Re: Minister\'s won\'t upgrade planetary facilities?
 

Ministers? Ministers? We don't need no stinking ministers!

I don't use them but the upgrade button is great. Be careful it can crash your economy. There's no "issue food stamps button"

Re: Minister\'s won\'t upgrade planetary facilities?
 

Just to be a picker of nits, the "Upgrade" button does not force stepped upgrades. You will upgrade directly to Shipyard3 if there is a shipyard1 on the planet and you have the tech. One thing that will not happen is if there is an upgrade to shipyard2 in the queue it will stay in the queue and SY3 added behind it. You will manually have to go through and delete all the SY2 upgrades that were already there (maybe from the last turn when you hit the button.)

It also has the neat effect of upgrading something currently being built to the best tech level without loosing materials used in construction. For instance if you are building a SY1 and have one turn left to build on it or put it on hold with one turn left, hitting the Upgrade button will magically change the SY1 into a SY3 with one turn left to build. This is much better than building the SY1, then upgrading 2 or more turns to a SY3.

Sorry, I don't use ministers. The first time they built a mining station on a 0% mineral world they were fired, then shot, then fired again this time out of a gun.

Re: Minister\'s won\'t upgrade planetary facilities?
 

I don't use any ministers anymore. In the past they have made too many bad decisions for my empire, and now they have all found new careers.