Do AI nations have personalities?

[brxbrx]

Like, is Burgundy predisposed to being aggressive and douchy?

Or is it just a generic AI that responds to certain conditions (like, Burgundy is douchy because it has a large army and can afford to be)?

[Kurblius]

Nah, they're all generic AI. Except for Austria. They're always an a*hole.

[idont]

Well, they don't really have personalities, although nations do get specific ideas and missions, which may make them act similarly in each game, i.e. Burgundy starts with a military idea and some conquer missions, so they'll usually spend most of the early game fighting.

[ywhtptgtfo]

OPMs have the special personality of spamming spies and demanding all your gold and territories.

[Kurblius]

True. Merchant Republics always start with Merchant Adventures (which is a fairly weak national idea) and eventually collect all the trade ideas.

[Leonoob]

Burgundy is aggressive because of its awesome missions (they're pretty much all conquest/subjugation).

[CyberEagle]

True. Merchant Republics always start with Merchant Adventures (which is a fairly weak national idea) and eventually collect all the trade ideas.

... and spam even more spies!

[simon chatfield]

i suspect castille may be based on chronicler....

[Junuxx]

National Ideas, unit types and historical friends are scripted in the country files. Also, things like cores, sliders, missions can influence behavior, but the actual decision making is mostly generic as far as I can tell.

There are some broad flavor rules, like Catholics won't annex the Papal States even when they can, and low-tech nations won't colonize even if they have colonists, but nothing for individual nations.

You have to realize that given the huge number of nations, the AI for EU3 can't be quite as complex (and computationally expensive) as in some other strategy games that feature only a handful of opponents.

[DanubianCossak]

Actually guys, AI's do have personalities. If you open console, type "view_ai", press enter and hover your mouse over AI country's shield (select country and hover mouse over its flag) you will see lots of additional information on AI.

Their personalities go from militarist, balanced, capitalist to colonizer (and thats what i can remember right now).

Apart from that, there are a few other interesting things, for example something called "consolidating = yes" or "consolidating = no". Sadly, for some reason Paradox is REALLY secretive about pretty much everything about the AI, so what these personalities exactly do is a unknown.

My guess is that basically the entire AI is just one big math equation, where decisions are made by weighing different values assigned to some things (land force limit, morale difference between self and target, stability etc etc etc etc etc), and these Personalities have the effect of modifying these basic values, effectively changing the whole logic making it more or less likely to do some things.

My only hope is that some day in the future Paradox will decide to share the AI code, or at least its parts, because as a dedicated modder, modifying the AI would be like the ultimate challenge.

[DDRJake]

Some countries have historical_friends who they are very unlikely to fight. Examples are Portugal&Spain or Scotland&France.

They can still fight, but it's less likely.

[Iwanow]

Nah, they're all generic AI. Except for Austria. They're always an a*hole.

Even as a human player.

[gela1212]

Even as a human player.

Especially as a human player.

Actually guys, AI's do have personalities. If you open console, type "view_ai", press enter and hover your mouse over AI country's shield (select country and hover mouse over its flag) you will see lots of additional information on AI.

Their personalities go from militarist, balanced, capitalist to colonizer (and thats what i can remember right now).

Apart from that, there are a few other interesting things, for example something called "consolidating = yes" or "consolidating = no". Sadly, for some reason Paradox is REALLY secretive about pretty much everything about the AI, so what these personalities exactly do is a unknown.

This.. this happens? DC, you just blew my mind bro.

[anubisfike]

I'm fairly sure consolidating = yes means they are very unlikely to declare wars and such, they are gathering their power. Consolidating = no would be the opposite. I may be wrong though but I believe I've read this somewhere.

[midget_roxx]

Absolutely. Do you know how long it takes for a country like England to cede land? Forever and ever despite you having 50% WS

[SittingBear]

Here are the different personalities that determine general behaviour and NIs:
balanced - bit of everything
capital - monies & tech
military - fleet or army
colonial - QFTNW, tariffs, and such
diplomacy - relations

And there are a few other yes/no IA factors:
initialized - I forget what this one does.
consolidate - focusing on cores, diplomacy, balancing the income, regaining manpower
static - this determines whether the IA wants to expand
hre_interest - being the emperor
papacy_interest - being the Holy See

A consolidating=yes static=yes IA won't come to war if they are recovering. These all change based on missions, luck, game-state, and a series of modifiers based on conquer, rival, protect, threat, befriend, and antagonize. These modifiers calculate how much Bohemia wants to protect Aachen, and whether it is because they want to befriend them, conquer them, or otherwise. Higher the value, the more immediate. For example, here is Sweden from a save file I have:

conquer_prov=
		{
			id=15 (Jylland)
			value=100
		}
conquer_prov=
		{
			id=39 (Kurland)
			value=43
threat=
		{
			id="LIT"
			value=259
		}
threat=
		{
			id="TIM"
			value=47
antagonize=
		{
			id="RIG"
			value=66
		}
befriend=
		{
			id="SWI"
			value=38
		}
protect=
		{
			id="NOR"
			value=60
		}
protect=
		{
			id="RIG"
			value=35
rival=
		{
			id="LIT"
			value=172
		}
rival=
		{
			id="CAS"
			value=101

Based on this Europe:

Sweden wants to take Jylland pretty badly, but still have Kurland on their list. You can see that the Rival of Lithuania is more than Castille, due to its proximity and size. The threat from Lithuania is equally more dangerous than the Timurids, because although the Timurids is larger than Lithuania, they are father away and less of an immediate issue. At the same time, Sweden wants to protect Riga, probably with a Guarantee, they will also send spies or go to war against them since the antagonize value is higher. If a country is already an ally, Trust is used to determine loyalty. So when you want France to ally you and it is Impossible or Unlikely, it is because the befriend is low or they have a higher antagonize/conquer=prov value. IA's often want to befriend rivals/threats that they don't want to conquer, while they still may see an ally as a threat or rival.

[Kepheren]

Wow. Thats some hardcore stuff. O.o While good to know I don't like to think of it as just a math equation though. Some part of me just prefers to think that, as an example, Austria is just genetically a jerk and France is stupidly war like. Makes it feel more like a role playing exercise when you do that.

[SittingBear]

Wow. Thats some hardcore stuff. O.o While good to know I don't like to think of it as just a math equation though. Some part of me just prefers to think that, as an example, Austria is just genetically a jerk and France is stupidly war like. Makes it feel more like a role playing exercise when you do that.

Well, this is France's 'personality'

ai=
	{
		initialized=yes
		consolidate=yes
		static=no
		personality=military
		hre_interest=yes
		papacy_interest=yes

France wants to grab its cores, get larger, and is interested in military.
Austria is a bit different

ai=
	{
		initialized=yes
		consolidate=no
		static=no
		personality=balanced
		hre_interest=yes
		papacy_interest=yes

They don't have much to consolidate, so they just want to eat.

I think that EU3 has done a great job at the math to make sure we have a fun experience that we can role-play because of each Country's separate personalities and their consistency. Maybe they have a bit of an ego. Humans value provinces, threats, rivals, and nations to befriend as well. The difference is that we don't see the math that we're doing.

[DanubianCossak]

I used to think long time ago that AI did some stuff purely out of spite, like human would, but thats just wrong. With the AI, there is nothing personal, if it attacks you its because somewhere in its code you did something that activated couple of flags changing the equation just over certain value triggering the declaration of war.

One of the most frustrating things is when you treat the AI as human, for example, youre allied with an AI for decades, come to its wars every time, and then when you attack someone, it doesnt come to help, breaking the alliance. The thing is, the AI probably calculated your size, compared it to its size, checked if there are any provinces it wants held by you, and concluded that youre its natural rival, so its not in its interest (long term) to help you.

[Kurblius]

Oh wow, I stand corrected. This is depressing: not a single country in the world views me (Venice) as a friend. Not even vassals that I have 200 relations with. Even countries Venice THINKS its friends with (when I loaded as a different country) don't have me as a friend. In fact, most have me at Threat Level 400 (which I presume is the maximum threat level possible, since I didn't see anything higher). While I can't say I'm totally surprised (I haven't been able to make an alliance with anyone other than countries I release)... I still feel bummed that the world hates me. I mean, it's not like I'm on a world conquest mission. I'm a trade-focused nation. Hell, why can't people treat me like Aragon or Castille, who everyone seems to love?