Civilization Opponent's Unique Personalities

[John L]

After a hiatus for about two years, I have returned to CivIII and am replaying the game, based on my editor modifications that I have learned over the years and applied.

One thing that I was aware of, but never really paid it all that much attention, was each opponent character's unique personalities. They are all different on how they do business with you and other opponent personalities.

For some reason, I have my favorite opponents I like to play with and also play against. Mongols and Zulus one can always count on to act in certain aggressive ways. But what unique personalities do all the many different civilizations possess?

For example, being the typical male, I am drawn to female players when looking for allies. Joan is nice to look at over time, up until the buzz cut. But my favorite personality is Theodora(Byzantine). She is easy to do business with, easy to please, and even when furious at you doesn't really look it as some do. So she is very easy to form an alliance, or Mutual Protection treaty, and is less expensive on the wallet. Not anything like that weasel Gandhi.

But she has one glaring shortcoming. She will go off on a tangent and declare war when you are not prepared. And she particularly goes to war with Persia, at the first opportunity. I mean, even if Persia is on the other side of the world, no settlements anywhere near her civilization, its as though she is programed to go after Xerxes as though she was a jilted lover. Its unnatural.

So here is my real question: is there any thread, manual, or manuscript, which gives the varying and different personalities of each civilization, how they treat others, keep treaties, work with others they allied with, or other general personality differencies?

They are all different in some way or another, and I am looking for the best ally I can come up with, who won't let me down at the first drop of the hat, and makes the best team player. There really must be a detailed study on this somewhere.

Thanks up front for the help.

 

[Cyc]

Most of the informational threads (War Academy, Info Center, and like Articles) for Civ3 were completed pre-Conquests personalities. They never have been updated. Good luck finding other than scattered, random threads.

 

[TomYo689]

Things like agression and flavors are shown in the editor. Does each AI script have a unique personality?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Things like agression and flavors are shown in the editor. Does each AI script have a unique personality?

I don't think that there is some sort of script, but that it is rather the "build often/sometimes/seldom" instructions that the governors have that determines 'personality'. Plus the aggression. If a civ has "offensive land units" and "build often" then they are just bould to be a little ... err ... cocky.

 

[John L]

I've concluded that there is a built in personality type for each individual, and the type of civilization he/she represents. Some are quite easy to discern correctly. The Mongols, Zulus, and Aztecs, can almost always be guaranteed to attack anyone at the slightest 'bad hair day'. The Mongols are the worst. But the other two are not far behind.

On the other hand, I have noted that Theodora/Byzantine, is a pretty good team player. As a history major, and having had two semesters of Ancient Civ, I know a pretty good deal about Theodora as she lived. She was a professional actor, prostitute, and just liked/respected/loved by practically everyone who knew her at the time. And she was a consummate power partner. In other words, a true team player. And when she is unhappy with you, she still maintains her poise.

I suspect she has been programed this way, because she tends to like you if you befriend her, will agree to mutual protection treaties even after everyone else has gone 'furious' on you, and will stay that way for a good while. She just makes a good neighbor, and partner to be allied to. But you have to watch out if you also have Persia playing in the same game. Obviously she hates Persia, which was a major competitor to Byzantium at the time. I generally assist her with my workers in order to make her stronger. But just when you think you have her trained properly, she will suddenly declare war on Persia, even when they are on the other side of the globe. I understand the historical context, but am still flummoxed by it.

Now, I am currently studying Elizabeth/England. So far, she is her usual haunty self. However, in real life, she was a very pragmatic and forceful Margret Thatcher type. She generally kept her word when she promised something, and stuck up for her allies. And she tended to be fearless too. Unfortunately, she is always looking down her nose at me, and that was an initial turn-off. I am beginning to suspect that to be a programmer setup, done purposefully in order to confuse the player a bit. So, I am taking this game as far as possible just to see how she performs. I'll let you all know.

I also have played with the Korean king, and in spite of all the smiles, he will abandon you when you have your back turned. Don't let his smile fool you. As someone who lived in Korea, I hoped he would prove a good ally, but alas, he won't go the distance. He starts out friendly, but won't remain that way unless you constantly grease his palms. Not worth the effort IMO.

Gandhi proved to be a real disappointment to me. In this game he doesn't appear to go with the real man he used to be. In CivIII he is a petty, vindictive, selfish, individual. At least as I have experienced to date. It is almost as though he has too much estrogen flowing through his body, because he appears to have PMS quite often. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh on him, but I expected better.

The Swede is interesting. He loves to fight at the drop of a hat, but he can still be friendly if you don't cross him. He's usually one extreme of the other. Obviously he drinks quite heavily.

There are some characters I just haven't played, and probably because I am prejudged not to want to deal with them. I'm going to change this approach and start going through each personality, just to find out who is the friendliest, most trustworthy, and who isn't. I love playing the part of the big time explorer, and then builder of a good civilization, with distant colonies. Going to war is not my primary intent, but still necessary, to my game play.

On my game editing, I allow the explorer to come up early on, so I can start going all over the game board. Its a race to gobble up those goody huts, and get out of the "Ancient World" ASAP. I don't even fool with those Ancient wonders, but try to make it to 'Republic' first, and 'Democracy' next in order to promote efficiency.

So, diplomacy is paramount with me, and I like to have dependable friends, as well as opponents, who I can deal with. No wimps needed here.

Oh, and Demigod is my favorite game setup. Sid is just too unrealistic, because it forces me to be constantly trying, and losing, to catch up with the leaders. deity requires stealing technologies constantly just to stay in the game. It means I have to compromise my principles and be a big time thief. It goes against my character. So I always tend to settle at Demigod level.

Anyway, I'll post on how Elizabeth comes out, but I would hope she is as good as Theodora. I love strong, dependable, women.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I haven't observed it, but folks have posted Lincoln will back stab you too.

 

[John L]

I haven't observed it, but folks have posted Lincoln will back stab you too.

I have no way of knowing that. I always play America by habit. Lincoln is not one of my favorite presidents. I'd much rather have a George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Calvin Coolidge, but we can't have everything we want, can we?

I do have some further information on personalities.

Theodora - Once she reached the Modern Era, she reaches the 'furious' category, and I haven't been able to get her to become less strident.

Elizabeth - Almost the same thing here. She can be whittled down to Annoyed, but she is still set on her regular 'Aggressive' setting. I'll have to play another game, with the setting turned all the way down, just to see how she acts diplomatically.

Gilgamesh of Sumeria is interesting. Into the modern era, and with his Aggressive settings unchanged, Gilgamesh can still be polite quite easily. If I recall, when I reached the Miniaturization advance, he suddenly got 'furious' on me. But I had made about three moves without stroking his ego. I did manage to get him back down to 'annoyed', but no better. I haven't finished the game yet, but he is still on 'annoyed', which is the best I have seen so far.

I'm going to dial back his aggressive factor and see how he responds in my next game. So far, he is the most agreeable opponent yet.

Over time, I'm going to give all the different civilizations a close look just to see who makes the best locked alliance partner, or next door neighbor. If I find anyone friendlier than Gilgamesh, I'll make sure and post it here.

Clearly each personality has different parameters dialed into them, which present different ways of dealing with we live players.

I've discovered something else, diplomacy wise. If you have a Mutual Protection, or Military Alliance, with someone against another, you are in deep trouble if you reach a peace treaty and leave them in the lurch. They instantly become 'furious' at you, and take a lot of work to build back friendly relations. So from now on, I'm going to let my alliance partner reach peace first.

 

[antimuff]

I've had issues with Lincoln in the past.

Edit: Let me add, it depends on how big a territory they have. Usually when they're bigger I have more problems. If they get blocked in early enough, they're easier to handle. While this is true of all the civs, I can count on Lincoln being more aggressive. I don't think they're aggresiveness is very high in the editor, but I haven't checked that in a while.

 

[John L]

I've had issues with Lincoln in the past.

Edit: Let me add, it depends on how big a territory they have. Usually when they're bigger I have more problems. If they get blocked in early enough, they're easier to handle. While this is true of all the civs, I can count on Lincoln being more aggressive. I don't think they're aggresiveness is very high in the editor, but I haven't checked that in a while.

If you look within the 'Editor', you will see that the Lincoln character is in the middle regarding "Aggressiveness". No idea what he is like with that dialed down.

Also, his 'Bonus' characteristics are "Expansionist" as well. This means he will constantly be attempting to expand, and at everyone's expense whenever necessary.

Has anyone tried changing these parameters around and checking to see how they act with the new changes? I'm going to keep tinkering around with the characteristics/personalities of the different opponents, and how they work as individuals, and within alliances. This will take a lot of time, but should prove enlightening.

I'm surprised that nobody has actually done this before. I've been tinkering around some, but not to a great extent,.....until now. It should be enlightening.

 

[Puppeteer]

I've always assumed that the personalities aren't specifically coded to a civ but are net results of aggression, difficulty, preferred and shunned governments in relation to your government, power differential, culture differential, military strength differential, reputation and attitude. Oh, and in-game factors like "you have, they want" or "you have a stack of offensive military parked at their border".

If you tend to play one civ, one difficulty and have similar approaches to each game then this would tend to create consistent personalities for each opponent from your perception.

I usually play random civs, but I usually play standard continents have a similar approach of Republic, rotating wars, early contact with the other continent and allying the other continent against each other to prevent one runaway AI. I also try to expand quickly and find that any AI will gladly attack if they want to expand in my direction, although sometimes they are happy settling on the far side of me first.

All that said, I do have some personality impressions of some civs.:

Ghandi has always been a backstabber. He's the only civ that has ever started a nuclear war with me, and he's done it twice.

Vikings and Germans are always pushy, the Vikings in the most recent game actually shaking me down for 100g when we still had 7 turns of an alliance left at 14gpt to him. I refused and he DoW'ed me. Yay, 198g saved, and he's still at war with my enemy, and I made peace with my enemy and got Chemistry at a discount. And Ragnar can't reach me for another few techs. Idiot. Anyway, either of these civs will attack me sooner or later.

Aztecs will not sell techs for any reasonable amount. Ever. For me. I can do okay trading if my tech is worth more than theirs, but if I have to chip in gold the price is unreasonable.

I haven't often had to make an alliance with Aztecs, but in my current game I have, and unlike every other AI they actually kept the alliance for the whole 20 turns. I finally canceled it because I want to attack them now. I'm not sure if they're more honorable than other civs, if they really wanted my Dyes and 8gpt that badly or if they were coveting something of our shared enemy with whom he shares borders.

 

[Drakarska]

Interesting. I didn't know Conquests even had an editor. Or is this for vanilla?

 

[antimuff]

Conquests has an editor. So did/does Play the World.

 

[Drakarska]

Conquests has an editor. So did/does Play the World.

Cool. Which one? took a quick peek in the tools thread, and a lot of them seem to be the same tools for when I used to mod scenarios for my kids.

 

[John L]

Cool. Which one? took a quick peek in the tools thread, and a lot of them seem to be the same tools for when I used to mod scenarios for my kids.

If you go to your main CivIII folder, and then click on the "Conquests" folder you will find the following exe file "Civ3ConquestsEdit.exe". Just click on it and you are in.

I have a shortcut made and it sits on my desktop, where I can punch it any time I want to work with it.

I'm not sure what you have, but I have the "Complete" series in one set, and that is how I am set up. It also has "Play The World" but I don't use it anymore. I stick with Conquests.

 

[Drakarska]

My thx.