Ministers simply allow more people to play, however they wish to play. Nobody is forced to use ministers of any kind. So those that don't like ministers don't have to use them. Some people want to spend huge amounts of time online talking while playing, and even with ministers, they would be able to continue to do so. However one thing that I have seen here is that Illy has a VERY high proportion of older people playing the game. Well over 2/3 of the ones that I talk to have full time jobs. Those people want to be able to play, but can't afford to spend a lot of time doing so. Those people also have a little bit of money, and would gladly trade a small amount of money in exchange for saving a little bit of time doing the monotonous grunt type work. This is where the ministers benefit everyone. They provide a means of those that can only spend a small amount of time each day to pay for the upkeep of the game for those that can spend a lot of time in the game. About half of the people that I know of that quit, did so because they simply couldn't afford to spend the amount of time it takes to play it any more. Ministers would solve that problem.

Misc: Obviously ministers would never replace the people. They would not be real smart. If a person relied too heavily on them for extended absences, they may very well come back and find that they no longer exist in the game. And that would be by design. You would never make minister smart enough to replace the people that they help.

Each of these ministers could cost the same 5 prestige per city per week that your other ministers do currently, and would also require an active prestige account.

An important aspect of these ministers is that they would NEVER do anything that the player couldn't do themselves if they were online. I.e. they would NOT give any advantages to the player other than convenience.

Potential profit to Illy: As can be seen, the potential for profit to Illy is 5 ministers times 10 cities times 2 accounts times 5 prestige = 480 prestige per player per week. It is unlikely that most will spend all 480 (though some might) but a lot will probably use 1 or more of these ministers.

What types of ministers could Illy have: One or more of the following:

Building minister: In its simplest form it could be something as simple as providing 6 building slots instead of only 2. When one of the 2 normal slots becomes empty, it is replaced with the next item in the "extended" build queue.

War minister: It can schedule a particular army to attack a particular target, and arrive at a particular time. If the army is not present when the scheduled departure time arrives, then the attack is cancelled.

Production Minister: Whenever a production queue (not including troops or diplos) becomes less than xx hours long, then it would automatically schedule another 1000 of whatever the last item in the queue is. For instance, if the last item queued in the blacksmith was swords, then the next item scheduled would also be swords. There would be a single production minister for all buildings, but each building would have a check that enabled or disable it for that building. To stop the re-queuing for a particular building, you would simply turn off the production minister for that building.

Defense minister: It can be set to either automatically dodge any incoming attack, or can be set to call in reinforcements from other cities that are within xx miles when attacked. Obviously these options are not all-saving for the person, and the person would use them at their own risk. Nothing ever beats the person being present.

Cotter/Gatherer: It would use the cotters and skinners in that city to gather stuff that is either within xx squares, or currently has one of the player's armies posted on the square. It would not send to any square that had another player's army on it, or already had anyone's gatherer posted on it.

Rill said: “To me, this seems like putting Illyriad on "auto-play."

Yes, it is effectively putting some of the more mundane aspects of the game on auto-play. I think that most people that play this game, do so for reasons other than wanting to go through all the build queues of all the cities and doing the monotonous task of requeuing them every day. I think they want more time to plan strategies, or to talk to others, or to do other more meaningful things. And if not, then they can still do it all manually. Nobody will ever be required to get the ministers.

Rill also said: “I'm a little ambivalent about even that, since part of the "fun" and challenge of a war or tournament is that it's HARD to get everyone to be up at the right time, and someone always oversleeps, etc. (Or, if you are lucky it's the OTHER side that misses their time.) Sure, it might be more efficient, but is it more Fun?”

I beg to differ with you. It is not fun to me to stay up half the night to launch the various attacks in order to get them there at the appointed time, and then get up early in the morning to go to work. If I have to choose between playing the game, or being awake at work, the game loses. Period. So why would we go out of our way to make people upset at the game? Or worse yet to have to chose between playing the game or working for a living. Why not offer them a choice? If they want to do it all manually, go for it. And if not, then offer them a legal alternative.

And I am not suggesting anything that can’t be done already anyway. There are plenty of bot browser addins that will do it already for those that don’t want to obey the rules. I am simply suggesting that we allow it legally, in such a way that helps the game instead of hurting it, and in such a way that gives those that obey the rules the same advantages as those that don’t.

Brandmeister, said "This seems like another way for people to run multiple accounts with less effort. Most permasats probably do password sharing as well".

If permasats do password sharing, then they are already in violation of the rules, and should eventually get caught and banned. This suggestion is not about trying to make rule breakers have a harder time, it is about giving those that obey the rules an easier time. And if they don't care about the rules, then they probably also have bots that do all of this stuff already anyways.

With that said, what I am proposing is letting those that play by the rules have some of the same advantages as those that violate the rules by using bots. Namely a little automation.

You also said "Players wanting the advantage of tight synchronization, constant harvesting or frequent builds should recruit a properly active sitter."

Why should people have to team up and have 2 people play the same account in order to be able to play the game fully. The game is about each player playing it, not a bunch of players all playing a single account. I have played games that effectively require a sitter or two per account, and you might notice that I am here instead of playing those games. Why not let those that want to play an account without needing a sitter, do so? And if that makes them easier prey because they are not online when you attack, so be it, enjoy your prey. Then both you and they are happier, and everyone benefits.

I can definitely see your point about the minister to automate harvesting, versus a reward for doing the harvesting yourself. And in this respect the harvesting minister is probably not a good one to have. But please realize that my suggestion was to add ministers, not to add a particular set of ministers. The possible ministers that I listed was just that, a possible set. Something to give people an understanding of what I was talking about when I talked about adding ministers, and that was all. Any of those particular ministers may be desired or not by certain people, and certainly almost nobody would like them all. But I think the idea of adding ministers of some kind is a very good idea. What kind of ministers are added would have to be decided by the developers.

I personally would prefer more time to deal with people, and less time taken up doing the mundane repetitive junk. But I can achieve that as far as the resource harvesting by simply not bothering to do it, and buying my resources, which I have already switched to for the most part, as have many others. But this removes us from that part of the game, instead of making that part of the game more tolerable. But as I said, that is only 1 example of a possible minister, not really part of the suggestion to add ministers.

Also, please realize that I in no way feel that someone should be able to play for 10 minutes a day, nor an hour a day. On an average day I am online for about 8 hours, spent between 4 accounts in this game (main, alt, and 2 sat accounts) and 1 in a different game. That in itself should answer that. I also stated that ministers should blindly do what they are told, not be intelligent, and never give an advantage. They are convenience, not substitute players. Their intention is to allow people to be freed from the mundane repetitive junk to be able to be more involved with the meaningful stuff. Anyone spending less than 10 minutes a day will be extremely easy pickings during any type of war, and are generally referred to as cannon fodder. But at the same time, if somebody wishes to support the game for everyone else by being their cannon fodders, then great, man the cannons. To each their own, and each plays an important part in the game as a whole.

I am not finding fault in what you are saying. I agree with it. In fact I find most people are in the same boat, they don’t want to risk a sitter reading older posts in their inbox. This is probably the biggest problem with the sitter feature today. My only point was that this removes “get a sitter” as a solve-all solution, and brings us back to “let’s add the ability for things to be more convenient”.

You seem to miss the whole point here. The whole purpose of the war minister, or any other minister is to “allow a person to do the same thing that they can already do, but more conveniently”. They are not intended to do anything that can’t already be done. But thank you for checking to make sure that they meet their goal of not adding any advantages.

Angrim:

Right on! Well said!