Original quote by Maelstrom
You haven't got territory map screenies at these checkpoints have you by any chance? - It would be interesting to see who was competing with who....
I made a save every 10 turns. If I have time later I will try to sort them out


Original quote byKobal2fr
It's predictable because of the way the AI is coded to react - both sides of a border will "understand" a given situation in the exact same way and react to it by taking comparable steps.
I don’t have a great understanding as to the mechanism involved, but can accept that any faction would react in exactly the same way given the same set of inputs. Except that, I think (cannot prove), that a lot of the decision made involve a random factor that will give some variety to the outputs of the decisions made.
You have already listed a few other variables that can alter the balance of power, I could give you a dozen more.

Original quote byKobal2fr
And it's a good thing, because should a clear superpower emerge in an AI vs AI game, it would emerge ALL THE TIME. Mechanically, à la Hojo, and that wouldn't be much fun for the player.
This is true, but it doesn’t have to be.
For example.
If the faction King purse was determined from a random number at the beginning of the campaign then each campaign would have a different set of superpowers. And /or the amount could be adjusted, proportional to the number of territories, during the game to reward expansion. But only for the AI.

Currently the philosophy of the AI seem to be ‘Lets make it a bit harder for the human to win’ rather than each AI faction trying to achieve the victory conditions for itself.
Trying to win should be the goal of all the players human or computer.

Original quote byKobal2fr
since the AI bases its invasion decisions on how well the frontier is being defended, it also makes sense they'd leave you well alone.
You are probably right but why do the bother to land a force of only 200 and leave it there for 10 turns, in the first place.

Original quote b Lupiscanis
Did you try (just out of curiousity) adding money to the AI factions via cheats?
No. The objective of the experiment was to see how the AI reacts with minimal human input. Although your suggestion would increase the challenge.