AI Religious Beliefs

[Minou]

Are there any known factors behind the beliefs the AI choses when it found a religion? I read the thread on Pantheons that explains how the AI almost always takes Earth Goddess first but ignores other good pantheons. For example, it sees that it has no pastures yet and thinks God of the Open Sky is worthless because it cannot "think ahead" and see that it has 3 Cows and 3 Horses that can be hooked up.

I feel like they almost always take Warrior Monks, Divine Inspiration and Feed the World as the first three (not necessarily in that order), then sometimes Jesuit Education. Not sure I have ever seen some like Religious Community get taken.

In my current game I have a relic from a hut and was planning to found a religion to get Reliquaries. If I sit back I should get the fourth/fifth religion from two Holy Sites and Divine Spark, but I have the option to spend a pile of gold to rush the third Prophet. If the AI might take Reliquaries it would be worth rushing, but if I know they are going to ignore it, as I suspect, spending the gold would be a waste.

 

[Victoria]

Never really looked into it, I’ll check the weighting’s. So you are looking at follower beliefs right? Not founder beliefs.

From what i see from the few logs I have Warrior Monks all civs weight highly and all other follower beliefs have no weighting so may just be random.
No weighting on founder beliefs at all

 

[Minou]

I was thinking Follower but it is interesting to know there are no weightings on others. I suppose I’d rather the AI just went fully random than always hogged one or two (like with Pantheons and Earth Goddess) and ignored the others.

I ended up rushing prayers in my game. Better safe than sorry. But I reloaded to check and AIs did indeed take Warriors Monks, Divine Inspiration and Feed the World.

 

[Victoria]

yes, there is no weighting beyond monks but the logs show them 3 taken first so maybe buried deeper.
I also checked and no random rolls for choosing a religion that are logged.

 

[DanQuayle]

From my experience, the AIs will always pick the same follower beliefs in the exact same order
1. Warrior Monks
2. Divine Inspiration
3. Feed the World
4. Jesuit Education
5. Reliquaries
The other follower beliefs will never get picked.
The only exception to this order is when the human player will make a different pick, but the order of the choices made by the AIs will remain the same.
Their 2nd belief chosen will also always be a worship belief. The building chosen seem to differ depending on the AI leader.
(This is one of things that currently annoys me in this game.)

 

[Minou]

Thanks!

Interesting (and depressing). I rarely pay that close attention to what beliefs the AI chooses and this is useful to know since you can figure out if Jesuit Education or Reliquaries are under threat or not. Guess I should not have rushed prayers in this case.

Of course it would be better if the AI weighed them on current circumstance (eg upweigh Reliquaries if they pop a relic from a hut) and agenda (eg take spread beliefs if religious victory oriented or a science/culture one if going for space).

That’s probably asking for more broken behavior so I’d ask Firaxis to just make it random.

 

[acluewithout]

I'd assumed the AI choosing Warrior Monks was deliberate - if the AI has WM as a follower belief, then that makes it easier to the player to actually build them (because player doesn't need to found their own religion to get them).

 

[Dux1]

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I just recently got back into the game and have noticed the inerrancy with which the AI always picks the same follower beliefs in the same exact order as described by @DanQuayle, and I'm similarly annoyed by this behavior. For one thing, it means it's more-or-less impossible to get Warrior Monks as the player at higher difficulty levels (and to add insult to injury, despite the fact that the AI always picks this belief first, I've never seen them actually utilize these units at all), but it also just contributes to stale gameplay over multiple playthroughs.

My question is this: Is this behavior moddable? I took a cursory look through the easily accessible XML files, but I didn't see anything like a definition for the weighting of these belief preferences (unlike religion flavor choice, which is clearly defined for each civ). I would love to make a mod for this that just randomizes the AI belief selections.

 

[Victoria]

it means it's more-or-less impossible to get Warrior Monks as the player at higher difficulty levels

This is not strictly true. being Peter or Qin give you a much greater chance as i guess does being Greek. On top of that, running projects rather than building a shrine can also get you across the finishing post faster. The irony is we are talking about a terribly choice of religion unless playing for immersion ... which is not really in the realm of deity.

Is this behavior moddable?

I have not found the weighting but then I am not a modder. The weighting is certainly there. I guess we just have to wait ... for the dll.

 

[Dux1]

This is not strictly true. being Peter or Qin give you a much greater chance as i guess does being Greek. On top of that, running projects rather than building a shrine can also get you across the finishing post faster.

This is true, although I've found the real problem isn't with getting the first prophet by normal means -- it's Stonehenge. At least one AI player tends to have the required stone access for it, and with the production bonuses they get I usually see it built much more quickly than any prophet would appear "naturally." As you say, though, it's not really impossible, just very unlikely.

 

[Minou]

I don’t know anything about coding but it seems like the simplest solution would be to make the AI choice random. Having them pick something based on victory goals would obviously be better, but random would be an improvement over always taking the same thing.

I have actually seen a bunch of Warrior Monks at least a few times though as Victoria says they are not a great choice.