A question about random personalities

Are they truly random in that all the stats are just randomized, or do different leaders simply have their personalities replaced with those of others?

From what I understand, Random Personalities add variance to each of the flavor values of each leader (IIRC was 2-3 points either side of the normal value). So in the end, you get some slight variations in each leader that are enough to make the game unpredictable, but not a simple switch of personalities as in Civ 4.

I NEVER play without Random Personalities. If you ask me, it's the way it's meant to be played. Strategy is adapting to unpredictable circumstances.

I've been using Random Personalities a lot lately too. I found myself in kind of a rut gameplay wise since I had a pretty good idea of how each leader would react so I lost a bit of the randomness. Now each time I play, its a bit different and it has that "what if" factor back that drew me in in the first place.

Aristos said:

From what I understand, Random Personalities add variance to each of the flavor values of each leader (IIRC was 2-3 points either side of the normal value). So in the end, you get some slight variations in each leader that are enough to make the game unpredictable, but not a simple switch of personalities as in Civ 4.

I NEVER play without Random Personalities. If you ask me, it's the way it's meant to be played. Strategy is adapting to unpredictable circumstances.

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There are some flavor values that are consistently 5 across all leaders, such as the trade routes. I am not sure if altering these numbers would break the gameplay. Also, the lowest value is 2, which makes it possible to hit 0 with random personalities. How would that affect the game?

The + / - 2 variance for all traits is default.

Random personalities is something different.

joncnunn said:

The + / - 2 variance for all traits is default.

Random personalities is something different.

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No it's not, from what I remember... it adds more variance to the normal variance you are referring to.

Ai reactions and patterns have been a mystery to me. Ais are kind of rude sometimes though.

I don't know why one would play with random personalizes when (1) it is already hard enough to distinguish perceptible differences between the different AIs, and (2) with just a single game to experience, very few flavors/traits/bias will be manifested.

OTOH, the flavor/trait/bias mechanic is so weak, and AIs are so “completely enslaved to their gameplay situation” anyway, that random personalities might make sense...

joncnunn said:

The + / - 2 variance for all traits is default.
Random personalities is something different.

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Aristos said:

No it's not, from what I remember... it adds more variance to the normal variance you are referring to.

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You may be correct about random personalities adding more variance, but I suspect it makes every aspect random. The default setting already is +/- 2 (just as joncnunn wrote). That is a range of 5 on a nominally 10 point scale, so its pretty variable by default.

I would like to see an option for something like dogmatic personalities. Each trait is either 1, 5, or 10. Would that make things more interesting, or just unbalanced?