(Testing) Leader Personalities Idea

jma22tb

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Update:
* After the brief inclusion into the CBP, the feedback received indicated that there were some issues with this system. I have made quite a few changes to the system so that the AI will be a lot more viable economically than it was when it went live.
* The biggest problems I saw from people's responses were that the AI invested too much into their military vs. their economy and not aggressive enough when they had a military advantage, so this was the main thing I addressed.
* The Top Tier in flavors used to be military flavors and victory types, but now the military has dropped below economic concerns. This will make the Ancient and Classical period a bit "slower" but will have the AI in better control of their happiness, GNP, and Net Gold. Aggressive civs are also prioritizing war higher than any other approach so they will immediately take advantage of a superior situation.
* Another problem was CEP's arrangement of civs' AI and how it doesn't mix with CBP. I tried to get feedback from the community, got a little, and decided with this revamp to move quite a few civs around into more historically appropriate archetypes.
* I am not changing the "extremity" of the flavors because three victory types as a foundation is more than flexible enough for effective competition. If the AI tries to pursue all 4 victories, then that's a lot more risk-reward than it can handle.

Update 06/02
* I added Production to the top tier and changed both the Leader flavors and Personalities
* Now there's 4 tiers which will be explained below
* The result should be that the AI will have a much better production output, expand and grow population as a high priority, and share priorities between workers, military units, and city defense at the 3rd tier. This has the AI building military power, but not in a way that cripples them based on two FireTuner tests.

Update 06/05
* This is probably the most polished release to date, based on Deity difficulty testing and taking some risks that paid off.
* The biggest changes are the AI being relentless with expansion and for all 4 archetypes to have the capacity to go to war. Federalists are a bit more aggressive, but still like Friendship and Rainbows better. If they really hate rivals they feel they're stronger than, they won't pass up the chance to "slay the tyrant" anymore.
* The AI is very likely to take policies that are relevant to their Grand Strategy. Switching the flavor identified with Conquest to Nuke will let everyone value Military Training the same way.
Hotfix: I goofed and forgot Nuke was deleted from policy flavors. I replaced it with Use_Nuke.

06/09 Tensions Rise (hopefully)
* Made a lot of changes to the AI Personalities to ramp up aggression, based on information about AI personality flavors that suggest this system isn't as optimized as it can be.
* Hotfix: changed the range of all policy, personalities, and leader flavors to be between 0 and 8. The only 0 flavors are tied to victories the archetype doesn't want anything to do with.
* Hotfix 2: got rid of 0 values and replaced them with 1

06/13 UA Based Flavor Adaptations and Reverts
* I adjusted Wonder Competitiveness to 4 on Imperialists and Hegemony except for Egypt, who will want them because it's their UA. Hopefully reduces the Wonder Spam.
* I changed the base flavors file to the one released in 6/12 and made a change to decrease all flavors by 1 except the non-victory flavor to make room for the next change without making any double digit flavors.
* I added civ specific priority flavors to more greatly emphasize the general themes of the civs. The intent is for these civs to guarantee taking policies they most benefit from. They are allocated as follows:
  • Gold - Morocco, Carthage, Portugal, Egypt, Ottoman, Arabia
  • Diplomacy - Greece, Siam, Germany
  • Archaeology - Persia, China, Brazil
  • Spaceship - Korea, Babylon
  • Religion - Celts, India, Spain, Maya, Byzantium, Ethiopia
  • Use_Nuke - Assyria, Songhai, Huns, Rome, Russia, Poland, Mongolia, Sweden, Denmark, Aztec, France, Japan, Zulu
* Gold means they'll take Liberty and Industry, which all of these civs benefit from by having more effective trade routes, unique gold buildings, etc.
* Diplomacy means they will definitely take Patronage in accordance to their UA focus on diplomacy.
* Spaceship means they'll definitely take Rationalism to cash in on their scientific prowess
* Religion means they'll take Piety because they most benefit from maximizing their religion and faith
* Use_Nuke means they'll take Might and Imperialism as a priority because they're more militaristic than not.
* Archaeology means they'll take Tradition for more Tourism, Golden Age length, and Great People, which all 3 benefit from. They'll also take Aesthetics, which gives them a Golden Age and enhances cultural great people, which all fit in their archetype
* Any Civs not included can do whatever they want within their archetype's choices and be able to be effective

How to Install

Policy Flavors XML goes in BalanceChanges > Policies > Flavors folder
Leader Flavors SQL goes in the AI > Flavors folder
Personalities SQL goes in the AI > Diplomacy folder
Grand Strategies XML goes in the AI folder

I run this project alongside these changes because they allocate flavors to buildings, specialists, and many other elements of Civ 5 in a way that more effectively makes these "brain level" civ priorities happen.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=548118

Introduction

These are the four archetypes that were changed from the CEP to what is being tested.

* Conquerors previously were entirely oriented around war, but without much in the way of economic priorities, culture, etc. That made them pretty ineffective.
* Coalition previously was about diplomacy and conquering rivals, which was a lot better than Conquerors at doing what Conquerors were supposed to be good at.
* Diplomats were pacifists who built tall and focused on diplomacy and wonders. They were pretty strong if left alone but easily conquered
* Expansionists just built as wide as possible, stayed out of everyone's business, and tried to focus on science. They were decent, but BNW made wide > science a little less viable.

These were all subpar at accomplishing what could be done with the XML priorities, which is what this project is about. Getting the most out of the AI's systems of priorities so they remain competitive throughout the game and require more from the player to stop them. They were changed in the following ways.

Conqueror -> Nationalist
Coalition -> Imperialist
Diplomat -> Federalist
Expansionist -> Hegemony

Nationalist = Domination, Cultural, Scientific victory types, foregoing Diplomacy. They are mean, xenophobic, but if they pick up steam they have an elite war machine. They will still build Chanceries, Wire Service, etc. but Paper is more like Toilet Paper to them than anything else.

Imperialist = Domination, Scientific, Diplomatic victory types, foregoing Cultural. They are almost always going to be "Friendly" to you, but they're lying. They are a people who focus on everything practical and leave the frivolous artistry to their future territories. They will still build up culture, but they won't try to maximize their Tourism or spam archaeologists.

Hegemony = Cultural, Domination, Diplomatic victory types, foregoing Scientific. They see themselves as the predestined leader of the world, seeking to eliminate all other civilizations to unite the world at their feet. They will still build scientific infrastructure, they just abandon the desire to build a Spaceship. They like Earth - they want to rule it and worry about a space empire later.

Federalist = Cultural, Scientific, Diplomatic victory types, foregoing Domination. They carry themselves the most dignified of the four, but are not naive enough to believe that the world will just go the way they want it to without fighting for their vision. They will fight those they feel are tyrants and may take a capital or two. They'll never try to take all of them though - they believe that is just wrong.

Major Changes

Flavors

Tier 1
Expansion

This is a gameplay driven decision. The AI needs to be encouraged to settle more cities because the wide approach is what wins in CBP. The player will need to take this into account and plan accordingly because 12 developed cities are going to be a lot stronger than 4.

Policy Flavors and Production are Tier 2
* Religion (Piety)
* Gold (Industry, Liberty) and Trade Routes
* Diplomacy (Patronage)
* Nuke (Might, Imperialism)
* Spaceship (Rationalism)
* Archaeology (Aesthetics)
* Production (very important yield in CBP)

These, in combination with Policy Flavors, determine the policy direction the AI will take. These will likely change every game - a Nationalist might take Liberty, Piety, Rationalism, Imperialism one game, and Might, Aesthetics, Piety, and Industry the next. Production is also very important because it makes everything work better in CBP - buildings, Wonders, units, diplomacy, trade route units, etc.

Population, Science, and Culture at Tier 3

Culture
Science
Espionage
Naval Growth
Growth

The importance of a large population in CBP is also quite important, but not as important as having plenty of cities to build upon. That said, once the AI has a good foundation, now they'll seek to optimize their Policy progression, Tech progression, and to have as many people as their cities can support.

Tier 3

Primary Military Unit Flavors (Ranged, Mobile, Offense, Navy, Air)
City Defense
Tile Improvement
Infrastructure & Water Connection
Military Training

This tier splits the AI priorities between improving their economy and building up forces to go to war with. Despite being Tier 3, this is important because the AI needs to have as many production centers as possible and a steady progression of the fundamentals before they start cranking out military units and flooding the map with units. If they don't, an old iteration's problem of bankrupt One City Civs will return.

Tier 4

Everything Else
Victory they don't go for

The situational units and largely arbitrary flavors are in this area mainly because of their redundance. For example, Artists, Writers, etc have Culture tied to them, which is already a high priority so why would Great People need to be there? Happiness is also redundant since the above flavors already address each of the Unhappiness causes in CBP's system.

Diplomacy & Personality

The old system was based on warmonger hate and minor civ competitiveness to differentiate personalities, but since all four archetypes are more aggressive I wanted how they forgive war to be the method the 3 diplomatic civs are differentiated in the SQL.

Imperialist = High Forgiveness
Federalist = Medium Forgiveness
Hegemony = Low Forgiveness

Major and Minor Civ Approaches

This is how each group handles CS and rivals.

Nationalist

Major - War, Guarded, Hostile

Minor - Bully, Conquest

Nationalists really don't like anyone but themselves and make no attempts to hide it. They want your land, your women, your cities, and don't give a crap if you like it or not. They also despise city-states, which to them are just mercenary peoples who have no concept of dignity or loyalty. They want to force them to pay tribute before eventually conquering them.

The historical motivations for this archetype was the Chinese consolidation of the 3 kingdoms and subsequent centralized rule, the Mesopatamian powers which were highly centralized, cultures that are highly unique and expressed themselves through military power like the Russians and Vikings, and the modern nationalist movements that took root in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Argentina in the mid 20th century.

Imperialist

Major - Deceptive, War, Friendly

Minor - Friendly, Conquest

These guys will almost always have "Friendly" on their attitude but that is just a front. They are conquerors at heart, but choose to be more unpredictable about it. They don't care about silly things like "honor" and "loyalty" because objectively speaking as soon as an opportunity to become stronger is presented it's dumb to them not to take it, no matter the emotions in response. They see CS in a unique way - they prefer an alliance but if the CS is uncooperative they will conquer them. Either way they get what they want and deny others their prize.

The historical motivation for Imperialists was primarily the Roman Empire's style of rule. It can be said accurately that everyone who has tried to aspire to empire since then has done so in an attempt to recreate the success the Romans had. If Rome needed to straighten out rebellion among a lesser state they sent the legions, but if they behaved they wouldn't bother them. There were serious power struggles as well, and the Roman political class made for the stuff of Game of Thrones x 10 level intrigue. Generally, if a civilization has ever reached a point of dominance in Western culture then they are very likely to have done so using the Romans' model of a mixed centralized/decentralized government and a mastery of political domination.

Federalists

Major - Friendly, Guarded, War
Minor - Friendly, Protective

Federalists are idealists, but realize the reality of war and aggression being the rule in geopolitics not the exception. They will try to appeal to the more noble side of their competitors, but as soon as they see a rival is weak or they hate a rival enough, they will try to end their tyranny and replace it with their "freedom." That said, their ideals are unwavering with regard to City-States - they want to unify the world under their banner and will fight whoever would try to take these independent people's freedom.

The historical motivations for Federalists come from the idealistic philosophical treatises and the recognition of the "conquered" peoples' pursuits of something more noble than the power of the sword. The Iroquois Confederation's Great Law of Peace, India's relatively peaceful history, Siam defending itself from encroaching British and French imperialism, Ethiopia resisting imperialism, and Brazil pushing out the Portugese are a few examples. It also reflects the shift in America from the idealistic beginnings championed by people like Thomas Jefferson, to joining the international game of thrones.

Hegemony

Major - War, Friendly, Hostile

Minor - Friendly, Protective

Hegemony believes the ancients chose them to rule the Earth as its champion, leading the weak in the glorious journey of defeating the strong. They see all other civilizations as inferior, but have a capacity to make friends to help them before ultimately conquering them later on. They are quick to anger and war, however, so unless you really want to impress them they're probably going to war with you. They share the sentiment of Federalists, but in more selfish way - they want to lead the flock and use it to destroy all opponents rather than a peaceful coalition of free states.

The historical motivations for Hegemony are the Hellenic League, the Persian Satrap system, the Islamic Caliphates, Ottomans' respect for individual political and even religious sovereignty, and dominant civilizations who did not try to reach for the stars technologically. Primarily religious and dominant civs find their home here.

Policy Flavors

I have adjusted the Policy Flavors so that the AI fits into either their victory archetype, a versatile approach, or a hybrid of the two. Versatile would be Liberty, Industry, and Piety, which is a viable way to play that supercharges your economy, infrastructure, and provides Faith as a currency to spend on making the world more to your political image indirectly.

The flavors are allocated as follows:

* Tradition - Archaeology
* Liberty - Gold
* Might - Use_Nuke
* Piety - Religion
* Patronage - Diplomacy
* Aesthetics - Archaeology
* Industry - Gold
* Imperialism - Use_Nuke
* Rationalism - Spaceship

* Freedom - Spaceship & Diplomacy
* Order - Spaceship & Use_Nuke
* Autocracy - Diplomacy and Use_Nuke

I originally had different flavors for the Ancient Techs, but I decided to change it so that there is a 3 way option that is still valued less than the later policies, but fits into the categories more.

It may seem like there's "railroading" but there's very little probability that the AI will take the exact same policies every time because of Piety, Liberty, and Industry. There is a progression at work, which is why the Ancient policies are lower than the middle tier, and why the middle tier is lower than the Ideologies.

Ideologies are assigned based on the differences between them and so they fit with the archetypes. Imperialists can fit into any ideology, interestingly, while the others will identify strongly with a single approach. Nationalists will want Order, Federalists will want Freedom, and Hegemony will want Autocracy.

New AI Category Allocation

Please let me know if you disagree with these and want them to change. Try to suggest a switch if you do, like moving Russia to Federalist and Shoshone to Nationalist.

Also, you might enjoy the game a bit more if you try to have even numbers of the archetypes like a Standard game having 2 of each archetype for 8 players. The diversity will be fresh. Of course, an All Nationalist game would be pretty intense warmongering if that's your cup of tea ;).

Changes are in bold

Nationalist
Russia Modern Russia is not Nationalist but historically they have been
Sweden Swedish Empire was very Nationalist compared to other European powers.
Denmark
Assyria
Babylon Mesopatamian empires were much more Nationalist
Huns
Zulu
Japan
China China is the textbook example of a nationalist civilization.
Korea Historically, Korea has been quite different from China and Japan while sharing similar government philosophies.
Mongolia They're staying here because their CS bully surrender UA is perfect for this archetype.

Imperialist
Inca The Inca are the closest Native American civilization that resembles imperialism. High elevation technological marvels like Macchu Picchu.
England British Empire
Rome Roman Empire. reasons explained above.
Portugal Portugal was a lesser rival to the Spanish, but a rival nonetheless. They were incredible navigators and Brazil will atest to their imperialism
Dutch They started out as a populist revolution but SE Asia would definitely describe them as Imperialist.
Germany
Aztecs
Poland
Venice This archetype fits them the most considering their UA of absorbing or allying with CS.
Spain Spanish Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire, but by controlling the Western Hemisphere
America After the Civil War, America shed any Federalist/Hegemony leaning. World power based on technology, diplomacy and war.

Federalist
Polynesia
Iroquois Great Law of Peace
Celts They minded their own business and defended themselves best as they were able.
Shoshone They moved west to get away from the warlike tribes
Indonesia They resisted the Dutch and Japanese Empires and haven't really bothered anyone since regaining their independence.
Brazil
India
Siam
Ethiopia
Morocco

Hegemony
Byzantium They continued the Roman Empire, but was the nexus of Eastern Orthodoxy until they fell to Suleiman
Greece The word Hegemon comes from Greece and Alexander the Great. Hellenic League.
Arabia
Ottomans
Carthage
Persia
Austria Austria-Hungary was the center of music in Europe for quite some time. Beethoven, Mozart, etc.
Songhai They came to power by combining warfare with Mali's administrative talents.
Egypt Egypt was not pacifist at all, focusing more on spiritual endeavors than technological.
France Napoleon is here because the UA is focused on culture so heavily and the French did not completely take over others entirely during his empire.
Maya The Maya were more of a spiritual people than technologically driven.
 

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277 turns in on Warlord. I'm Rome on Communitas Terra Standard.

I'm doing Warlord because in the past when I've tried this with CEP the AI was much, much more capable and on an Emperor playthrough the game was pretty much over by turn 200. I was basically a City-State in geopolitical terms lol.

Everyone has a positive GNP and no one has dropped below 0 GPT at all in the game. 8th place right now has 112 GPT (!!).

Happiness has been negative for the AI for most of the game, but despite the severity of the graph the furthest they've been is -10. Right now everyone is positive except Greece and Germany, who have been positive for a long time.

I'm leading the world in science by a strong margin, but the steady progress by all of the civs scientifically is a good sign. Military strength and scores are all steadily progressing.

Germany is the most disappointing of the group so far, but I'm interested to see how they're going to use their GPT moving forward. They can really improve fast, and I think they will.
 

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It's priorities. If the AI is encouraged to prioritize certain things over others, then it will change how they sequence technologies, policies, city construction, etc.

I forgot I needed to change the Flavor Randomization to 0 so that these values actually stick. Every game the AI will have +-2 range for their flavor values unless this is turned to 0. No point having a set of priorities if the randomization can circumvent the entire system.

Update:

Problems so far

- AI still goes into freefall economically during war periods. They do not properly manage economic depressions. While it is not as severe after the changes to flavor randomization, the AI still has a problem of spending way too much, getting unhappiness in the gutter, and becoming a failed state with rebel barbarians spawning and burning all the improvements down. I suppose that's realistic and if they really screw up they should, but I want to mitigate the effect some more.

- Friendliness is a bit too prevalent, so I am going to slightly reduce it so that the AI is more aggressive. Earth history is one of warfare, not long term coalitions that do not get broken up until ideologies come out. I want this to feel like Game of Thrones lol.

Good things:

- Population and city expansion is going very smoothly. They spread cities fast if there's space, but when they're not they build up as large a population as they can handle.

- GPT, when they aren't going on a teenage credit card shopping spree with the military, can become quite massive for the AI. I was leading, of course, but after a war in the second game, Askia went from negative GPT to more than 120 GPT as he rebuilt his military. I want him to build that up before he goes to war, not after lol.

- The Federalists are all over those Wonders. I really like that about them.

- The policy choices are reflecting their archetype. Federalists both take Patronage relatively quickly. The aggressive civs usually take Might immediately.

To address these I'm gonna reassign the Tiers so that the AI prioritize economy over the military. It will be kind of boring early on, but I'd rather have a tension-release, then the AI going bankrupt and faceplanting their way to the abyss while the player can just whistle and twiddle their thumbs to supremacy. I'm also going to add religion as a priority with all of the AI approaches, because it's too powerful to intentionally avoid in the early game. Piety is also the most unique policy in that it can be shaped into a strong victory oriented or economic oriented policy.

New Tier 1

Happiness
Gold
Production
Science
Culture
Religion
Growth
Tile Improvement
Expansion
Victory Oriented (Archaeology, Spaceship, etc)
Great People
Wonders (Federalists)

Tier 2

Military Deployment Strategy

Offensive - Nationalists, Imperialists, Hegemons

Defensive - Federalists

Note - I decided these based on the Artillery, Infantry, Cavalry trinity concept of land warfare, and with Navy and Air Force being about aggressive operations. Federalists are a defensive military with the same land and navy concepts but with Anti-Air and Defense units as a higher priority. Everyone can use Ranged, Mobile, and Naval units in whatever methodology they're using.

Tier 3 and 4 unchanged

Personality Changes

The friendliness has been dropped from even at 8 to slightly lower at 6. That will (hopefully) create some strife between nations as the AIlluminati pull false flag operations, create intrigue and general political chaos. Imperialists will hopefully be the lying bastards I make them out to be in the OP.

Wonder competitiveness has been increased to 8 for everyone, even though Wonders is set as 4 for flavors in the more aggressive civs. Hopefeully this means that they will hold whoever has the most Wonders in a negative way, creating more incentive for conspiracy because they are too shiny. Victory competitiveness is also increased to 8 across the board because I want everyone to be hungry and look at the top dog with a bullseye, just like how America is being bombarded from all sides today, as the British, Romans, and the underrated Western jealousy of the Ottomans were in the past.
 

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Bravo.
Just.... wow. Accomplishing this much by moving existing data around. Nwabudike would be proud.

Three thoughts (and a rumour):

-Delnar Ersike has a program modification that takes the flavour randomization and makes it binomial with the same extremes. You likely do want to reduce the variance even further, but his algorithm is a place to look.

-I do not think that wonder flavour can be appropriated by just one .... stance? Nation model? Flavour set? Everyone wants to prove their greatness - or gain the practical benefit of unique and exclusive enhancements relevant to their other goals. Plus culture and some GPPs. Furthermore, the Federalists becoming Egyptian might work against them strategically more often than not, as having wonders makes you a juicy war target, whereas at least cultivating unrewarding cities has a "You could win more by haranguing them! Shoo!" effect. At the least, starting to build wonders should take place at a certain midpoint of a strategic timeline or later, a point where politics are more tangled and entrenched, where you're past the Classical era "conquering is easy" craze, and.... well, you're ready to make a play for power.
In sum, I guess, even a Federalist idealist ought to figure out what it will take to -live- to have his cake and eat it too. If you could make them take actions to polarize rival opinions of them, you know, sniff out any Deceptive or war-eager or something, that would be ideal, but that's an overhaul.

They will also be limited so long as the total of AIs are unable to understand relationships of submission. The Federalist can't go and offer complete gifts / tributes because AIs don't understand making demands of arrangements like that. Neither do they understand even the idea of repeatedly gaining peace deals or buy offs from desperation. If they don't plan to do it, then Federalists can't do things to make those AIs feel like leaving them alone at all.

-I really don't think you should move the economy tier above the military tier. The program that runs those flavours is what needs to change at that point. As it is, the benefits of what you've accomplished are an interplay of the grand strategy selector and attention to winning activities and macro. You magicked up coherent foreign policies. Awesome. By turning the computers to micro, well, I think they'll still be stupid because they don't actually calculate -anything- it's not like they do any cost benefit analysis to choosing build orders ... but worse, they'll stop caring about actually acting out a plan.

If you want them to take care of that business at the crucial time, they need some pecialized subroutines and that's some gamecore rewrites.
But eh. Test if you want to. I'd love to be wrong on this.

-Oh and I thought victory competitiveness was about disliking someone playing for the same victory type? Which is the opposite of what is strategically sound. If anyone should be liked it's the guy doing things the way you are, since he'll just be doing it worse than you and not getting anywhere else. If he -is- doing your thing better than you, then (well, maybe your whole thinking is wrong, but) another flavour should make you plot against him. Or just... you know, wanting to win + math, the latter of which even computers are supposed to be good at.
 
Thanks! I was wondering if anyone else tried it lol.

My original idea for Federalists was for the aggressive ones to want to take them down and have a historical accuracy element to it. Egypt, after all, has been the feather in the hats of quite a few empires in history because of the sheer extravagance of what is in their borders.

The gameplay choice, though, should probably be Nationalists wanting to build Wonders too, since they do not have to produce diplomatic units regularly so they can add that to their military and infrastructure. It's historically accurate too, because Napoleons highly Nationalist approach in conquering Europe saw the restoration of important historical sites. China has built many incredible things over the millennia and has kept their distance from the international scene until recently with BRICS.

I think I can get away with the first settings now because I didn't realize how much the AI benefitted from the newest happiness changes with trade routes. I started a new game with the latest patch and the AI is in less trouble than before. The previous model almost demanded a high number of trade routes and spreading them out so that your per capita wealth would turn everyone else's populations against them because of poverty perceived in comparison to the leading GNP civ. Now its entirely localized so that should make the happiness better, making the need for economic priority less important.

The competitiveness is just something I want to add to the Game of Thrones type conflicts I hope to achieve. The less reasons for very long term friendships between civs the better, since within a few generations friends can become enemies and vice versa.

Great historical example. American Revolution and War of 1812 created huge distrust between US and British Empire. Civil War comes around and the British look to take advantage and conquer their old territories, but can't because the Russian Tsar has deployed his navy to block any foreign interference b/c of Lincoln's request.

Not 50 years after the Civil War and 100 years after the Revolution, Russia becomes an enemy nation entirely opposed to American capitalism and who repeatedly betrayed the Americans and British in WW2, who are now allies!

That's the kind of thing I want it to be like in my AI setup. Intrigue, betrayal, no one's safe kind of thing.

Attaching Flavors and the Updated GlobalDefines with 0 Randomization. The latest Personalities file is the same.
 

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Hi,
I read through all your text.
But I am still confused what do you feel is wrong about the old leader flavors? As far as I could remember the AI priorities was dealt with quite a long time ago. Pretty sure there were also similar categories, like Conqueror, Coalition, Diplomatic, Expansionist. And they are even subdivided into "Aggressive", "Elitist", "Indifferent", "Polite" and many more.

For your referenece:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap8Ehya83q19dFpPbnNDMFhmM2I2YjVXR04tQWN0V2c#gid=25
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap8Ehya83q19dHlBVGdUV0doVGlVU3dGLWt3LS1YRHc#gid=1

So I doubt that new simplified SQL invention would help the already well-established and discussed system?
 
It's not really what's wrong with the AI but, rather, a way I can attempt to make them even stronger. Back in CEP I tried this type of thing out, and the results were so good that me and someone else, can't remember their username, kept experimenting on it for about a month and had some pretty intense games.

The current archetypes certainly work, but Conquerors and Expansionists are a little too simple.
Conquerors are single minded in using their military to conquer city states, other rivals, and expanding the number of cities they have. Expansionists just ignore everyone unless they're a threat, instead focusing on a mercantile scientific economy that can threaten everyone by advancing quickly.

While this certainly works, I think that the AI can handle building a foundation to pursue 3 different victory types at will. The more the AI can choose to do, the more the player has to adjust to whatever they're doing if things are going well for them.

I will show some results from my latest game that I think are going to be very interesting, now that the latest patch helped a lot with the happiness problem that was crippling them. Germany, in particular, has become extremely powerful despite starting out quite irrelevant. This is very encouraging because I am thinking that once ideologies come out, there will be some serious cataclysms politically.
 
I would like to offer this thought, which is that an investigation into what can be done with A.I. behaviour has no need to defend itself. The A.I. plays the game, designing one and the other are two independent things.

WileyNg seems to have suggested that jma should only extend the community dialogue he referred to, whereas I don't see that the research of jma, and the release of modmods that apply that research, harms anyone nor should be impeded. jma might be advised to existing discussion on the topic, which he is. His research proceeds then under his creative direction, not to "help the already [...] discussed system."

---
There is one time that "Egyptian" strategy can work out well. If you are surrounded by aggressive and covetous players, and you're able to build up territory that represents something desirable, and you have underdeveloped military infrastructure (i.e. it's bad and it couldn't be quickly brought to speed, either), and the aforementioned wealth is desirable because it threatens others, then the combined coveting , and fear of someone more aggressive, obtaining the treasure from the unguarded keep, can incite a kind of fighting over who gets to take Egypt's stuff, which may actually protect Egypt.

... so I suppose that only works if the Federalist also acts like a coalitionist and plays for power balance.
This seems even further beyond implementing, I mention it to amend an inaccuracy from a generalization of mine.
 
I have some screenshots and a write-up which might lend an idea of how this works in the latest iteration.

Game Info

Communitas (Terra)
Warlord
Standard

Nationalists
Rome
Askia
Imperialists
Germany
Greece
Federalists
Egypt
Byzantium
Hegemons
Carthage
Arabia

Leader - Roman Catholic Empire

5 Might
5 Liberty
4 Aesthetics

I recently conquered Constantinople and catapulted myself into the top score by taking 5 wonders away from Byzantium. We are a unitary state with a Senate that handles local domestic issues while the military government handles foreign and oversees the courts. With 6 cities, I lead the world in scientific, cultural, and military power, which are my goals as a Nationalist. I am not #1 across the board in categories though. Though things are going very well, I have to keep improving or risk the lesser powers catching up. I have founded the Catholic church, but it is not at all one of the major players in the global religious scene, just a local affair. The church has no real political power, more like a way to keep the masses happy and to show off Roman art, with cathedrals and mandirs to meet and socialize.

Arabian Caliphate

5 Tradition
5 Liberty
2 Imperialism

Arabia, despite having only 3 cities, leads the world in population by a factor of almost two at 28 million. Egypt is second at ~15 million. They are rapidly harnessing their economic potential, and lead the world with 10 Wonders while enjoying a distance from the Eurasian continent that affords them a dramatically more peaceful life. It is almost certain that they mean to settle the new world and use their economic power to become a military power as well. Islam is also a local affair, with only a small sphere of influence in the Arabian Islands. They are also a unitary state, with a Parliamentary procedure and royal monarchy who are also heads of the Islamic faith. They are somewhat similar to Rome with a blend of central and representative government, but with Rome being led by military leaders of all backgrounds not just bloodline.

Egyptian Orthodox Republic

5 Liberty
5 Piety
1 Imperialism

The Egyptian Orthodox Republic has evolved from a lesser neighbor to a challenger of the Greek Orthodox Empire. They have the world's second largest economy, a world leading agricultural operation, and challenge Rome in culture and science, while also possessing 8 Wonders. They are the one of the biggest reasons why the Orthodox Christian Church is the most widespread in the world, and the tentative alliance they have with Greece protects them, as well as their location to the Far North. The Church is incredibly powerful, forming the theological and political leadership of Egypt, but with the Senate forming the voice of the Egyptian people and legislation that the Church does not want to be bothered with.

Greek Orthodox Empire

5 Might
4 Piety
1 Tradition
1 Imperialism

The Greek Orthodox Empire is the center of the most powerful religion in the world and maintains 6 protectorates. Despite a relatively small population, Greece has one of the strongest economies in the world, supported by the imports of their protectorates and maintains the second most powerful military, the strongest in the Northern part of Eurasia. While Egypt prospers more and has more people, Greece is the strength of Orthodoxy. The Church is quite powerful, but they share that power with the warrior culture that has been in power a lot longer than they have. Greeks and Romans share the same warrior spirit and desire for order. They possess 4 Wonders but it begs the question of how much they value their northern neighbors as allies; will they conquer Egypt? They certainly can if they continue to build their military, and if they do they will be almost unstoppable.

German Republic

5 Liberty
1 Patronage
3 Imperialism

The German Republic is the eastern neighbor of the Roman Catholic Empire and bears the Protestant Cross. The Orthodox Church is the strongest in the world, but Protestant influence dominates the Eastern part of Eurasia and dominates all seven German cities. The proximity and religious difference of Greece has been a problem for Germany throughout its history, with 3 wars fought between the Empire and the Republic, and with opportunist aggression by Carthage to their north, but Germany has stood tall in that opposition, growing their Republic and continuing to build an ever increasing economy and building enough military to hold the line. Despite their adversity, Germany has managed to artfully navigate the intelligence community to "acquire" almost as many technologies as Rome, "negotiating" them from Rome and Egypt abroad. The Germans have proven quite resourceful, and despite the fury of the Greek Imperial Forces, the Republic still fights on.

Carthaginian Federation

4 Liberty
3 Patronage

The Carthaginian Federation has proven to be an example of how devastating it can be to militarize too heavily without addressing economic needs. Carthage has long been one of the foremost military powers in the world, but have failed to seize territory in wars with the German Republic and Greek Empire, leaving their desert thalassocracy behind their rivals. Despite this, the Federation is curiously well invested in an internationally driven Federal system of government, and may have the potential in the future to compete with Greece for the favor of their protectorates. They have serious difficulties to overcome in that pursuit, however, with a small population and not very many natural resources.

The Songhai Kingdom

5 Tradition
3 Might

The Songhai Kingdom, in the Northeast Icelands, has been unfortunate in their history of being too isolated and bombarded by angry tribals throughout their existence, unsuccessful in their efforts to tame the tundra and plains of the North. While they have had trouble throughout the years, they are beginning to show signs of being capable of digging their way out of the forgettable hermit kingdom status they have had. It will be an enormous task to compete with the Orthodox states to the South, however, but one can never be sure with the constant tensions in Eurasia.

Byzantine Orthodox Kingdom

5 Tradition
2 Might
1 Imperialism

The peaceful kingdom of Byzantium has ever been an ally of the Greek Empire, devout and their royal family inspiring their peasants to build Wonders in the name of the Church. One of the most important of these that protected the Kingdom from the hungry gaze of the Roman Empire to their south was the Royal Wall, a massive wall thousands of kilometers long surrounding the capital of Constantinople and serving as a warning to Rome should they become militant. They have always been suspicious of Rome, ever since they built Cumae right on their doorstep and refused to stop expanding near them. The Royal Wall, however, was not enough.

The Romans waited patiently, built a shocking Navy and Army that routed the newly christened Royal Musketeers, ravaged the countryside and bombarded the most populous city of Southern Eurasia into submission. The Kingdom has never been the same since, evacuating to the Mediterranean Strait living on fish, working stone quarries, and rendered impotent to a point of almost no recovery, while Rome enjoys almost full dominion of the Southwestern Lands and a part of the Southeastern in Ravenna. Byzantine hatred of all things Roman has been severe, despite the freedom to visit Constantinople provided by Rome. It is extremely unlikely they will ever rule their homeland again and with time the hatred is fading as Roman culture spreads like wildfire throughout the world.

Notes

* Net Gold has been much better this time around, with the Happiness problem mitigated. The economy doesn't go into freefall anymore. The AI has not slipped more than -5 GPT at any point in the game, except very recently when Songhai was expanding.

* Settler AI really punishes isolated civs like how Songhai was. The resources aren't terrible where they are, it's just they didn't protect their civis and it costs them big time.

* Arabia is a great example of how the Expansion/Growth being equal works out. They are pretty much an island people, but, like Indonesia, have grown immensely tall without destroying their happiness.

* Greece has maintained very high happiness throughout and despite not growing population that much, they have had quite a few Golden Ages that boosted their economy. That is happiness' priority at work.

* Germany is something I'm proud of. Despite being in a low military power situation, they have managed to keep fighting their way through being invaded to keep themselves alive. To understand that you'd have to see how many times you'd see X, Y, and Z declare war on Bismarck! over the course of the game.

* Despite the affairs of the lower tier civs, their technological acquisition isn't that bad. They aren't completely out of the game, so maybe with better tech they can pull themselves out over the next 150 turns to be more potent.

* Finally, the AI is not sitting on their cities and waiting. Germany is founding cities along islands and since tech is better now, it can be assumed that other civs will start expanding into the New World / outlying islands as well.
 

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I would like to offer this thought, which is that an investigation into what can be done with A.I. behaviour has no need to defend itself. The A.I. plays the game, designing one and the other are two independent things.

WileyNg seems to have suggested that jma should only extend the community dialogue he referred to, whereas I don't see that the research of jma, and the release of modmods that apply that research, harms anyone nor should be impeded. jma might be advised to existing discussion on the topic, which he is. His research proceeds then under his creative direction, not to "help the already [...] discussed system."

Yep.
i agree.
No need to blow that out of proportion. It's just a question.

I appreciate the input though.

I am just questioning if the new system is really better than the old one. The old one imposed a highly diversified AI traits already whereas jma's idea as I see it tends to reduce that diversity into 4 simple group? jma, what do you think about that?


Still I haven't tried the modmod so I think that's a good start for us to make AIs more interesting.
 
The AI in the current form is actually more simple and limiting than the system I'm testing.

I'll break down the differences

Conqueror (Current)

Tier 1 Offense, Mobile, Air, Nukes, Happiness
Tier 2 Military Training, Science, Expansion, Tile Improvement

This system encourages the Conqueror to build wide, conquer city states, rivals, keep their military well trained, the masses happy and busy, and for their scientists to make new weapons. While that does work, there's room for improvement because:

  • what if your start has you with less space (Terra). Expansion isn't going to work there.
  • what if you're out on an island like Arabia is in my game? A weak Navy is a really bad idea. Remember, Rome had the Legions and a dominant Navy.
  • Happiness requires city defense, culture, science, and gold to work its best.
  • this approach lets all 3 other victory ambitions roam free if they can't conquer them
  • it's likely they will spend most of their GPT if not all of it

So my approach is to give the AI more to pursue so that if one of them isn't going to work (like Songhai conquering in my playthrough) they can pursue something else, like Science or Culture. It also gives a superpower more means to utilize to keep their lead. A Nationalist, for example, might conquer two capitals, but be so far out in front scientifically that they stop and max out science to either go on a conquering spree again with new toys or build a spaceship.

BTW all hell is breaking loose in my playthrough since my last post. Songhai has expanded into the New World. Carthage burned down Giza (!!!), and I tricked Greece into having everyone but me declare war on them because of Defensive Pacts and his willingness to get 50 GPT to declare war on Egypt. I denounced them for effect haha. To his credit they do have a much stronger military than everyone else in the region, so it makes sense tactically. They are in the process of burning down Nicaea (poor Byzantines).
 
Is there some kind of intermediary program that can take a comma-separated file and inject it to cells in an existing spreadsheet?

Because if so, I can crack a script that uses jma's SQL and writes that csv. If not .... someone would have to look up Google's spreadsheet API, I guess?
I looked it up. I can't understand the final connecting pieces, here, but I can make some java bytecode or a .NET program that would use the API to write a spreadsheet matching a template like you linked, Wiley. Thing is, I'm pretty sure the automation would require (a bit) more effort than slogging through some copy-pasting. At least, after I write the .csv generator.

----
About the research. I don't know if Loyalty flavours are still used, but if so, one would think that a small proportion of leaders would have higher loyalty, and that all of those leaders would have low forgiveness, and that Loyalty would distinguish with Forgiveness values as follows:

Imperialist: (high Forgiveness) Shouldn't make decisions based on Loyalty [lowest variance]
Federalist: (middle Forgiveness) Any Loyalty [highest variance]
Hegemon: (low Forgiveness) mid to high Loyalties [middling variance]
Nationalist: (low Forgiveness) low Loyalty [low variance]

So it's like a meeting of two lines resting against each other. Higher forgiveness has less room in there horizontally for loyalty variance. At the bottom, Hegemony and Nationalism diverge into one that has higher loyalties and one that has low loyalty and individually they have low variance again.
 
Cool! I'll plug in the numbers soon. I play FFXIV too, so after a few things there I'll upload an updated file with the spreadsheet.

Great Idea Hermi that's something I overlooked. Loyalty should be different with each group.

@Gazebo ya the old CEP system took happiness as a single yield into account, which is a lot different the CBP. I think I'm gonna look into policies too, because if I can get the AI to attribute "victory flavors" to certain policy lines, then there's a greater chance of them taking those, like Archaeology = Aesthetics, Spaceship = Rationalism, etc.

Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1agiFT13AD-7PLPje_1lAGzwYF6p_V4XIu3C-ggAkVQM/pubhtml

I'll point out that the civs do not have specific flavors or personalities, but we can change that easily. I did that to make it easier to test.
 
Okay update.

I am up to speed on the newest version and will upload my current Leader Flavors, Personalities, and what I just finished with Policy Flavors.

I tried to use the spreadsheet that is supposed to plug in and make the SQL, but I couldn't figure it out so I just used search & replace for the Personalities lol. My spreadsheet skills are pretty bad I must say.

Here's how Policy Flavors should work:

I have them divided into three groups.

Economic/Government
These have a lower priority than the Victory policies flavor-wise, but the AI will pick at least one of these because all of the Ancient choices fit into this category. The choices may take the environment into account, but we'll see. The AI can't really go wrong with any of them but we could see some interesting choices.

Tradition - Growth. Bloodline rule has taken over, building the foundation for a Kingdom or Dynasty
Liberty - Tile Improvement (Labor). Popular will has clamored for and created a Republic or Democracy
Might - Expansion. The military hierarchy has established order and eliminated political opposition, creating a Despotate

Victory

The leader flavors all have these built into the top tier of priorities, so these policies will be more valuable to the AI than the Economic/Government policies. Each personality has a total of 3 Victory priorities, so they will see these as hot ticket items. They all directly contribute to one of the 4 ways to win the game.

Patronage - Diplomacy. A Federation or Hegemony has formed, seeking to bring all lesser states into the fold with a well traveled political class pursuing this goal.
Aesthetics - Archaeology The arts have been sponsored by the government, establishing a Ministry, Department, or Office of Culture.
Imperialism - Nuke The world's seas and all lands have been targeted by the military, forming an Empire with goals of conquest
Rationalism - Spaceship The sciences have been sponsored by the government, building a education system geared toward both public and higher learning.

Wild Card

These policies can help anyone and will be tied to all of the victory types so that the AI doesn't pick the exact same policies every game. Each are versatile enough to contribute to any victory and fit into the theme of building a broad power base.

Piety. The clergy has entered the political realm, adhering to their beliefs and blending in to society as their faith dictates.
Industry The merchant and engineer classes have combined to create a superior economy, empowering the clever to enrich themselves and their nation.

I'm gonna start a new game with Spain because I hear their new UA is unexpected by anybody :D

Update 2:

I'm 250 turns in on the Spain game. I don't think I've ever seen a game this intense before. Nobody is out of the game, although Vienna was just taken by the Celts. I have 12 population in all cities and it's ranked sixth. Everyone is within 100 points of each other except Austria. I'll show some screens tomorrow, but I think these files are going to surprise people with the latest patch.
 

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