@Squirrelloid
Your notes are interesting. But you might have missed the place where I said this was concerning finding out what the AI uses and how it uses it in order to make more interesting AIs. We already know that what a player would do is not what the AI does. Mostly Im just looking for bulk-AIs at this point for variety. Maybe moving toward a SemiRand extension. But the lessons learned might also lead to someone building a serious AI-opponent modded nation which I would be willing to create a large game on my server for. We already have some general rules such as how the AI needs supplies, and which pretenders to allow it. Now Im trying to get some idea on how it uses its units.
Assassins as a site-provided capital-only unit has proven to be good. The AI does use them. After some play with the junk nation such as I listed Im fairly happy. The AI tends to use independents out toward the edges of its domain. And then as I get closer to its capital I find more serious armies, and more use of assassins and mages. It makes for interesting RPG play. It doesnt have to be a winning nation. Just an interesting one (and not kill itself off before I reach it)
The one I posted is a good model for junk-bulk filling in a really large map and game. But I started to wonder why it continually ranked lower than all of the built-in nations. Does the game have more lines specific to nations than I thought it did (IF Pangaea do this, if Mictlan do this) or is it general AI actions I need to pin down? Now that we all can use --comptrn to see what the AIs are doing we should be able to get an idea of how it decides to build its armies.
I did some testing of things such as varying the order that units appear in the recruit screen (mages first, or mounted commanders listed before walking ones) which didnt seem to affect much. I also tried things like listing heavy cavalry multiple times in case some random selection was involved but that didnt seem to help much either. So now it seems that we must only work on what units are being offered.
Thanks for the very complete Mage Nation design with unit ID numbers. I will try it out. And a lesser version of it would be a nasty province to stumble into and could be added to the SemiRand program now.