AI's preferred Ideology

It seems that AIs have naturally preferred ideology and do not just make that decision when they're prompted to. I mean, you can obviously sway them, but it seems they have preferences. This happens BEFORE they select any Ideology.

Example:
I had Freedom, Persia had Order. No one else had an ideology, including India.
India, whom I made host through my votes, proposed Freedom as World Ideology, even though he did NOT have Freedom as an Ideology, yet. Persia is exotic to India. I am unknown. We are all friends, but everyone loves me more.

I proceeded to buy out most of the city states in the next 20 turns and vote it up. Zero diplo penalty to the now 4-civ strong Order coalition dealing with happiness issues, whom I am all DoF with still. =D India eventually picks Freedom, some 50 turns after proposing the World Ideology proposal.

Lucky me. Or does this sort of thing happen often?

In my first game I was BFFs with Shaka since the Ancient Era (we were basically neighbors) and I was the first to an Ideology. I chose Freedom.

China or some such is the second to found one, and they chose Order. Eventually, my bestie Shaka can claim an Ideology as well, but he chose Order. I think he may have been at odds with China as well. Eventually he denounces me, and my spies discover he's plotting against me too.

I chalked it up to Freedom not being one of the Domination-focused Ideologies.

In my games, the AI seem to favor whatever ideologies I do not pick.

Here, in my first game, with 19 civs in modern era, the ideologies adopted were balanced.

9 Civs has adopted Freedom, 6 Order and 4 autocracy.

Ghandi adopted freedom. Dido and Gustavo Adolphus adopted autocracy and get penalty with other civs.

I chose freedom.

The AI has an incentive to pick different ideologies - there's that early adopter bonus for a reason. However, it sometimes goes to ludicrous extremes. It seems the AI takes into account things other than just "I want to win X victory, which ideology is good?" or "Which ideology are my friends in?" because my mortal enemy, Attila the Hun, took my ideology, Freedom, after several failed invasions against me.

Maybe Attila was going for a space victory?

So, the real story here isn't that India picked Freedom (over Order or w/e)...

It's that India did NOT pick Freedom yet. He just already knew he was going to, and thus has proposed World-Ideology for an ideology he does NOT yet have.

If I can reliably predict which leader (either depending on friendship, tourism influence, or leader personality) will pick which ideology, I can be strategic about picking the WC host even if no one else has followed me yet. If I have the most delegates, I get to propose anyway, so I can DOUBLE the # of proposals favorable to me if I make an ally a host, which is what I always do if I'm in the lead (and if I'm not in the lead, I have to pick an ally anyway).

Now I'm just trying to figure out how to pick one that follows my ideology and will propose it for the world. Not only would this be great for me, it moves those who haven't picked an ideology yet to pick mine, and I get ZERO diplo hit for doing this (whereas normally, you'd see everyone else at war with you).

I think you can be predictive of what ideology they will pick only so much as you can predict what kind of victory they would be going for. Shaka has always gone autocratic in my games, but it makes sense for his play style. Freedom would make sense for Gandhi etc.

I would be interested to know if the civs had certain ones they preferred or if they just base it off of other factors.

I don't think that the civs have preferred ideologies in the way that they did in G&K. In one game, I had India take order (but your India took Freedom). I've also seen America take both Order and Freedom. Babylon just took Freedom in my current game, which doesn't seem like a natural choice for him.

Kwami said:

I don't think that the civs have preferred ideologies in the way that they did in G&K. In one game, I had India take order (but your India took Freedom). I've also seen America take both Order and Freedom. Babylon just took Freedom in my current game, which doesn't seem like a natural choice for him.

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I agree. I looked through the XML for a while and while I can find start bias, religion bias I don't see any ideology bias. I think it is purely based off strategy and the different civs may lend themselves to one victory more often than another as I said in my previous post.

They stated in the most recent polycast there is no ideology bias because they won't to portray that parallel universe aspect where you can end up with an autocratic India.

i would say the AIs randomly pick up ideology

They base it on what victory they are trying to pursue or what is the best for them in the situation they're in at that moment. I do feel they pick Order most of the time, though.

I know that part of their decision making process relies on how influential your tourism is on them. It's not random. It's also not 100% based on victory condition. I've gotten Mongolia to join me in Freedom before (when the world had autocrats and order civs).

Tyrvos said:

They stated in the most recent polycast there is no ideology bias because they won't to portray that parallel universe aspect where you can end up with an autocratic India.

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Right. The AI makes the decision based on several factors including:

1) it's victory strategy

2) availability of early adopter tenets

3)the Ideologies of particularly influential civs

Guys, I had a game where Siam picked Freedom, and then after I reloaded back to one turn previously and he picked Order instead. The only difference was me couping one CS, and he basically gave up on diplomacy.

As has been stated, the allure of the early-bird bonus tenets sometimes pulls the AI strongly in an unespected direction.

And some of it I think is our own bias. Autocracy isn't just for domination victories anymore, for instance. It's useful diplomacy and culture, even if that's counter-intuitive to us. We have some things to re-learn.

In fact, I would tend to say Freedom is the WEAKEST of the three for a culture victory, because all that directly boosts tourism is the level 3 Media Culture tenet. While it's a whopper, Autocracy and Order have strong tourism boosters as well, and more than one.

Kwami said:

I don't think that the civs have preferred ideologies in the way that they did in G&K. In one game, I had India take order (but your India took Freedom). I've also seen America take both Order and Freedom. Babylon just took Freedom in my current game, which doesn't seem like a natural choice for him.

Click to expand...

And in my game, America took Autocracy. I really think they may just really like those early adopter bonuses. I definitely don't think the ideological choices are tied to civs anymore, they seem more tied to the game state.

Tyrvos said:

They stated in the most recent polycast there is no ideology bias because they won't to portray that parallel universe aspect where you can end up with an autocratic India.

Click to expand...

I find that very difficult to believe. In my experience - which includes many late start games, so I get to see AIs pick an ideology a lot - it will almost only be the warmongerish civilizations (Denmark, Japan, Carthage, Rome) that opt for Autocracy. Everybody else is always one of the other two.

- and I've got a bone to pick with Firaxis about the AI's decision-making here. I'll often see an AI that plans to *never* expand and just sit with its pitiful three cities throughout the game still go for Order. The social policies the AIs pick still aren't aligned with what's useful to them.

steveg700 said:

Guys, I had a game where Siam picked Freedom, and then after I reloaded back to one turn previously and he picked Order instead. The only difference was me couping one CS, and he basically gave up on diplomacy.

In fact, I would tend to say Freedom is the WEAKEST of the three for a culture victory, because all that directly boosts tourism is the level 3 Media Culture tenet. While it's a whopper, Autocracy and Order have strong tourism boosters as well, and more than one.

Click to expand...

re: Freedom being weak for culture, I was having this discussion in the strategy forum here, and it seems that GMs' power is tied to tourism OUTPUT (not taking into account influence modifiers on each civ), so the Order/Autocracy tenants don't apply. So, if you have 1-2 cultural runaways, Freedom would be better than Order/Autocracy (or go Autocracy and then remove one or both of the runaways from the game). If half the world has high culture, you're better off w/ Order/Autocracy.

Anyway, the Siam switch is interesting. I think this explains why most people see Order being followed much more than Freedom. Since the human player has a huge CS edge (we actually do the quests, on purpose), and a relatively weak army, the AI will often think (correctly) that diplomatic victory is not an option.

How to get the AI to follow you:
1) Have half the city states
2) Be the first to ideology and pick order
3) Build tourism throughout the game while not allowing open borders so you have influence on the warmongers (who are usually lower in culture anyway) by the time they reach ideology.

I think at this point all AI should follow you into Order because 1) they like you, 2) no one's going for diplo victory, 3) order has everything else, and 4) they'll instantly get a -10 unhappiness penalty for picking anything else.

I was the first to pick an ideology in my current game, even tho' I was a little behind in tech at the time; I beelined Electricity, then used Oxford to grab Radio while I was researching Chemistry or something. I picked Freedom, as usual. Gandhi was the next to pick and I expected him to take Order like he always does -- he picked Autocracy!

He has been upset with me for centuries for declaring war on Spain and capturing one city that they forward-settled on me just as my settler was getting there. He, on the other hand has declared a protracted war against America and taken several cities. (makes no sense, he should be in a holy war with Ethiopia)

I've never seen the Gandhi AI play like that. He seems to be going for a cultural victory; full tilt Aesthetics. I am beating him at that game (Eiffel Tower, Louvre, hotels, airports, etc) and he doesn't like it, but it will take a long time to overcome his culture* so I'm about to attack Delhi. Just a few more turns to get a submarine in place to sink his ships if they try to retreat to the north. He has lots and lots of triplanes, so I'm going to attack with battleships instead of bombers, with fighters and destroyers nearby for interception. Should be a bloodbath.

*I'm influential with everybody else, but only "exotic" with India. Rising rapidly, but still...

I thought the only thing the AI cared about when picking ideologies is

1. How much happiness can I get out of this tree
2. How many early adopter tenants can I get out of this

The happiness that the AI evaluates off of freedom is skewed (causing them to never pick it if Order / Autocracy have 2 free tenants) because it's -unhappiness and not +happiness.

That's how it was explained to me. I've had civs that completely and totally hate me end up as the same ideology as me so I don't think it factors diplomacy into the equation.

Does anyone have the source code?