How random is Random AI selection?

[jcp011c2]

I ask this because I have been through (or am currently in) about 8 games, and I have yet to see Spain, France, Germany and China in any of my games. Meanwhile Civs like India, Japan, Russia, Egypt, Rome and the Aztecs seem to show up in more than half my games (I have double checked, Japan, Russia and Rome have shown up in 5 of my 8 games (also an addiitonal one for Russia and Rome were I played as that Civ, but that's not exacty counting that.) One game I even played with just one opponent and it was Japan! Also noticed that America, Egypt, and Scythia have a tendency to show up a lot, while I have only seen Norway, England and Greece (under either leader) just once. The other leaders fall into somewhere between 2-4 times, excepting Poland which was just recently released and I've seen once.

I know it's supposedly random but has anyone had any thoughts if the program has a tendency to default to certain Civs over others, for whatever reason? I don't think there's intentional bias just default or near default programming algorithms. Has anyone else had similar repetitive random experiences?

I know I can select which leaders I want to play against, I guess I'm just wondering if we can get even more "random" randomness.

[Corgisaurus]

It's not totally random I'm sure. More like weighted RNG. You're more likely to encounter certain Leaders depending on whom you play as. From experience these would be Civilizations that have a high tendency mess up how you like to play. That is why I always pick my opponents, so we don't compete for the same things.

The game gives AI disgusting bonuses on higher difficulties to compensate for their stupidity and attempts to pit you against those bonuses. Play smart, don't compete.

I would avoid playing against Kongo or Russia because they'll most likely get to those coveted great people way before you.

[SneakyPanda]

I agree with OP. I nearly always see Egypt & India.

[SamBC]

As far as I'm aware, there's no reaction to what leader you pick, other than to not pick the same one. Though in the release version I don't think it even had that restriction.

[Lady Grey]

I used to always see Kongo, now I haven't seen them in a game for a while. It feels like Russia always starts right next to me. Overall though I believe the randomization is pretty balanced. There are no civs I have always seen and none that I have never seen.

Remember that 8 is a very small sample size. You could flip a coin 5 times and get heads each time - the odds are still 50/50.

[term.guff]

I just tried to start a new game with all random civs. Five scratch that SIX times in a row it "randomly" gave me Russia. I changed the map type from Island Plates to Continents, still gave me Russia.

I like random play! I like not knowing what advantages I'll have and what other civilizations i might encounter. At this point I guess I'll just have to put Russia as one of the enemy AI's just so that it won't force me to be Russian again.

[Lemurian1972]

Three year old thread.

Beyond that I'll just add that 6 tries isn't close to statistics. Primarily this is a perception issue. For example I haven't faced Russia in close to a dozen games, so with my perception vs yours which is more valid? Sure there will be runs where you see the same civs more than once, but that has just as much as the maps you pick and the way starting locations get seeded.

[plaguepenguin]

I had the impression that Civ5 would tend to put your historically neighboring civs near you way beyond chance, but haven't seen this pattern in Civ6.

One of my favorite Civ5 games was one in which I played Poland, with Russia starting on one side of me, and Germany on the other. I tortured Russia in the early game because I had it blocked off on a peninsula, before destroying it in the classical era. I then blitzkrieged Germany in the late game. I'm not an ethnic Pole, but playing as Poland I felt I had to act as some sort of advocate for righting the wrongs of history, so I really enjoyed it.

[term.guff]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Three year old thread.

Beyond that I'll just add that 6 tries isn't close to statistics. Primarily this is a perception issue. For example I haven't faced Russia in close to a dozen games, so with my perception vs yours which is more valid? Sure there will be runs where you see the same civs more than once, but that has just as much as the maps you pick and the way starting locations get seeded.

thanks, i realize that it's an old thread but it's one of the few i could find discussing this (why do you care if it's an old thread anyway?). i've picked many different maps with the same result. even if it is completely random, that's an incredibly rare outcome. imagine rolling a 20-sided die 6 times and getting the same die result every time, you don't think that you might start taking a closer look at the dice? also, i never said your perception isn't valid, but you seem to be convinced that my perception isn't valid.