At Deity difficulty AIs are railroaded in the choice of their first policy, they always pick the same tree no matter the circumstances. This choice is usually a fitting one so I like for the narrowed selection to stay at the highest level, but a few civ picks are in my opinion flawed. As a player 'everything' works and there might be the odd situation where these default picks could work, but if we have to pick a policy that works the majority of games some civs could use a different one.
Alexander: goes Tradition, with nothing in Greece kit being about GPs or GAs while having a great early game thanks to hoplites. It screams Authority, even bullying CSs is a sensible choice for him in the early eras thanks to the quick influence gain. I have the impression that Tradition makes him afraid of offensive wars and he always lags behind in my games.
Pocatello: goes Authority, with no combat bonus outside of his territory, a land grab mechanism that has no synery with Tribute and a late UU. Progress would fit better, even Tradition but we have few Progress civs and the spammable UIs are something you'd work over GPs anyway.
Hiawatha: another Authority player that has no real war business, at least has some combat bonus so it's not totally flawed but he gains nothing unique from fighting or winning wars or conquering cities. His early game mobility and defensive tools could snowball easier into a Progress game.
Oda: I bet this is a bit controversial, because starting Tradition and building into a late warmongering is something that works as a player, but I find Japan AI very underperforming, it fails the Steel push too often lacking the necessary aggressivity for when his uniques come into play. Starting as Authority could probably fix his shyness. Not to mention that he really could use faith-bought generals, while his religion picks are usually terrible: beside not picking TtGoG as a "Traditionalist", in my games he -never- selected the Protection pantheon or the Order follower when available.
If a general consensus over changes can't be reached I'd also like to know where the starting policy picks are stored so that I can eventually modify them and see how AIs would perform under different circumstances.
Alexander: goes Tradition, with nothing in Greece kit being about GPs or GAs while having a great early game thanks to hoplites. It screams Authority, even bullying CSs is a sensible choice for him in the early eras thanks to the quick influence gain. I have the impression that Tradition makes him afraid of offensive wars and he always lags behind in my games.
Pocatello: goes Authority, with no combat bonus outside of his territory, a land grab mechanism that has no synery with Tribute and a late UU. Progress would fit better, even Tradition but we have few Progress civs and the spammable UIs are something you'd work over GPs anyway.
Hiawatha: another Authority player that has no real war business, at least has some combat bonus so it's not totally flawed but he gains nothing unique from fighting or winning wars or conquering cities. His early game mobility and defensive tools could snowball easier into a Progress game.
Oda: I bet this is a bit controversial, because starting Tradition and building into a late warmongering is something that works as a player, but I find Japan AI very underperforming, it fails the Steel push too often lacking the necessary aggressivity for when his uniques come into play. Starting as Authority could probably fix his shyness. Not to mention that he really could use faith-bought generals, while his religion picks are usually terrible: beside not picking TtGoG as a "Traditionalist", in my games he -never- selected the Protection pantheon or the Order follower when available.
If a general consensus over changes can't be reached I'd also like to know where the starting policy picks are stored so that I can eventually modify them and see how AIs would perform under different circumstances.
