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.
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:
3. Results
3.1 Raw Numbers
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
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
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
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:
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.
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
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)
3. Results
3.1 Raw Numbers
Fig. 3.1a - Total Numbers
Fig. 3.1b - Relative Distribution
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
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
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
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
Now, what does this mean for Stellaris? Well, I see two problems.Hegemonic Imperialists
Tier 2: CommonErudite Explorers
Spiritual Seekers
Evengelizing Zealots
Slaving Despots
Federation Builders
Honorbound Warriors
Demoratic Crusaders
Tier 3: UncommonSpiritual Seekers
Evengelizing Zealots
Slaving Despots
Federation Builders
Honorbound Warriors
Demoratic Crusaders
Harmonious Collectives
Xenophobic Isolationists
Fanatic Purifiers
HIve Minds
Machine Intelligences
Tier 4: RareXenophobic Isolationists
Fanatic Purifiers
HIve Minds
Machine Intelligences
Ruthless Capitalists
Peaceful Traders
Decadent Hierarchies
Devouring Swarms
Determined Exterminators
Rogue Servitors
Driven Assimilators
Tier 5: ForgottenPeaceful Traders
Decadent Hierarchies
Devouring Swarms
Determined Exterminators
Rogue Servitors
Driven Assimilators
Migratory Flocks
Tier 6: JokeFanatic Befrienders
Metalheads
Metalheads
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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