very narrow slice of activity and competent within that slice. each minister can be turned on or off as the player desires.
personally i've always found colony/city governors to be an unsatisfactory stopgap in most 4x games i've played, but i've been pretty happy with ministers that i can unload drudgework off to.
Aurora/Pulsar are tougher candidates for that for many reasons. There's a reason NPRs don't have to deal with maintenance or fuel or morale in Aurora, those are challenging factors even for players, and expecting an AI to handle that challenge is asking for failure. NPRs run out of minerals and effectively choke to death often enough as it is.
though it should be noted that civilian shipping lines are an existing low micro ai 'ministers' that theoretically should help take the weight off the players shoulders for certain tasks. unfortunately i think theyve mostly just turned into a way to make money. With a minor redesign that could probably be changed. On that note (randomly inspired suggestion), i always thought how tax and the civilian economy interacted in Distant Worlds to be pretty cool, and might bring a lot to Aurora. In effect, your tax level would determine how much money/resources the civilian economy had to work with.