Minions are the player's loyal workforce that he controls in the game. They will do anything that the Evil Genius commands.
Overview[]
In order to make world domination a reality, minions are required. You will start out with a workforce of standard construction workers, who are used to build new rooms inside of your base, purchase and carry new items, and can be used as cannon fodder against enemy agents who sneak around your base.
Mere worker minions won't be enough, bringing up the need to specialize some of your minions for different tasks to make sure your base is kept hidden from prying eyes, as well-secured as possible, and to research new technology to aid in your nefarious schemes. Advanced minions will become available as the player captures hostages and interrogates them in order to learn the basics of each of the three minion specialties. From then on, you can train more minions in narrower skill sets using the Training Room. There are three types of advanced minions: Military, Social, and Science. [1]
By default, the maximum number of minions you can have in the game is 100. This number is less than it seems, when you consider there are thirteen different types of Minion and various Acts of Infamy will have specific and often demanding number requirements. This can be raised with modifications such as the Unofficial Patch, or directly editing the game files, but setting it too high will put serious stress on the game from trying to track all the minions.
Stats and Roles[]
Minions have different stats, which affect their performance both when on your island and out spreading evil on the world map.
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Island Jobs[]
Room Construction[]
- Construction Workers are the only minions that can do this. Whether building new rooms or demolishing them, your construction workers are up to the job.
Item Placing[]
- Only Construction Workers or Technicians can grab a briefcase from the strongroom, bring it to the depot, buy an object crate, and bring the object to its correct place, but all minions can re-package objects and move them somewhere else. Every minion also carries “Space Warping Boxes” which they will use to dutifully pick up objects and crumple them into nothingness, at full refund for the object’s price, regardless of the object’s condition.
Repairing Items[]
- If Objects in your base take Wear damage, only Technicians can repair this damage—higher level Science minions cannot. This includes both damage from Agents and use damage such as on overloaded Generators.
Defending the Base[]
- Your Henchmen will need help defending the base. Military Minions are best at doing so. Social Minions can help, but not by killing the agents, only by distracting and confusing them. Construction Workers can also help. Putting your base to "alert" will have workers grab a handgun, guards a rifle, and mercenaries a heavy rifle. These weapons do give heat. Please note you must buy the gun racks to have firearms and you may set your base back to stand down to have minions return the weapons. Snipers will always carry their rifles, whereas Martial Artists can only perform melee attacks.
- Do note that if the base is set to Red Alert, all minion types will run around and attempt to kill every enemy Agent they find on the island. This should be avoided except in scenarios that require absolute desparation, as Valets and Scientists are exactly as combat-capable as you think they are, which is to say not at all. Expect to have the ranks of your Social and Science minions decimated in this scenario—but if you're turning on Red Alert, then likely whatever caused it, such as higher-end Soldiers, is massacring them anyway.
Research[]
- Research is only possible when you have Science Minions at your disposal. This is used to unlock more advanced items like new traps, higher security doors, and better surveillance systems to help better protect your base. Technicians are capable of doing research but are both the worst at it by quite a bit and have the essential role of base repairman, so getting higher-level Science Minions is recommended.
Aiding Other Minions[]
- Whenever a Minion or Henchman can't work (Endurance, Smarts, or Attention are at 0) Social Minions can help (more often than not a Valet). The Social Minions will carry or direct their fellows to a room in the base where they can remedy this stat. This does not apply to Loyalty or Health for Minions, as minions who bottom out on the former will immediately try to desert and must be stopped like a fleeing Agent, and minions who bottom out on the latter are just dead. Henchmen follow neither of these rules unless a Super-Agent is involved; when a Henchmen is shot into unconsciousness a Social Minion will attempt to retrieve them.
Extinguishing Fires[]
- If any part of your base is on fire, valets can run and go and find an extinguisher and extinguish the fire. Please note that ONLY valets can put out fires, and extinguishers are only built in corridors.
Managing Minions[]
Controlling Minions[]
Minions cannot be directly controlled by the player. Here are some indirect ways to control them.
- Lockers are very useful as they increase the minion capacity of your base. The basic capacity value is determined by Notoriety, but this number is boosted by the amount of lockers that your base has.
- Door security levels can allow or not allow minions into certain areas of the base
- The Minion Management Screen allows the player to set the desired quantities of each minion type up to the maximum minion capacity level.
- The Evil Genius can prioritize construction tasks by pointing at them.
- Minions will automatically start working in a room, but this can be controlled more precisely by building time clocks. It allows you to turn a room off, which can be useful for saving power in a blackout situation. Alternatively, surplus minions can be assigned to the room, so the equipment is never vacant between shifts.
- Henchmen can use their special "gather minions" ability to guide the nearby minions into a certain area of the base or island.
- On the World Domination Screen minions can be ordered to leave the island in order to perform evil deeds in the wider world.
Minions on their Own[]
Minions and Stats[]
Minions are mostly, as the game describes, sycophantic lackeys who will work until they pass out for the sake of their Genius. However, they will attempt to keep their stats up so as to continue to function at their best. Each type of Minion has different maximum levels of each Stat—Guards, for instance, have higher Health and Endurance than Construction Workers and the other basic specialty types, but are lower in Loyalty, Smarts, and Attention (the idea being that they imagine that their new skills are more marketable, deluding themselves to think that their contract allows for such a thing).
- Health is lost in physical combat with enemy Agents, or environmental damage such as traps and being too close to room-creating dynamite detonations. If all Health is lost, the Minion dies. The primary way Minions will look to restore their Health is through the Infirmary. Military Minions and Construction Workers are particularly likely to lose Health, as only the most blood-thirstingly murderous of enemy Agents will open fire on Social and Science Minions.
- Loyalty is lost over time, and a Minion who runs out of Loyalty will immediately attempt to defect, fleeing the island and being lost from your pool. Loyalty loss is a problem for every Minion but is especially a problem for those working for long periods in public areas, such as Social Minions staffing a Hotel. Loyalty is one of the stats that Minions will rarely if ever "clock out" to specifically replenish. The Genius' aura can replenish Loyalty, but Minions will attempt to replenish it themselves when not on a job by either witnessing Interrogations, or by going to observe Loot objects, all of which replenish Loyalty in their aura.
- Smarts is drained by certain jobs and traps, usually intellectual ones such as working in the Laboratory or manning the Control Room. A Minion who runs out of Smarts will lose the ability to think and stand in place, scratching their head like an idiot. The primary room Minions will go to in attempting to replenish their Smarts is the Archives.
- Attention is drained by most jobs and some traps, and is usually the fastest stat to drop. A Minion who runs out of Attention will lose all ability to focus and will stand in place, scratching their head like an idiot. The primary room for restoring Attention is the Staff Room, but witnessing Interrogations will also do the job, and both the Genius' personal aura and many Loot items have Attention restoration as part of their aura.
- Endurance is drained over time and especially by particularly physical jobs, including training new specialty Minions, construction work, and manning the Control Room. Losing all Endurance will cause a Minion to pass out, and if this happens it will slowly regenerate while the Minion is unconscious. The primary rooms associated with Endurance restoration are the Barracks and the Mess Hall. Barracks objects that involve sleep will only be used by Minions during nighttime, and the Mess Hall will only be used during the day.
Minions who run out of the three non-existential stats will slowly regenerate them to a minimum level over time, and when they are minimally functional again will go to restore them fully. Minions will react when they hit a particularly low level of a stat, with a unique animation for each—a frustrated scream, for instance, indicates low Smarts—and then start prioritizing trying to replenish the stat.
Minion Behavior[]
A minion who has been tasked with a job will go to do the job and not stop until their shift has ended, or they run out of a non-Health stat (while some jobs do drain Health, they will not kill on their own). A room with extra staffing may allow Minions to clock off early, thus resulting in more constant readiness.
Minions with no room-relevant jobs will typically wander the base, "patrolling it" by their definition. Science Minions will often wander all over the island in search of items to research, which can be extremely hazardous to their health. Minions will gravitate towards Loot items, the Mess Hall, the Barracks, and the Staff Room. If your Hotel is close to the base, some minions may choose to go visit the Lounge and dance. They are also frequently seen hanging out in Freezers or just outside of base entrances, chatting and smoking. Coincidentally, these areas are also frequently out of range of Security Speakers, which may well influence the decision. Your Minions are loyal, but also typical worthless good-for-nothings that you don't know why you even pay them, and may well attempt to avoid getting called off break by any means they can think of.
Pathing and Priority[]
Minions attempting to reach a place will always attempt the shortest route possible to get there, whether this takes them into danger or through rooms you'd rather they not go through frequently. Level 3 or 4 locks on doors will force this pathing to change; this can both be used to keep minions out of an area, and can also cause weird pathing if the door is in an otherwise important-traffic area. If minions wind up in a room or area with no path outside, such as a room whose hallway has been deleted or getting trapped in a corner by rearranged furniture, they will panic and become uncommandable with the only exceptions being to move objects or to engage in Tagged actions.
Order of Operations: Minions will always prioritize direct commands via the Tagging system first, followed by self-preservation activities, followed roughly by purchasing, construction, and move orders, followed (again, roughly) by normal jobs and/or stat restoration, with the lowest priority being break/free time. Self-preservation differs for certain types; most all minions will attempt to respond with violence in kind if attacked. Military and Construction Minions will engage enemies if they engage in hostile activities within their line of sight, such as shooting people or objects; Valets in particular will always attempt to prioritize putting out fires if possible. Minions will usually attempt to prioritize their current job, but this does not always work, which can lead to some very awkward situations if you order a team out to the World Map while a minion of that type is escorting a detainee somewhere or running an Interrogation.
P/C/M orders can cause major problems. It is common for violent Agents who land on your island to run into supply chain minions running to and from the depot first; if/when those minions are killed, new minions will attempt to pick up the same job by running to retrieve the briefcase or crate in question and will almost certainly wind up killed in turn. This can rapidly exhaust your entire supply of Workers and Valets, so if you see this starting to happen, cancel all construction orders until the Agents are handled. The M involves all types of moving incapacitated people, from bringing arrestees to cells to moving exhausted minions to replenishment rooms. This can also produce a mass slaughter situation that is much less easy to interrupt, where a Henchman is downed by a major attacking force and the entire Social Minion population is then killed attempting to retrieve them.
Finally, it is important to note that changing the Alert level will interrupt some of these. If switching up to Amber, minions on a job will usually try to finish what they're doing, especially for Interrogations, but some minions will leave what they're doing to go arm up, including all minions currently restoring stats or on break. Switching down to Green will have minions go to return their weapons only when they finish what they're currently doing. Finally, engaging Red Alert will immediately override almost all jobs below self-preservation and "essential" jobs like the Control Room--minions will start running everywhere, even if not to an enemy, will arm up at soonest convenience, will search the island for all enemy persons, and will engage a spotted enemy over almost everything else no matter their type (the sole exceptions being Valets in the process of putting out fires, and occasionally Social Minions retrieving fallen Henchmen).
References[]
| Minions | |
|---|---|
| Military | Guard / Mercenary / Marksman / Martial Artist |
| Science | Technician / Scientist / Quantum Physicist / Biochemist |
| Social | Valet / Spindoctor / Diplomat / Playboy |
| Other | Construction Worker / Personal Bodyguards / Freaks |
| Henchmen | Colonel Blackheart / Dr. Neurocide / Eli Barracuda / Jubei / Lord Kane / Moko / The Butcher / The Great Mesmero / The Matron / Montezuma / Red Ivan |