(Testing) Leader Personalities Idea

So I could not finish that game because the tweaks I made to some of the AIs since that game made it impossible to keep playing.

* Austria and France moved to Hegemony to fit their history and UAs more
* Inca moved to Imperialist while Maya moved to Hegemony
* Portugal moved to Imperialist

New Game Info

Communitas
Terra
Standard Size
Standard Speed
Warlord

Russia (me)
Korea
Inca
Portugal
Iroquois
Ethiopia
France
Ottomans

Switched some things around so it made my previous save game unable to play. The civs are listed in order of their archetype from Nationalist, Imperialist, Federalist, and Hegemony.

I'm gonna change it up from what I usually do and run a Might, Piety, Industry, Rationalism policy path. I usually run Tradition, Aesthetics, Imperialism, Rationalism. I want to see if Piety/Religion can generate a lot of Tourism and if Industry can replace compete with Imperialism for military supremacy.

Turn 108

Wars

The Inca tried to invade the Iroquois, failed, and the Iroquois tried to attack in reponse and failed.

Portugal and the Ottomans are teaming up against Ethiopia and it appears that Ethiopia is in trouble, but I haven't seen their lands yet so I can't really say for sure. They've lost a ton of their military and Ottomans are gaining strength.

Me and France are the strongest military powers and I'm about to take the top spot because I have a total of 14 Iron already, and more to come once I research Machinery. The Inca are pretty much doomed at this point since Iroquois are a "friend" and I denounced Inca for their "aggression."

Economics

Nobody has villages yet, so there's a bit of a GPT problem for France, Inca, Portugal, Iroquois, and Korea but only France's deficit is serious. They have an enormous military, but their GNP is growing and they have 368 in reserves so they are fine if growth keeps up.Portugal is the only unhappy civ because they're at war, have 5 cities already, and presumably don't have much infrastructure yet.

Policies

Russia - 5 Might
Korea - 5 Tradition
Inca - 4 Might
Portugal - 4 Might
Iroquois - 5 Liberty
Ethiopia - 4 Might
France - 5 Liberty
Ottomans - 3 Tradition, 1 Might

Religions

Confucianism - Korea (God-King and gold)
Worshipping the head of state and his Divine Court
Eastern Orthodoxy - Ethiopia (mainly Science)
Worshipping the mind and seeking transcendance
Catholicism - Russia (Tourism and Culture)
Celebration of beauty and the path of the wanderer

Top Civs

Population - Russia
Crop Yield - Russia
Manufacturing - France
GNP - Russia
Land Area - Russia
Military Power - France
Approval - Russia
Literacy - Russia/France
Social Policies - Korea
Happiness - Russia
Technologies - Russia/France/Iroquois
Net Gold - Russia
Cities - Portugal
Science - Russia
Culture - Russia
Wonders - Russia/Korea/Ottomans
Treasury - Korea
Total Faith - Korea
Faith Gain - Korea
Tourism - Iroquois

Turn 200

Wars

I conquered the Inca as planned, but it did not go exactly as I expected. Iroquois were still fighting them and when I had the city's HP down to like 5, the Iroquois units took the city. So I double crossed them and took Cusco lol. They pushed toward Moscow but I doubled back to push them out and they signed a peace treaty after retreating. They are terrified of me so they offered a DoF that I took because they are useful as friends.

The Ottomans are still trying to conquer Ethiopia but its not working out very well for them. They have expanded though because they and France tag teamed Portugal and have reduced the Portuguese to the point of irrelevance. Portugal definitely overexpanded early on and it backfired. France really wants to wipe them out.

Economics

Everyone's GNP is growing, but the top 4 economies in the world are Russia, France, the Ottomans, and Iroquois, who have expanded to the south and now have 10 cities.

GPT is looking very good, with only minor deficits and lots of treasury reserves for civs with negative GPT.

Every civ has positive happiness, which means this economic system of priorities is taking care of the myriad of things that are necessary for the people to be happy in CBP.

Policies

Russia - 5 Might, 5 Piety
Korea - 5 Tradition, 5 Aesthetics, 1 Industry
Portugal - 5 Might, 1 Piety
Iroquois - 5 Liberty, 3 Aesthetics
Ethiopia - 5 Might, 3 Tradition
France - 5 Liberty, 3 Patronage (conquer Portugal FOR FREEDOM!!!!)
Ottomans - 5 Tradition, 3 Might

Kind of annoyed that Ethiopia and Ottomans aren't graduating to later policies, but maybe it doesn't really matter.

Religions

Protestantism - Iroquois (mainly Production oriented)
Confucianism - Korea
Catholicism - Russia
Eastern Orthodoxy - Ethiopia
Buddhism - France (general bonuses, Economic oriented)

Top Civs

Population - Russia
Crop Yield - Russia
Manufacturing - Iroquois
GNP - Russia
Land Area - Russia
Military Power - France
Approval - Russia/Ethiopia/Ottomans/Korea
Literacy - Korea
Social Policies - Korea
Happiness - Korea
Technologies - Korea
Net Gold - Russia
Cities - Iroquois
Science - Russia
Culture - Russia
Wonders - Korea
Treasury - Korea
Total Faith - Portugal
Faith Gain - Russia
Great Works - Russia/Ottomans
Tourism - Russia

Korea has a lot of top spots for a small 3 city arrangement, but I predict that they will start exploding in GNP pretty soon. They've benefitted quite a lot from France being so preoccupied with Portugal. The Ottomans might be a serious force too because their mastery of trade has greatly enriched them, which makes everything easier.

Obviously, France and Russia are the top dogs tho and I might need to take out France sooner rather than later because they're going for Patronage. I am playing Nationalist so if there's anything a rival can master that will really mess with me it's the World Congress. I'm not even slotting Civil Servants or building Scrivener's lol.

The answer to whether Religion can compete with Aesthetics is unclear right now. I get the Tourism from the religious buildings, but we'll see if the Iroquois and Korea are stronger than me at generating it.
 
Turn 300

Wars

Guys I saw a legitimate World War type scenario. French Republic is being utterly annihilated, while the Ethiopian Kingdom is close to being erased as well. The Ottoman Empire and Korean Kingdom have ascended in this conflict to the two major powers of the North, while the Iroquois Republic in the South continues to ally itself with the winning side.

The Russian Empire has stayed out of the fight despite requests from all sides to help defeat the other. I expanded to the Far South to establish "New Russia" as a Homestead Act type scenario to gobble up the resources and surround the Iroquois for my master plan of completely conquering Southern Eurasia.

Economics

Everyone but the two civs being butchered in this World War are positive in GPT, Happiness, and their GNPs are growing. There really isn't any question at this point that these settings work for the economy.

Religions

Confucianism and Eastern Orthodoxy continue to clash in the North while Catholicism reigns in the South. Despite the Ottomans' best efforts, they still have not claimed the holy city of Addis Ababa yet.

Policies

Russia - 5 Might, 5 Piety, 5 Industry
Korea - 5 Tradition, 5 Aesthetics, 5 Industry, 2 Piety
Portugal - 5 Might, 4 Piety
Iroquois - 5 Liberty, 5 Aesthetics, 1 Rationalism
Ethiopia - 5 Tradition, 5 Might
France - 5 Liberty, 5 Patronage
Ottomans - 5 Tradition, 5 Might, 2 Patronage

Top Civs

Population - Russia
Crop Yield - Russia
Manufacturing - Russia
GNP - Russia
Land Area - Russia
Military Power - Russia
Approval - Russia/Ethiopia/Iroquois/Korea
Literacy - Russia
Social Policies - Korea
Happiness - Russia
Technologies - Russia
Net Gold - Russia
Cities - Iroquois/Russia
Science - Russia
Culture - Russia
Wonders - Korea
Treasury - Russia
Total Faith - Portugal
Faith Gain - Russia
Great Works - Korea
Tourism - Russia

I really am the center of the world, literally and by any objective measure, but Korea has become a legitimate contender as a global power. They took Orleans, Montreal, and appear to be on their way to taking Troyes as well. They sat on three cities for thousands of years and used the World War to double the size of their kingdom. That's exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see.

The Ottomans for their part took Paris, Lyon, and are taking out Ethiopian cities left and right. Portugal is trying to make moves taking Ur and Gondar from Ethiopia, but they still have a way to go before they can challenge either of the Northern powers.

That said, my population is equal to that of both the Iroquois and Ottomans, who are 2nd and 3rd respectively. I had an army of about 10 workers fill in every tile in the Empire, which obviously took my economy to a bigger level. These settlements to the South are already filling in nicely and that army of workers relocated to get that going. I've also explored nearly the entire world while the rest of these rivals fight. That only happened because I have an enormous military - if I didn't I'd be part of the fracas.
 
Turn 401

World War

So I decided to wade into the fight up North because Korea was pushing very hard, very fast east. They took the western cities of the Ottomans and their navy looked powerful enough to take the eastern coastal cities too, so I decided to intervene.

My goal with the campaign was to return the North to its divided and conquered state, so I invaded and liberated all of the French Republic from Korea, while returning a couple of Ethiopian cities. I have to admit that Korea did not put up anywhere near as much of a fight as I hoped, but then again I was bringing Air Force where they didn't.

This literally redrew the world map, and I signed a defensive pact with France while giving them more than 20k gold and gifting about 8 techs. This brings them up to speed and so long as I keep them safe they'll be a buffer state that will be difficult for anybody to conquer. I gifted some Marine units for good measure.

The Iroquois tried to get cute and invade while I was fighting Korea, but my military isn't like the AI's - I have security forces dedicated to the homeland and operational forces for foreign campaigns. I redirected my bombers and security forces to the border on the southwestern front and smashed the Iroquois army to the point of making them retreat.

Economics

Ideologies have really jacked up happiness. I adopted Order as did the Ottomans, Korea adopted Freedom, with Ethiopia, Portugal adopting the same. Since Korea has huge tourism, both sides have fairly large penalties to unhappiness. This didn't affect me, the Ottomans, or Korea very much but Portugal and Ethiopia got hit pretty hard and once your happiness goes bad, so does your GPT. It was the first time I've seen serious economic issues, and they had nothing to do with the flavor settings.

What sucks about that situation as that switching Ideologies wouldn't help - it would just trade one set of angry rioters for another. Essentially the whole world is divided between Russian Socialism and Korean Capitalism and the weaker nations don't have the infrastructure or culture to withstand the civil uproar.

Policies

Russia - 5 Might, 5 Piety, 5 Industry, 4 Rationalism, 5 Order
Korea - 5 Tradition, 5 Aesthetics, 5 Industry, 5 Piety, 11 Freedom
Portugal - 5 Might, 5 Piety, 2 Freedom
Iroquois - 5 Liberty, 5 Aesthetics, 4 Rationalism, 5 Freedom
Ethiopia - 5 Tradition, 5 Might, 4 Freedom
France - 5 Liberty, 5 Patronage
Ottomans - 5 Tradition, 5 Might, 2 Patronage, 2 Aesthetics, 4 Order

Top Civs

Population - Russia
Crop Yield - Russia
Manufacturing - Russia
GNP - Russia
Land Area - Russia
Military Power - Russia
Approval - Russia/Ethiopia/Iroquois/Korea
Literacy - Russia
Social Policies - Korea
Happiness - Russia
Technologies - Russia
Net Gold - Russia
Cities - Russia
Science - Russia
Culture - Russia
Wonders - Korea
Treasury - Russia
Total Faith - Russia
Faith Gain - Russia
Great Works - Russia
Tourism - Russia

I expanded to a total of 16 cities, and I am strong enough to be considered a type 1 civilization at this point. Combined arms military, world's most influential religion, dominant culture, the most prolific scientific apparatus, by far the largest population, etc.

The changeup due to the war has guaranteed a victory, since Korea has been returned back to their thalassocracy in the Far West in the North and their conquered Brussels and Hanoi CS's. France is back, Ethiopia isn't a refugee nation anymore and nobody is strong enough to challenge my world order.

That said, I think a higher difficulty level would have seen some serious obstacles to this approach. I'd like to see someone try out Immortal on this and see how it goes.

I think this has been a success because had I not intervened against Korea I am positive they would have conquered the entire Northern continent. Throughout the game, rivals have been fighting based on military strength and opportunism and the swings back and forth indicate that the snowball is not absolute. The last 100 turns will be interesting because everyone will have an Air Force and possibly Nukes.

Another cool thing is how Portugal conquered local CS of Geneva and Ur to expand their economy but are actively pursuing diplomacy abroad. This is what I was aiming for with Imperialists. Korea conquered 3 city-states in their campaign and build so many wonders that they ended up getting a large # of WC votes even though they aren't really trying for Diplomacy. Ethiopia was in pretty bad shape before my campaign, but had expanded to 5 cities out in the "Pacific" and now have 8 cities and around 1k score. Ottomans took Braga back from Korea even though they were being wupped by Korea. They took time to build up strength and then reasserted themselves.

It's a lot of fun to play this guys. For real.
 
I've been wanting to eagerly test your new AI and tonight I'll have some time to do so. I have a current game on the 5-15 mini-update. Are these changes in that version or should I just use the latest ones in this thread and start a new game? I'll give you some Immortal feedback which I hope will be useful.
 
I tried to use it with a save with different SQL settings and it didn't work so a new game would very likely be required. I'd try it on your current save and see how it goes though.

Thanks Riot, it'll be fun!
 
I'll try a game using the 5-15 mini-update (not sure what Gazebo changed from 5-13 to 5-15) and these changes. Speaking of which, where does everything go? I know you had a post somewhere detailing where to put each file, but I can't seem to find it. Mind putting it into the first post?
 
I updated the OP with install instructions. Probably important for ppl who want to test it lol

Look forward to hearing how it goes :D

Edit: I decided to update the OP by explaining the changes and how they improve things and updated Imperialists so that they prioritize friendliness followed by war and deception. I want Federalists to try to use friendships to survive, but Imperialists to use it to endear themselves to others while waiting for the right time to strike. I think they're a little too easy to isolate right now.

Now that the AI is effective at managing their situations economically, these approaches toward major civs become more important. I'm gonna try this with Imperialists / Federalists wanting to be frenemies / scared friendly, and Hegemons / Nationalists being more openly aggressive. I don't want any one AI archetype to be easily isolated politically and I think this might be the formula.

Nationalists, Federalists and Hegemony build up a large amt of tourism in peacetime, which makes civs want to open borders if they're not pissed off at them. Peacetime gives the CSD more time to work its magic - total war makes sending diplomats a nightmare. I realize that looking back at that playthrough - yes the wars were cool, but I literally didn't have to get involved, scare them off with my military strength, and they ate themselves. Imperialists can keep it friendly for a while, but backstab when they have a military advantage. That can isolate them, but it can also take advantage of a golden opportunity only their sociopathic approach would consider.
 
Ok, the AIs are tough... I got wrecked on Immortal. Just stomped. Denmark had 5 cities by turn 42 (standard speed) and 6 cities by turn 60. 17 techs to my 12. Tons of gold with me at a deficit trying to keep up militarily. When war came it was ugly. His cities all magically built walls right when war started. I held out, but my deficit and only producing units while the world passed me by meant an inevitable defeat. He even managed to settle a city while out producing me on units.

I'm on Emperor now as England. This feels more like the old Immortal. Maybe even a little harder. I'm keeping up techwise as of turn 170. My GPT is great and I've made some friends. I only have 4 cities, but I'm in a landgrab war with Poland who somehow has just infinite units that keep taking and losing a city. A border city is just in tug of war for the last 10 turns or so. There are some huge players elsewhere in the world, but if this war ever ends and I can stop only producing units, then I should be able to catch up or at least be a contender. I'll play some more Friday night and let you know how it goes.
 
After playing as Indonesia a bit I think it belongs to Nationalists. UA makes Indonesia cities to have 2 unique luxuries as opposed to 1 for captured ones. Most of my time was spent razing enemy cities and building my own instead. If that alone doesn't have a strong nationalistic vibe, I don't know what does. UU enforces to build an army starting from classical era (while claiming as much iron as possible) and perhaps rush nearby civs. UB works quite great with tradition tree and Handing Gardens giving Candi before it is available for building. CSes are irrelevant, though I suppose Indonesia wouldn't mind denying its enemies of votes in a forceful way. But it can't forgo diplomacy completely, because unique luxuries won't sell themselves.
 
@ Riot

Wow that sounds really intense. Higher difficulty Civ 5 becoming Punisher Mode is interesting to hear about. The aggression and GPT from Denmark is the kind of thing I was hoping for, with being able to afford aggression. Thanks for testing!

@ Strigvir

Yeah I'll admit that decision was more historically motivated than the gameplay, but on the flip side Federalists found a lot of cities. Iroquois and Ethiopia in the last game I played founded 10 cities each over the course of the game. Still, it's interesting to think about an Indonesia that could be like how the Japanese Empire was.

I think I might consider making Federalists a little more aggressive but for them to see it as a Plan C over diplomacy and settling. Also, Diplomacy flavors don't really affect trade that much. It's more like whether they will take Patronage or pursue World Congress more.

What I'm going to do today is some research on Grand Strategy AI flavors and see if they need to be adjusted too. That's the way that the AI will focus on a victory approach, so if that's out of whack then it'll need to be fixed.

Edit: I added an XML for GrandStrategies that makes it so the AI will pick them based on the same flavor values for the related Victory Policies. Since it all fits, I think there will be more synergy between what policies they take and what kind of victory they pursue.

* Conquest & Imperialism = Military Training
* Culture & Aesthetics = Archaeology
* Spaceship & Rationalism = Spaceship
* Patronage and Diplomacy = Diplomacy

Also updated Ancient Policies and Ideologies to fit into these. They all share Cultural Victory, so I differentiated them based on the other victory types they enhance. Notes in the OP.

* Freedom & Federalists = Diplomacy, Spaceship
* Autocracy & Hegemony = Diplomacy, Military Training
* Order & Nationalist = Military Training, Spaceship
* Imperialist, true to form, can pick any of them and enhance 2/3 of their victories.
 
I haven't got any turn by turn post-game analysis of trying out the settings that were edited into the original post, but I can say I had a lot of fun with what turned out to be very dangerous / efficient opponents in most cases.

I was playing Egypt and super early I met the neighbours, Songhai, Carthage and Zulu. I think within a turn or ten of even meeting the Zulu they denounced me! My starting warrior managed to turn into a spearman via goody hut, and I ended up having a war chariot sort of following him around after awhile, then I found a Zulu settler without escort and figured it was time to nip that potential aggressive Conqueror / Nationalist in the bud. Yoink, free worker for me, and a lot of turns of war. Poor Shaka though had a capital only with like one archer. He sent out another settler, this time with an escort spearman who got chewed up by Barbarian axe thrower guys, once the barbs softened the escort my spear or chariot managed to snag another settler (worker). Managed to park my War Chariot on a hill near Ulundi and slowly chip away at the defenses while a second War Chariot slowly stumbled its way down from Thebes to take up a second snipe and XP position. The spearman was holding back until the city got into the red, I think it was 2 scouts who were helping escort stolen workers back home.

While I was navigating troops around though, I got the shock of my life seeing Songhai was moving down maybe 8 or so units, just warriors and archers, clearly he was about to declare war on Zulu too. I slowed down my "sniping" stuff so that Songhai could throw away troops against Ulundi, they were coming close enough fro Ulundi to shoot at them or suiciding against Ulundi's defenses. Basically I knew if Songhai ended up with a lot of veteran troops, I was next... and I couldn't tell how he could've got so many troops so fast, I just had a warrior-turned-spearman, warrior on garrison duty in the capital, a couple scouts, and two war chariots.

Anyhow I let him do a lot of suiciding then when my troops were in best position I put Ulundi out of its misery, surely picking up a malus for the rest of the game but I was happy to have no Zulus in the neighbourhood. Fortunately Songhai wasn't too bold with me, although later Arabia who'd showed up for a DoF, broke the DoF thinking my smashing Zulu was a little too warmonger for them. They only had two middle eastern location cities (it was an Earth map), Mecca went first and Medina went second. By then I was probably sunk as a warmonger, even India who'd started friendly was at -130 or worse for the warmongering, though they displayed as Friendly in a possibly deceptive way.

Songhai was building back up again, I think Egypt looked like a juicy target, but I scored a religion early on and enhanced it to get the Zealot thing where missionaries convert barbarians. A couple of city states had the "horde will destroy in 20 turns" type thing happen, which is a clear invitation to send a missionary to hang around Ife or Tyre or wherever, and get "Heathen Converted!" messages left and right, all of a sudden I've got more swordsmen than I've got iron, a few composite bows, a few pikemen, all of a sudden it's #2 military in the world demographics and everyone around is okay with denouncing me and whatnot, but no one gets brave enough to attack while I settle, build build build, and start up good patronage of every CS I see.

The game still went on a long way from there, but it was exciting before I even much explored into Europe or anywhere else. Good fun, I think the AI changes had to have played into it, as I'd not seen this sort of scene before.

...

Anyhow over to main reason to post (other than "good job, thanks!"), if I grab the 5-23 version, what if anything needs to change in the original post in terms of what files should be grabbed and put where, overriding what?
 
Great to hear, Brokenbone!

Gazebo did not put the Grand Strategy or Policy Flavors in the latest build so those would need to be put in, but everything else is the same.

Some people are concerned about the AI in various ways, but largely it's due to how much difficulty the AI has with barbarians early on. I did some FireTuner testing and I've recommended to the 5-23 thread to add more civs on Continents/spread out games, use Terra or Pangaea maps that put everyone close together.

The settings really shine in those bunched up situations or if there aren't any barbarians at all.
 
jma22tb said:
Great to hear, Brokenbone!

Gazebo did not put the Grand Strategy or Policy Flavors in the latest build so those would need to be put in, but everything else is the same.

Some people are concerned about the AI in various ways, but largely it's due to how much difficulty the AI has with barbarians early on. I did some FireTuner testing and I've recommended to the 5-23 thread to add more civs on Continents/spread out games, use Terra or Pangaea maps that put everyone close together.

The settings really shine in those bunched up situations or if there aren't any barbarians at all.
Click to expand...

I added those changes (the grand strategy and policy changes) in the 5-23 version.

G
 
Gazebo said:
I added those changes (the grand strategy and policy changes) in the 5-23 version.

G
Click to expand...

Oh I didn't see them where I usually put them. My mistake :blush:

What do you think of them so far?

The thing that has made for a difficult problem is how to get the AI to smash barbarians without going bankrupt by overemphasizing military early on. These settings have great economic improvements, but FireTuner sims show some really facepalm worthy settler captures.
 
jma22tb said:
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.
Click to expand...

Is testing not better on Prince/King where the AI nor the Player become just a little/no bonus/penalty?

jma22tb said:
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.

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.
Click to expand...

Good news... Thanks! The "jumping" personality of the leaders are annoying.

In my last game*, some of the AI has expanded to fast and broke there Economy and Science output.

*
Spoiler :
with Community Patch 5-13, Community Balance Patch 5-13, CSD 5-2, E&D 3-30, CDF 4-15, EUI (CBP Version) 5-13, Additions and Changes 8


jma22tb said:
Added a recommendation to test Merlin's project in his thread. It's a potentially MASSIVE game changer that would greatly enhance the personalities/flavor system here (or any system really)

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

Thanks! But it's just 1 piece from the cake.

Can you give me Info about, how the AI will use the FLAVOR_WONDER?
With my new Flavor's the AI will now build more and the proper Wonder's and not just while the AI likes Wonder's
I think about to delete all FLAVOR_WONDER from Buildings.



Hope i have soon time to make a new Game with your additions - looks very nice!
 
That might actually be a good idea since certain wonders are more useful than others.

FLAVOR_WONDER as far as I can tell is a global wonder flavor that will encourage civs to build them just because they're Wonders. That's why people are noticing Wonder spam coming from certain civs, either Nationalists or Federalists.

It's a strategic thing I wanted to implement so that there would be "Egypt-like" advantages to Federalists, who don't try to conquer anyone, or Nationalists who forego diplomacy. The others currently try to take them away from these rivals, but it does beg the question about whether specificity in Wonder flavors would work better.

Ex. Nationalists really wouldn't benefit from Roman Forum, Summer Palace, etc. unless they wanted to deny it from others. Even then, they'd be better off building up more military power, culture, science, or economy than a wonder dedicated to something they aren't going for. Passing up on that Wonder, which the others would definitely want, could be more beneficial to them, or make them more vulnerable to WC bullying.

I think there's a good argument either way, but I'd be willing to try out games with no Wonder flavor to see how much it enhances these grand strategies.

-------------------------
I did Warlord early on, but I'm running Prince games now since that's the "default" difficulty.

As far as growth vs. expansion it's more about making sure the AI considers their surroundings. Ex. if they are wedged between multiple CS and rivals and can only expand once, then it's more likely they'll go Tall than wide. If there's land available and their production is strong, they'll settler spam and try to gobble it up. That can backfire, of course, and it should if they did it with a bunch of rivals around them.

I think the biggest problem with this right now is the vicious circle of low military flavor priority making barbarians more damaging until later on when they aren't a threat anymore, or high military flavor priority choking their economies to death.

I'm personally favored toward the former, because if economy is strong then they can lose a settler or two and still get their 3 or 4 cities in an isolated start, whereas the latter will just choke their economy and make One City Civs that are still in the Classical Era while a player is just getting into Renaissance.
 
A wonder which is so powerful that its construction, for the purpose of denial, is viable, is overpowered.

That is an if-then statement. If things get there, something's gotta be nerfed. So it'd be wise to plan around the AIs ever needing to be programmed to exploit a state-of-affairs that will be patched into oblivion in every case.

---
Can flavours really fix barbarian curbstompings on their own?
 
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