yes it is as you said from what i understood of it, my mod largely does not modify base AI leader behaviour, however it makes AI (any leader) perform better for its own self interest (plant better sites, work tiles more efficiently, plan military sooner if behind and dont stack wonders if so in particular, choose builidings smarter especially if behind, make promotions more combat focused (city defenders with city garrison, general attacker units without medic or woodsman, etc), defend better low pop new cities, etc). A tentative non exhaustive change list can be viewed here:
https://github.com/wonderingabout/A...non-exhaustive-see-xmldefines-for-full-detail (hopefully accurately enough reported by chatgpt 5, and not exhaustive)
so if you were to test my mod, you'd see i suspect and as i saw too, both qualitative and quantitative differences. Most if not all leaders would perform better, but some leaders may perform relatively better than in BTS due to how the meta changed and how they might mesh better to a lot better relatively into it. For example if AIs execute miltiary defense or offense better, it may affect the ranking of AI profiles (i noticed for example Justinian AI often does very well for some reason in the 5+ autoplays where i saw it recently). I also added changes like making AIs freely walk up to 5 tiles away from their start point to avoid a bad start, see striking example here for example (with screenshots and drive link there):
https://github.com/wonderingabout/A...ing-sites-in-this-case-i-mean-but-anyways-etc
As starting point is very important for AI performance overall in the game, handling a bad start better alone could shift the balance to it relating more to overall AI strength (if say inca ai is the best in bts, but it often has bad starts for some reason or average ones, it may not be shown as such in dozen samples), so what was a ruined game due to bad luck might lean more into a fairer pure AI potential comparison i mean if i may say but anyways etc.
also, while my mod minimally changes leaders (except buildunit probs as in the quick guide i linked above xd hehe anyways etc), it still changes (as in reorders, and simplifies a bit to some extent, otherwise mostly BTS looking like) the tech tree quite heavily, although largely BTS looking like (redundant but anyways etc...), rebuffs civ-specific units and buildings (the aztec altar and jaguar are strong now; more generally mostly but not only late game ones anyways etc), starting techs are also changed to help best draw the strength of ais, etc, so all these subtle changes may affect ai ranking as well. Barbarians are much stronger too, so AIs good at early military may shine a bit more. An AI being unlucky due to barbarian stomping may be set back a bit sometimes, but i believe especially at higher difficulties that it helps offset excessive unit production (even accoutning for the the no era discounts change i added in my mod to make production and research innately harder/slower with the other changes and AI increased efficiency in mind as well, else AIs would have way too many units now, like 250+ units quite often at turn 250 xd) (in lower difficulties barbarians are less of a threat i would guess although i didn't test it too much, i think noble is an even game more or less if i'm not mistaken, see handicap table here:
https://github.com/wonderingabout/AdvCiv-SAS/blob/tech-rework/handicap_info_to_csv_advciv-sas.csv). If you were to test other difficulties than noble (i generally test monarch-emperor to balance my mod at difficulty i usually would play at when i played xd at least or where some players might but anyways etc), they'd be generally much more generous than BTS and base advciv ones, but the improvements in efficiency allow to keep AI efficiency regardless (no extra worke,r no worker modifier, no bonus scout, etc, no extra settler, no free tech, etc, from the testing i made i mean), and keep game comeptitive and fair (at least reasonably so i would say but anyways etc).
My worker code is imperfect too, but i believe it values longterm tile working (more cottages and food early), so AIs better with this change and also improvements but anyways etc may possibly shine more relatively as well although in absolute terms as well if said area was bad for all AIs in said run maybe but anyways etc. In particular imperialistic or expansive AIs (since i buffed these and non popular traits too) seem to perform better.
naval tiles are buffed enough that it can be quite competitive now, etc.
All in all the culmination of qualitative and quantitative improvmeents, while mostly looking BTS like otherwise, may lead to both relative and absolute strength increase among AIs if i understood your point correctly and now replying to it.
This is why i'd be interested in a more formal testing. I have many local points, and while my mod is finished, it's ont totally closed off, i love looking at AI, and if there are ways i could refine it furhter or simply see how it fares as comapred to BTS, it would be valuable and fun in itself to me. I don't know if you look at actual gameplay to tell what hte AIs do ingame (my bad i didn't look), but you'd be able to see differences i decisions too and how it affects AI vs AI gampelay if you'd look (they should suicide or get baited less, don't pillage as it wastes time and is annoying; also having only one settler at a time (so no settler in 1-2 city pop for 50 turns as hapepned in autoplay), fixing workboat 50 turn no production, all htese may lead to more challenging games).
From testing i ran myself while solving issues, it seems many AIs are competitive mid-late game, say 3 to 4 out of 8, and the unaway one doesn't always win, i could adjust balance to make it even tighter like delaying space victory conditions or whatever.
As for you, if you'd be interested, it might give some insights in how AIs behave in BTS or have the potential to perhaps as they do in my BTS deviated but msotly similar sort of enhanced/efficieny based mod, like it makes sense Inca AI is strong if he does well in AdvCiv-SAS, something like this, or wait Portugal AI is weak in BTS but in AdvCiv-SAS it does well, maybe this is because of the trait or this or that it does, etc. These are just sugegstions and potential ideas ofc
In all cases thanks for your interest, maybe you'd want to test a few very quick autoplay to see if it has any interest for the AI comparisons you want to do (which to be honest i don't know too much about). If you showcase such matches, more challenging matches may be more compelling possibly, if not, data points might help extrapolate to BTS existing results possibly (i only added one leader, so mostly bts looking despite quite heavy balance change). If not relevant for your purpose at least i added it, in all cases thanks, and thanks for your feedback as well thanks
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