Hey CivExtraordinaire,

Thanks for the feedback on the AI, we appreciate it a lot, especially when it's constructive :)

So let me get a bit into how we approached AI behaviours and personalities in Humankind. We first try to flesh out a behaviour around a specific feature (choosing a culture, building a city, deciding whether or not to attack someone, etc), we iterate on this behaviour until we have something that is correct. Then, we bring in the personnalities. As you have noticed, personalities can have a strong impact on the AI decision making, this was something we really intended to strongly show. Different personalities might behave in opposite ways around the same subject. Do you think we have overdone it? Or maybe would you like to play against more "vanilla" AIs?

One of the aspects of the AI we tried to maintain is its coherence. An AI should make coherent decisions based on its personality, its attitude towards other empires and on past events in the game. For instance, a traitorous AI should be expected to make moves on its "friends", while a loyal one should not. An AI that was just defeated in a war should be sullen after the war, etc etc.
But that's not to say that the player cannot do anything about it. A player can grind its relationship with an AI to try and make it friendly, a player can maintain a strong military force to dissuade its neighbours from attacking him, etc. Have you found that the AIs lack coherence in this regard?

Regarding the AIs aggressivity towards you in the early game, if it is not actually friendly towards you, it is pretty normal that I would attack you in neutral territories or try and contest outposts. But once again, it is heavily influenced by its personalities. Some personalities will see you as a threat or an "opportunity", and if they find no one better to challenge, they will challenge you, especially if you give them good reasons (demands and grievances).

Regarding the later stages of the game, we currently have issues with how well AIs perform. We found out that their use of emblematic quarter and their management of stability was flawed, and we are working towards that. If all goes well, this should make late-game AIs more competitive.

As you mentioned, culture choice right now is mainly dictated by personality, and not much by actual context. This is on our improve list, and we should be able to work something out in the near future :)

Cheers

Chocossimo wrote: Do you think we have overdone it? Or maybe would you like to play against more "vanilla" AIs?

Maybe if there is at least one vanilla AI that people can use as a base line to get a sense of how the AI works and behaves. I think the personalities really interfere with getting to understand how the AI plays and behaves on its own. That being said I think AIs with unique personality are pretty integral to the game as there aren't many other thing to differentiate your opponents from each other given the lack of  static civilization/faction with unique play style and appearance as well as considering the many RPG elements in the game. The personalities might need to be refined, but I don't believe that they should be removed.