How unique are AIs outside of agendas?

[salty mud]

Does anything differentiate AIs beyond their main and secondary agendas? In my last game, Genghis Khan went on a rampage, destroying a civ by himself and absorbing 3-4 city states. Eleanor has appeared in my last two games, and both times she has been a wet lettuce, barely expanding and getting picked on by other leaders. She also has PITIFUL military: her score was sub-100, whenever everyone else was 800+. John Curtin is a warmongering maniac and will bully his neighbours nonstop.

Is there something else going on with leaders, or are these just coincidences?

 

[AriochIV]

Aside from some leaders having more propensity to be friendly than others, I haven't noticed much in different playstyles between them.

 

[ezzlar]

Well, Gilgabro stands out. He is almost broken as you can declare friendship on first meet 100% of the time.

 

[topsecret]

The Mayans are mass murderers in my games.

 

[Breadsmith]

Tamar is always trying to punch above her weight. She'll declare war on everyone on her landmass, and lose everytime.

 

[Kwami]

There a lots of small adjustments in the XML for leader behavior. Some favor particular techs, civis, and wonders while shunning others. Some focus on certain yields and pseudo-yields. Stuff like that.

 

[Luxerne]

For one, I remember that some leaders are scripted to ignore religion unless they have a significant advantage to it (like starting next to a natural wonder), while others are scripted to prioritize it no matter what.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Some interesting uniqueness(es) I have experienced:

Despite the fact that both Phoenicia and Indonesia can greatly benefit from coastal cities - Dido even have an agenda that dislike civs who have many coastal cities - Dido seems to always plop a lot of inland cities like a normal land civ, while nearly all of Gitarja's cities are on the coast.

Montezuma in my games tend to have an obsession with religion. He will build Holy Sites everywhere, hardly build other districts, resulted in very lackluster yields for trade routes.

Qin is usually a warmonger and rarely build any post-Classical wonders.

Every time I open SS gamemode and have Scotland in my game, Robert will choose the vampires and attack his neighbors in every possible situation. Don't you have a neighbor-loving agenda, Robert?

 

[Cpt Chaos]

Every time I open SS gamemode and have Scotland in my game, Robert will choose the vampires and attack his neighbors in every possible situation. Don't you have a neighbor-loving agenda, Robert?

Maybe that's what he means when he says 'Blood feuds payeth men at great expense'. Taking the blood thing a bit too seriously...

 

[Stringer1313]

Well, Gilgabro stands out. He is almost broken as you can declare friendship on first meet 100% of the time.

I believe this applies to literally every civilization. I have always been able to obtain a friendship 100% as soon as I see a green smiley face, regardless of the Civ, and you can get a green smiley face so easily and all you need is one turn with a green smiley face. Thus, all civs are broken in this manner. Since I can als 100% of the time always get friendships, and 100% get friendship renewals regardless of how many negative modifiers I have (I just need to be sure I IMMEDIATELY notice teh friendship expiration and renew it), and since I can snowball 100% of the time into alliances, the unique agendas of every leader are completely irrelevant and overwhelmed by the very high positives from friendships and alliances. Even the ideological negative modifiers in late game are completely irrelevant.

This breaks the game for me. It just doesn't matter what Civ i run into. I have made alliances with Ghenghis Khan at the drop of a hat with zero effort.

 

[Starwars]

Gilgamesh is different in that you can always friend him on the first meet. That's not true for the other civs.

Will agree that it's pretty easy to get friendly and then go into alliance territory later most of the time.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I believe this applies to literally every civilization. I have always been able to obtain a friendship 100% as soon as I see a green smiley face, regardless of the Civ, and you can get a green smiley face so easily and all you need is one turn with a green smiley face. Thus, all civs are broken in this manner. Since I can als 100% of the time always get friendships, and 100% get friendship renewals regardless of how many negative modifiers I have (I just need to be sure I IMMEDIATELY notice teh friendship expiration and renew it), and since I can snowball 100% of the time into alliances, the unique agendas of every leader are completely irrelevant and overwhelmed by the very high positives from friendships and alliances. Even the ideological negative modifiers in late game are completely irrelevant.

This depends on the specific situations and agendas. Some leader's unique agenda, when not being satisfied, will cause a big negative modifier (-9, -12, or even more) which can easily offset the friendship positives (+9 and will decrease over time). Ideological negative is much bigger (-20) and can be only offset by an alliance (+21). If you don't satisfy these leaders' second agenda to create some positive, it will resulted in an instant denunciation when friendship expires.

The game difficulty will also influence AI's friendliness: in higher difficulties, green smiley face is not a guaranteed next turn friendship. I had a game with a Mansa Musa who refused to accept my delegation even with a green smiley face, and in another game another Mansa Musa surprised war'd me when having a green smiley face. Both in Emperor difficulty, and both Manse Musas refused my friendship for a long time.

 

[gunnergoz]

I recently started playing C6 again after a long vacation from it. I have to laugh at the AI's persistent fumbling at aggression. I was playing Amanitore at king level yesterday and was attacked by Gorgo early in the game. She tossed a few units at my cities in piecemeal fashion which was no problem for me, but she had the misfortune to run into the buzzsaw that was my Suzerain allied city state in between us. They blunted the initial assault, proceeded to raze one Greek city outright, making it easy for me to defeat and absorb the other 3 Greek cities as there were almost no units left. I even picked up a free settler on the deal. Compared to this, barbarians can be more of a challenge when I ignore barbarian camps for too long. I suppose you could say its a good thing the AI does not really beef up their military before launching surprise wars, but it does reduce the challenge considerably. Guess its time to start playing higher challenge levels after all these years at King.

 

[Stringer1313]

This depends on the specific situations and agendas. Some leader's unique agenda, when not being satisfied, will cause a big negative modifier (-9, -12, or even more) which can easily offset the friendship positives (+9 and will decrease over time). Ideological negative is much bigger (-20) and can be only offset by an alliance (+21). If you don't satisfy these leaders' second agenda to create some positive, it will resulted in an instant denunciation when friendship expires.

The game difficulty will also influence AI's friendliness: in higher difficulties, green smiley face is not a guaranteed next turn friendship. I had a game with a Mansa Musa who refused to accept my delegation even with a green smiley face, and in another game another Mansa Musa surprised war'd me when having a green smiley face. Both in Emperor difficulty, and both Manse Musas refused my friendship for a long time.

I'm saying I don't believe you, but I actually play Emperor regularly and can always get friendships and alliances very easily. I recently started an Immortal game so I hope I will be proven wrong, though already i am making friendships with neighbors as soon as I see a green smiley face.

An easy fix for this is to require the AI to be at green smiley face for X turns before they will even consider your friendship offer. And trends should be taken into account, not just the exact attitude number at the exact moment you ask for it.

 

[Minou]

A few AIs love DF more than others, so I am always happy to meet Sweden or Georgia since pay up to 21 gold per DF.

Another major difference seems to be district preferences, though I am not sure if this is hard coded or related to unique districts being preferred. When I am pillaging I like to run wild looting Korea's unique Campus or Mali's unique Commercial Hub replacements. I feel like Brazil also builds lots of Campus.

There seems to be some AIs that always go for a religion and others that ignore it but I don't have a great knowledge of whether this is hard coded or not. Some like Shaka for example seems to never build Holy Sites while others go nuts building Holy Sites and Shrines in every early city. This can make a huge difference if you are hoping to get a religion.

 

[8housesofelixir]

A few AIs love DF more than others, so I am always happy to meet Sweden or Georgia since pay up to 21 gold per DF.

Sweden, Georgia, and Canada are the three major DF lovers, while Scotland is the major luxury lover. Seeing them in the game usually means you will have a good early- to mid-game economy based on selling things.

Another major difference seems to be district preferences, though I am not sure if this is hard coded or related to unique districts being preferred.

It varies, and IMHO it depends on the district placement requirements. Korea will have Seowon in nearly every city because it only needs a hill, while the Mayan observatory always seem to shown up in only half of the cities, as the Mayan AI will place them carefully - near a plantation or two.

On the other hand, I hardly see Dido put down Cothons because over half of her cities will be inland. The same goes for Victoria and English Eleanor; I've had a game with an English Eleanor who actively avoid settling coastal cities for some reason until she really ran out of inland spaces. So not a lot Royal Navy Dockyards to benefit from.

 

[IsabelBraganca]

In my current game Japan was hell bent on war. He dowed me in the beginning of the classical age. I defended the first attack and he lost almost all his army, no peace. I defended the second attack, no peace. I took one city, no peace. I took the military city state he was susserain of, still no peace. After Sweden attacked his ally, finally he negotiated peace. It was early Industrial Age.... By then I was suffering huge war weariness. After he made peace with Sweden, he dowed me again....

I am playing Russia, originally I was aiming for a CV. Japan has only gave up war when I got my Cossacks. This is my first immortal game, so I don't know if this is because of Japan or because he saw he had the upper hand with his Samurai. After all, he had his UU before, and I didn't have niter, so I there was no use to beeline for musketeers.

 

[AlanC9]

AIs have a bad habit of relying on total land melee power as a measure of strength. This can result in crazy DOWs like a mostly-swordsmen army going up against a line of field cannon. Basically, a firing squad.

 

[oSiyeza]

AIs have a bad habit of relying on total land melee power as a measure of strength. This can result in crazy DOWs like a mostly-swordsmen army going up against a line of field cannon. Basically, a firing squad.

I dont think is an habit, but just that the coders decide to use this "total land melee power" as the thing the AI uses to for decission making, cause you know coding is hard and requires time they probably did not have.

 

[ezzlar]

I'm saying I don't believe you, but I actually play Emperor regularly and can always get friendships and alliances very easily. I recently started an Immortal game so I hope I will be proven wrong, though already i am making friendships with neighbors as soon as I see a green smiley face.

An easy fix for this is to require the AI to be at green smiley face for X turns before they will even consider your friendship offer. And trends should be taken into account, not just the exact attitude number at the exact moment you ask for it.

As for many things in Civ 6 it´s the early game that is important. Often I can´t even send a delegation upon meeting some civs since they hate you from first turn. Once you get to middle/late game most things are settled anyway so the happy faces don´t matter so much.