Every single game the AI always pick the available cultures in the exact same order.  First the Olmecs, then the Harappans.  It would be awesome if the AI's traits and their territory made them consider the options and choose different cultures.  Add some variety to the game.  

This is not always in the same order, there is a bit of luck etc, depending of which AI is the first to choose. But AI have their favorite cultures depending of their traits etc (militarists will tend to take more militarists cultures for example), and for some reason, some cultures seems very popular among AIs: Harappans, Nubian and Mycenaeans  for me. They don't take Olmecs often because I fight against aggressive AIs, for exampel.

If you change a little the personas you play against, you may force them to take slightly different cultures.

globule wrote:

This is not always in the same order, there is a bit of luck etc, depending of which AI is the first to choose. But AI have their favorite cultures depending of their traits etc (militarists will tend to take more militarists cultures for example), and for some reason, some cultures seems very popular among AIs: Harappans, Nubian and Mycenaeans  for me. They don't take Olmecs often because I fight against aggressive AIs, for exampel.

If you change a little the personas you play against, you may force them to take slightly different cultures.

Yeah, that's a whole other issue - the fact that the game setup screen is a disaster for picking a random and diverse set of opponents.  I've gone to the personas section online and picked a diverse set of advanced personas and randomize them as much as is possible with the terrible selection screen.  I still always get the AI picking the same cultures first. Intersting that you're seeing some variety there. 

Well, I even had AI taking Phoenicians before Harappans! But I never said "setup screen is a disaster" or things like that, and I don't share that opinion. Not only because I respect the work the devs did, but also because I honestly see "nothing" wrong with it (some tweaking, of course, but nothing I would call "disaster"), except maybe a pretty long avatar portrait generation (as a dev: maybe an image cache could do the trick? saving somewhere the thumbnail of each AI so you don't need to recalculate them each time?)

About the online personas, I didn't spent to much time on them, because a lot of people did pretty similar choice in the traits. A lot of "open" "trusting" AI, much less "cruel" militarists...

I don't think advanced/expert change a lot the pick the AIs does, but I may be wrong

globule wrote:

Well, I even had AI taking Phoenicians before Harappans! But I never said "setup screen is a disaster" or things like that, and I don't share that opinion. Not only because I respect the work the devs did, but also because I honestly see "nothing" wrong with it (some tweaking, of course, but nothing I would call "disaster"), except maybe a pretty long avatar portrait generation (as a dev: maybe an image cache could do the trick? saving somewhere the thumbnail of each AI so you don't need to recalculate them each time?)

About the online personas, I didn't spent to much time on them, because a lot of people did pretty similar choice in the traits. A lot of "open" "trusting" AI, much less "cruel" militarists...

I don't think advanced/expert change a lot the pick the AIs does, but I may be wrong

The reason you didn't spend too much time on them is cuz the whole persona and picking your enemies thing is the part that is a disaster :)  You get a small stock of enemies to choose from but the display of their traits is cumbersome.  You can't choose to randomize which means you have to manually pick each one - which means you have to navigate the terrible traits interaction design.  The whole choosing your enemy thing was poorly implemented.  Rest of the world creation is great.  I'm sure they'll revise it - it is the lamest part of the new game system.

It appears pretty standard.

I also tend to choose different personas each game, yet always Mycenean/Harappan are the first to go.

Before the game launched, when people requested to be able to reserve cultures, I was against that. However, that was because I assumed the AI would choose different cultures. If the AI is always going to choose the same cultures (90% of the time, regardless of map conditions), then I would change my stance. It's just ridiculous not being able to try some cultures.

But the real fix is just make the AI choose culture based on their PERSONA mixed with map conditions. I don't see any evidence that the PERSONA is taken into account when the AI chooses culture. I even tried a few starts vs all MARITIME PERSONAS. Not one of them chose Phoenician.

Dayvit78 wrote:

But the real fix is just make the AI choose culture based on their PERSONA mixed with map conditions. I don't see any evidence that the PERSONA is taken into account when the AI chooses culture. I even tried a few starts vs all MARITIME PERSONAS. Not one of them chose Phoenician.

Interesting. Yea, they need to take the personas into account when selecting cultures. 

I think some randomness should be added, because even a peaceful benevolent persona will always go Harappans > Huns :D (or I'm very unlucky), and then force me do build units for 50 turns because i  thought the war would be easy and quick... :p

Melliores wrote:

Weird, from my experience I had an AI that had both their traits dedicated to Influence pick the Olmecs. They quickly grabbed multiple territories and tried to befriend me and thus use me as a buffer against the Mycenaeans and Egyptians. I had to abandon that game as I was squeezed between multiple civs and was dominated both culturally and religiously.

Maybe your game was lost indeed, but just to mention, being dominated culturally by Olmecs can give you a lot too, science wise! Religion let the 2 others go to war against them, but if you can make trades with one, and steal territories to the Egyptian (using forest to hide some troops, elevation for damage, defending for bonus strength...).

I will still be an hard beginning, probably.

I agree with the biases thing you mentioned,