AI Ambitions

[solemn lotus]

While the AI has improved due to the changes in how the AI handles economics, consolidation, diplomacy, and stability, the AI still seems to lack any real ambition outside of seizing de-jure territory and pushing their own claims, especially in feudal Europe where rulers do not have access to any easily obtained CBs like Conquest or Holy War. When I was thinking about how the AI can be made to have greater ambition, I realized that players tend to set their own ambitions based on some sort of preconceived objective. In an attempt to recapture this, I've come up with the idea of "AI Ambitions." Essentially, an AI will pick an ambition based on any number of factors, and there could be different "types" of ambitions, which I'll call Decision Ambitions, Historical Ambitions, and Miscellaneous/Generic Ambitions.

Decision Ambitions are what they sound like, the AI tries to meet the requirements to take a certain decision. For example, a West Slavic AI might pick the ambition to take the "Unite the West Slavs" decision, resulting in them attempting to conquer the region of West Slavia and create one of the West Slavic kingdom titles to use as their primary title. However it can also include smaller ambitions such as a tribal ruler wanting to become Feudal/Clan.
Historical Ambitions are based on real life history, and might be more difficult to implement. The purpose of these ambitions is to organically set the game on a historical path in a flexible way that's adaptable to whatever butterfly effects might happen over the course of the game. Examples of this would be an ambition for Harald Fairhair to unite Norway or for Central Germanic rulers to form the HRE (which would also count as a Decision Ambition).
Miscellaneous/Generic Ambitions wouldn't be tied to any specific decision or historical event, and would include generic things like "Obtain a title of a higher rank than your current titles."

Sorry, the post was getting really really long so I have to split it up 😅.

When/If the AI completes their ambition, they choose a new ambition to complete. Some ambitions, especially larger ones, could also be hereditary in order to better replicate how a player's ambitions for their own game transcend the lives of each individual ruler they play as. Completing some ambitions could also be prerequisites to unlocking other ambitions for the AI to choose from. To use the West Slavic ruler from the Decision Ambitions example, if their current ruler dies before they Unite the West Slavs, their heir could inherit the ambition and continue trying to unite the West Slavs, but those West Slavic rulers wouldn't be able to pick "Unite the Slavs" as their ambition until they had united their regional group of West Slavs.

Now I'm not sure exactly how this would be done, or if its even possible, but I think it'd be interesting and beneficial for the game if the AI could have ambitions of their own just like the player, and could probably result in some interesting scenarios.

[trim heath]

I think the ahistorical ambitions should be locked behind a game rule. That way if people don't want a random count upheaving the political landscape they don't have to.