Why do I always get the same leaders as AI opponents?

[Alaindor]

I'm just curious... am I the only one or am I just being RNG-unlucky?

As the title suggests... I like to play on huge maps so I choose the standard 12-leaders, and since I like to have the surprise of discovering who will be my opponents in each game, I do not choose any leader pools. I know you can do it, I know I should do it if I'm annoyed by some leaders (and their music!) and want to avoid them... but I just don't want to, don't even suggest it!

So, in most of my games, I will get the same leaders many times, and others I will amost never see... is it the same for you? Or is it just bad luck? Do you share the same patterns as me?


Following are the AI leaders I encounter in my games, sorted from most to less frequent:

Almost every game

• Kupe (these guys shouting in the middle of the music get on my ***)
• Peter (Russia)

Very frequent

• Genghis Khan (love his music, though)
• Jayavarman VII (I get fed up of his music after some time!)

Frequent

• Alexander
• Gilgamesh
• Harald Hardrada
• Montezuma
• Tamar (like her music, too!)

Fairly frequent

• Amanitore
• Robert the Bruce
• Simon Bolivar
• Trajan
• Wilfrid Laurier

Occasional

• Ambiorix
• Ba Trieu
• Cyrus
• Frederick Barbarossa
• Gandhi
• Gitarja
• Hojo Tokimune
• Kublai Khan
• Mansa Musa
• Mathias Corvinus
• Menelik II
• Mvemba a Nzinga
• Pericles
• Poundmaker
• Seondeok
• Shaka
• Tomyris
• Wilhemina

Rare

• Basil II
• Cathreine de Medici
• Chandragupta
• Cleopatra
• Gorgo
• Hammurabi
• Jadwiga
• Lady Six Sky
• Lautaro
• Philip II
• Qin Shi Huang
• Teddy Roosevelt

Very rare

• Eleanor of Aquitaine
• Victoria

Used to be frequent, rare now

• John Curtin
• Pedro II
• Suleiman

Never

• Dido
• Joao III
• Kristina
• Pachacuti
• Saladin

... and I've played quite a few games...

 

[Aurelesk]

I am pretty sure if we put all the leaders on a graph by how often they appear, we will end up with something similar a Gaussian function. Do not worry, this is normal: this is how random works.

It is like playing Heads or Tails: if on average you end up as much Heads and Tails, you are still able to have 5 times the same outcome in a row. If you had 5 Heads in a row, the odds of having a 6th Head is still 50%: the previous outcome doesn't change the odd of the next one. Don't fall for the Gambler's fallacy!

With few tries, you can achieve a great variance. With Heads or Tiles, which have only 2 outcomes, having 5 times the same outcome happens 3% of the time: it isn't that rare. The more you play the game, the lesser the relative difference becomes: you have to remember the Law of large numbers.

It is the same here: having Kupe in almost every game doesn't make him less likely to appear in the next game. On a 11 random players, with more than 50 leaders in the game, you need to play around 100 games to have a 10~40 appearance of each (×4). Even after 100 games, you will still have the bottom 5 be 5 times less numerous than the top 5: you didn't have enough game to really tell if the game is truly random or not. Make it 1000 games in order to have a 180~270 appearances of each (×1.5).

I am pretty sure, the list would be completely different for other players. For example, Dido was almost in every of my games when I was playing Eleanor a lot. Mostly because I remember her apparence a lot since she was immune to my Loyalty pressure. The very hostile and zealous Pedro II is also very frequent. Meanwhile, I believe I have met Amanitore and Genghis Khan maybe a couple of time.

 

[ezzlar]

When I hit restart I get a new map but still the same "random" opponents. Don´t know if that is a core feature or mod.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I am pretty sure if we put all the leaders on a graph by how often they appear, we will end up with something similar a Gaussian function. Do not worry, this is normal: this is how random works.

It is like playing Heads or Tails: if on average you end up as much Heads and Tails, you are still able to have 5 times the same outcome in a row. If you had 5 Heads in a row, the odds of having a 6th Head is still 50%: the previous outcome doesn't change the odd of the next one. Don't fall for the Gambler's fallacy!

With few tries, you can achieve a great variance. With Heads or Tiles, which have only 2 outcomes, having 5 times the same outcome happens 3% of the time: it isn't that rare. The more you play the game, the lesser the relative difference becomes: you have to remember the Law of large numbers.

It is the same here: having Kupe in almost every game doesn't make him less likely to appear in the next game. On a 11 random players, with more than 50 leaders in the game, you need to play around 100 games to have a 10~40 appearance of each (×4). Even after 100 games, you will still have the bottom 5 be 5 times less numerous than the top 5: you didn't have enough game to really tell if the game is truly random or not. Make it 1000 games in order to have a 180~270 appearances of each (×1.5).

I am pretty sure, the list would be completely different for other players. For example, Dido was almost in every of my games when I was playing Eleanor a lot. Mostly because I remember her apparence a lot since she was immune to my Loyalty pressure. The very hostile and zealous Pedro II is also very frequent. Meanwhile, I believe I have met Amanitore and Genghis Khan maybe a couple of time.

We also have to take into account that games rarely use "truly random numbers", the game seed number will I think generate the same set of opponents. So there is some "algoirthm" for utilizing that number to pick AI.

 

[General_Sahib]

When I hit restart I get a new map but still the same "random" opponents. Don´t know if that is a core feature or mod.

Really? I was under the impression that the opponents also change (I play with NO mods and 6 random opponents). I "restart" after victory occurs (selecting "just one more turn" then hitting restart). I'm certain the opponents change as this is how I almost always play. Hope someone can corroborate.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Ah, one of life's great, impenetrable mysteries

 

[Leucarum]

This is why I'm kind of grateful for the civ picker. Although it was random I went through a spate of seeing Brazil or Khmer in almost every game I started... Even if it's enforced it's nice to see a bit of variety in your opponents when the coin flip has been coming up Khmer for a while...

 

[Alaindor]

Ah, Khmer for you too...

And damn! New game and Peter the Great again, again and again! Ka-lin-ka, Ka-lin-ka,...

 

[Thormodr]

I feel like I get Lautaro in almost every single game I play. I like him, though, so I always try for friendly relations.

Kupe I see an awful (emphasis on awful) lot too... ***Towraa towraa!!!*** *Ugh*

 

[General_Sahib]

I would truly be concerned the day Cyrus didn't appear in my game. I'd probably have to ring ancient Persia just to check he's cool, or at least stalk him on social media and find out which obsessive surprise DoW'er he's left me for.

 

[Nassim]

Really? I was under the impression that the opponents also change (I play with NO mods and 6 random opponents). I "restart" after victory occurs (selecting "just one more turn" then hitting restart). I'm certain the opponents change as this is how I almost always play. Hope someone can corroborate.

Well it's also based on my own perception and not controled facts, but i'm pretty sure when I restart a map I get the same opponents (at least when I have selected a specific leader, might be different when your own leader is randomized ?)

 

[Chekko]

One day the random generated Jesus will make a game for me without you Shaka. I will miss your lovely music though.

 

[Ordnael]

One day the random generated Jesus will make a game for me without you Shaka. I will miss your lovely music though.

Does the music sings at some point "sexy revolution" or is it just me!?

I've been having way too much Hojo Tokimune in recent games. Seriously thinking about putting him out of the game...starting to hate the guy.
For CIV VII I want "Yo! Nippon Ichi!" Mai Shiranui...jk!

 

[Chekko]

Does the music sings at some point "sexy revolution" or is it just me!?

Ah yeah in the beginning. Well, a half-naked strong, fit man with leopard clothes. If only he had Alexander's animations.

 

[BomberEscort]

Doesn't who you pick influence your opponents? I recall reading somewhere that they will try to place you with similar AI (Americans play against Western European civs more often).

 

[Chekko]

Maybe you are thinking on the default setting with Starting Positions being ’Cultural’, meaning people of the same ethnicity. Still weird how most of the same gets picked.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Doesn't who you pick influence your opponents? I recall reading somewhere that they will try to place you with similar AI (Americans play against Western European civs more often).

That was definitely a setting that you could enable/disable in Civ3. I didn't remember a similar setting in Civ4, but I haven't played that in a while. Is there such a setting in Civ6?

 

[PiR]

How many is quite a few games?

 

[Alaindor]

Probably around 50-ish, I guess... multiply that by 12 civs in every game, divide that again by the number of leaders and I would expect to have encountered statistically every leader ten times roughly... which is far from my experience... Of course statistics do require larger figures to become meaningful, but it feels the way I described it in my original post

 

[Linklite]

Hmm...I don't know if my games have an overall bias for certain leaders or against others. However, it does seem to have short term trends. For example, for a period of about 7 or 8 games, I started next to Curtin perhaps 5 of those games (not just in the same game, but started next to him, which is less probable again). I had a similar situation with Trajan and later Tomyris. For a while Kupe was in every game.
As I said, I'm not sure that there are overall favoured leaders, but it seems to have it's streaks where some are favoured over the others.