A Quantitative Look at AI Personalities in 2.1 "Niven"

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klingonadmiral

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1. Introduction

As of the current version 2.1.4, there are 23 different AI Personalities assigned to non-player empires; determined by ethics, authority, civics and founder species traits. These personalities govern the "broad strokes" behaviour of the AI controlling this empire, as well as often giving diplomatic modifiers towards other empires or certain diplomatic action. For example, a 'Federation Builders' AI will happily seek out allies, sign migration treaties and enlighten primitive species. In contrast, a 'Slaving Despots' empire is aggressive, opportunistic and, as their name states, always seeking new slaves to exploit.

In my opinion AI Personalities are a somewhat overlooked aspect of the game, which I presume is due to an issue that becomes very apparent very quickly when you look at the numbers.

2. Methodology

To gather a large quantity of AI Empires, I generated 100 1000-star ring galaxies with 20 AIs but neither Fallen Empires nor Marauders. All those galaxies were generated as the "AAA Savants", a generic Machine Empire which through its name ensured it would always be at the very top of the contacts list.

Fig. 2a - Spectator Empire
Djgzi3X.png


Through this series I was able to gather 2007 AI empires, the 7 additional to the 2000 expected generated by what I have come to call the "CoM-UNE Anomaly".

Regarding Preset Empires, the following AI Personalities occur *slightly* more often than they should due to having at least one of those empires associated with them:

  • Hegemonic Imperialists (Commonwealth of Man)
  • Federation Builders (United Nations of Earth)
  • Evangelizing Zealots (Kingdom of Yondarim)
  • Spiritual Seekers (Scyldari Confederacy)
  • Erudite Explorers (Lokken Mechanists, Voor Technocracy)
  • Ruthless Capitalists (Chinorr Stellar Union)
  • Peaceful Traders (Iferyx Amalgamated Fleets)
  • Slaving Despots (Tzynn Empire, Xanid Suzerainty)
  • Honorbound Warriors (Kel-Azaan Republic)
  • Harmonious Collective (Jehetma Dominion)
  • Xenophobic Isolationists (Maweer Caretakers)
  • Hive Mind (Ix'Idar Collective)
  • Determined Exterminator (XT-489 Eliminator)
  • Driven Assimilator (Tebrid Homolog)
  • Rogue Servitor (Earth Custodianship)
  • Fanatic Befrienders (Blorg Commonality)
With the exception of the Blorg, all of those appeared.

3. Results

3.1 Raw Numbers

Fig. 3.1a - Total Numbers
t9pBJUI.png


Fig. 3.1b - Relative Distribution
Di3H55n.png


Hegemonic Imperialists (511 empires, 25.46% of total) absolutely dominate the game. In fact, they are almost three times the numbers of the second-most common AI Personality, Erudite Explorers (173, 8.62%). Slaving Despots (164, 8.17%), Evangelizing Zealots (159, 7.92%), Spiritual Seekers (153, 7.62%), Honorbound Warriors (152, 7.57%) and Federation Builders (137, 6.83%) complete the ranks of the "common" empires. Democratic Crusaders (107, 5.33%) occur somewhat less common than them, but are still not quite rare.

The next rung of empires is populated by Fanatic Purifiers (70, 3.49%), Harmonious Collectives (65, 3.24%), Hive Minds (61, 3.04%), Machine Intelligences (59, 2.94%) and Xenophobic Isolationists (54, 2.69%).

The rarest tier of AI Personalities are Ruthless Capitalists, Decadent Hierarchies and Devouring Swarms (each 25, 1.25%); followed by Rogue Servitors and Determined Externminators (each 18, 0.90%), Peaceful Traders (15, 0.75%) and Driven Assimilators (12, 0.60%). Migratory Flocks (4, 0.20%) sit at the very bottom.

Fanatic Befrienders and Metalheads did not appear.

3.2 Occurence

Fig. 3.2a - Occurence
siMfJ6L.png


Next we will take a look of the Occurence of the different AI personalities, or more bluntly in how many of the 100 generated galaxies they spawned in. Once more Hegemonic Imperialists (99) take the lead, with Erudite Explorers (86), Evangelizing Zealots (81), Slaving Despots (81), Spiritual Seekers (80) and Federation Builders (78) in pursuit.

Honourbound Warriors (72) and Democratic Crusaders (66) are next, followed by Fanatic Purifiers (52), Harmonious Collectives (51), Hive Minds (47), Machine Intelligences (43) and Xenophobic Isolationists (39).

Ruthless Capitalists (23), Decadent Hierarchies (23), Devouring Swarms (23), Determined Exterminators (17), Rogue Servitors (16), Peaceful Traders (12), Driven Assimilators (14) and Migratory Flocks (4) are the rarest empires to occur.

3.3 Maximums

Fig. 3.3a - Maximums
xqEcFcn.png


As the numbers of this graph are much more readable, I won't say much here. Imperialists and Explorers are way up there, followed by Honorbound Warriors. The rest appears in rather normal numbers.

(Fun Fact: I had to do the last 50 galaxies again because I forgot to save my spreadsheet. In the original data set however, there was a galaxy with 11 Hegemonic Imperialists.)

3.4 Mode

Fig. 3.4a - Mode
NOs4y0Z.png


Lastly the mode of the AI Personalities, or in plain speak the most common number that appeared throughout the created galaxies. Hegemonic Imperialists crush the competition.

4. Conclusion

I think with the gathered data we can pretty securely divide the AI Personalities into several tiers:

Tier 1: Overrepresented

Hegemonic Imperialists​
Tier 2: Common

Erudite Explorers
Spiritual Seekers
Evengelizing Zealots
Slaving Despots
Federation Builders
Honorbound Warriors
Demoratic Crusaders​
Tier 3: Uncommon

Harmonious Collectives
Xenophobic Isolationists
Fanatic Purifiers
HIve Minds
Machine Intelligences​
Tier 4: Rare

Ruthless Capitalists
Peaceful Traders
Decadent Hierarchies
Devouring Swarms
Determined Exterminators
Rogue Servitors
Driven Assimilators​
Tier 5: Forgotten

Migratory Flocks​
Tier 6: Joke

Fanatic Befrienders
Metalheads
Now, what does this mean for Stellaris? Well, I see two problems.

The first, and vastly more important one, is the dominance of Hegemonic Imperialists. There are many complaints about the game's AI, but I think people would give it a lot more leeway if it at least were interesting. Hegemonial Imperialists are the least interesting AI Personality in the game, quite apt described way back in the pre-release Blorg streams as "your average 4X players". If I may suggest a fix, I would create a second "Materialist" AI personality. Erudite Explorers are also somewhat too undefined, in fact I have seen both Fanatic Authoritarian and Fanatic Individualist Explorers. We could have say a "Calculating Technocrats" personality for Materialists that are Authoritarian/Xenophobe/Militarist. This would not only make Erudite Explorers more defined, but also absorb a lot of Materialist empires that right now fall under Hegemonic Imperialists.

And secondly, could Migratory Flocks please be more common? They have always (I have run a similar experiment in 1.3 and Utopia) been least common non-joke AI in the game, and yet I see them as one of the more interesting ones.
 
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Personalities absolutely need another pass. It's quite frustrating to me the way some ethics just dominate over others, which in part leads to the dominance and over-representation of hegemonic imperialists. Imo, there should be two 'basic' personalties for each ethic, in the vein of spiritual seekers vs evangelizing zealots. Beyond that, more specific personalities can be added based on traits and civics.
 
I wonder if this is by design. There is likely a chance it is not, and perhaps I associate too much creative vision to the devs; but in a game where the most fleshed out portions are War and Exploration, dominating the universe with those likely to cast war (without having total-war) makes sense.

I will be interested to know that, with the econ update, if more trade empires take the lead.
 
Hegemonic Imperialists (511 empires, 25.46% of total) absolutely dominate the game. In fact, they are almost three times the numbers of the second-most common AI Personality, Erudite Explorers (173, 8.62%). Slaving Despots (164, 8.17%), Evangelizing Zealots (159, 7.92%), Spiritual Seekers (153, 7.62%), Honorbound Warriors (152, 7.57%) and Federation Builders (137, 6.83%) complete the ranks of the "common" empires. Democratic Crusaders (107, 5.33%) occur somewhat less common than them, but are still not quite rare.

The next rung of empires is populated by Fanatic Purifiers (70, 3.49%), Harmonious Collectives (65, 3.24%), Hive Minds (61, 3.04%), Machine Intelligences (59, 2.94%) and Xenophobic Isolationists (54, 2.69%).

The rarest tier of AI Personalities are Ruthless Capitalists, Decadent Hierarchies and Devouring Swarms (each 25, 1.25%); followed by Rogue Servitors and Determined Externminators (each 18, 0.90%), Peaceful Traders (15, 0.75%) and Driven Assimilators (12, 0.60%). Migratory Flocks (4, 0.20%) sit at the very bottom.
You might want to edit that passage. The decimal points seem misplaced.

On topic: It is interesting to see, which personalities are over-/under-represented. But how does this translate to ethics? The overabundance of hegemonic imperialists could simply be, because there are more possible personalities for Xenophiles and Egalitarians (I did not check this); and the Xenophobes always fall back to imperialists, slavers and zealots (of which the last 2 have an additional requirement)
 
I've noticed that empires with the Barbaric Despoilers civic are hard-coded to be Hegemonic Imperialists. Always felt they should be Slaving Despots, personally.

And yeah, they really need to rework the personalities to be more diverse. Kudos for the scientific breakdown!
 
You might want to edit that passage. The decimal points seem misplaced.

On topic: It is interesting to see, which personalities are over-/under-represented. But how does this translate to ethics? The overabundance of hegemonic imperialists could simply be, because there are more possible personalities for Xenophiles and Egalitarians (I did not check this); and the Xenophobes always fall back to imperialists, slavers and zealots (of which the last 2 have an additional requirement)
Decimals are in the correct places, its listed as (total # of empires, #.##%)

The second part of that comment is part of why I think there should be two baseline personalities per ethos. Xenophile and egalitarian are pretty widely spread across different personalities where authoritarians, xenophobes and militarists only have a handful. On top of that, spiritualists seem to override everything else. I was designing empires and had an authoritarian/spiritualist/pacifist empire made up, with imperial authority and conformists trait. Per the wiki, weighting on harmonious collective should have been above that of spiritual seekers (Have same base weight, but traits/authority boosted weight for Harmonious Collective, not Spiritual Seekers) but when I spawned them in, they were spiritual seekers, despite not having any of the weight bonuses the wiki lists.
 
I think the main issue is simply with how the personalities are labelled. They mostly break down by ethics, with more by civics, but also try to say how an empire should play the game, rather than how they ARE playing the game. I can think of some ways to increase diversity:

The first step would be to add different personalities for subjects. It REALLY doesn't make sense that my recently conquered vassal is still a hegemonic imperialist. They should be called something more like "Subjugated autocracy" and have changes to their personality. For example, they should focus on tall builds—to maximize strength to oppose you or serve you, depending on whether they like you—because they can't expand by conquest anyways.

That would vastly increase the number (not quite double, because of the ethics that can never become subjects). With the second tier, you could also add requirements for accomplishments. A hegemonic imperialist who hasn't expanded much should at the very least have a different name and behave somewhat differently. Add tiers for conquest (for militarists) for enslavement/purging (different types of xenophobe), for liberation wars (egalitarian), for number of xeno species in your empire (xenophile) and have them all affect the title of the empires and make slight alterations to their personalities. An empire that owns a hundred systems and borders you should be arrogant and aggressive. One that owns 3 should be "please don't hit me" even if their ethics imply they should be conquerors. Would also also fix you being told "The galaxy awaits the reign of X" by people who are literally 6 months of bombardment away from extinct. It also stops empires which don't own slaves yet being called slaving despots and other similar contradictions.
 
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I've noticed that empires with the Barbaric Despoilers civic are hard-coded to be Hegemonic Imperialists. Always felt they should be Slaving Despots, personally.

And yeah, they really need to rework the personalities to be more diverse. Kudos for the scientific breakdown!
This has also baffled me since Apocalypse.
 
What would be interesting is an attempt at an AI mod that adds more personalities rather. There are already some mods on the workshop that do this, but I have a distinct feeling that they do it with RP in mind, when what might be useful is a gameplay driven AI personality mod made with the intention to fix representation and split apart the hegemonic imperialism of the hegemonic imperialists.
 
Great investigation! A solution could be to have an option at the beginning of the game that would limit AI Personalities to 1 per-game. That way we could force a diverse distribution.
 
The overrepresentation of hegemonic imperialists is partly WAD I think.

Or at least the abundance of aggressive personalities is, because peaceful empires have no reason to hate each other. This is generally not a problem, until the day you spawn in a galaxy full of pacifists, federation with every empire but two in 2240. Happened to me once.

So I think the overall distribution is good enough, though I would like to see more of the special empires.
 
Lots of aggressive empires is fine. Lots of generic aggressive empires is not.

Star Trek had loads of factions that Stellaris would classify as Hegemonic Imperialists, but they all had quirks that made them distinct from each other: the Romulans were paranoid and manipulated people behind the scenes, the Cardassians were obsessed with hierarchy and military control, etc.

Not only do the AI personalities need to be more diverse, but the empires themselves need to be defined by more than their personality so two Hegemonic Imperialist empires won't be identical in behavior.
 
You don't seem to have accounted for a mechanic which makes similar empires spawn less. I think determined exterminators, rogue servitors, generic AI and assimilators might be a little bit more common than these tests show, because by playing as a synthetic empire the game is spawning less synthetic empires.

You'd have to rotate empires to get the actual distribution, though it'd be pretty minor with machines. At least you didn't pick an egalitarian/xenophile empire, there would be even more hegemonic imperialists due to this mechanic....
 
Lots of aggressive empires is fine. Lots of generic aggressive empires is not.

I would actually argue that their genericness makes them less aggressive than they should be. They may have a high Aggressiveness value, but as they are generic they will also not have as strong of an opinion as other empires. They will never hate Materialists as zealously as Evangelizing Zealots, or despise Pacifists as Honourbound Warriors do. They are just kinda unfriendly unless one is willingy to spend a lot of effort to get on their good side. Which is possible as long as you don't border them.
 
The second part of that comment is part of why I think there should be two baseline personalities per ethos. Xenophile and egalitarian are pretty widely spread across different personalities where authoritarians, xenophobes and militarists only have a handful. On top of that, spiritualists seem to override everything else. I was designing empires and had an authoritarian/spiritualist/pacifist empire made up, with imperial authority and conformists trait. Per the wiki, weighting on harmonious collective should have been above that of spiritual seekers (Have same base weight, but traits/authority boosted weight for Harmonious Collective, not Spiritual Seekers) but when I spawned them in, they were spiritual seekers, despite not having any of the weight bonuses the wiki lists.
Did you run that empire several times through? Empires don't pick personalities based on which they have the most weight for, they pick one at random based on the weights. So if you have a weight of 20 for spiritualist seekers and 80 for harmonious collective, your empire has a 20% chance to be Seekers and an 80% chance to be a Collective.
 
You don't seem to have accounted for a mechanic which makes similar empires spawn less. I think determined exterminators, rogue servitors, generic AI and assimilators might be a little bit more common than these tests show, because by playing as a synthetic empire the game is spawning less synthetic empires.

You'd have to rotate empires to get the actual distribution, though it'd be pretty minor with machines. At least you didn't pick an egalitarian/xenophile empire, there would be even more hegemonic imperialists due to this mechanic....

Are you sure this is a thing? With the small number of empires that we work with in game it’s easy to get confirmation bias for this. That being said, that is exactly why the devs might implement some version of it.

I would actually argue that their genericness makes them less aggressive than they should be. They may have a high Aggressiveness value, but as they are generic they will also not have as strong of an opinion as other empires. They will never hate Materialists as zealously as Evangelizing Zealots, or despise Pacifists as Honourbound Warriors do. They are just kinda unfriendly unless one is willingy to spend a lot of effort to get on their good side. Which is possible as long as you don't border them.

Agreed, empires like honorbound warriors are specifically supposed to play somewhat suboptimally but add immense value to the game because they keep it interesting. I’d love to see a dash of RP spice added to the hegemonic imperialists to distinguish them a bit. If it just happens to be the best AI, I get it, but perhaps it could be diversified just a tad.