country-ai-path

Continue issue #3162 (country AI path game rules), one country per chat.

Syntax: /country-ai-path [country or TAG] — e.g. /country-ai-path CZE. With no argument, pick the target from the issue checklist. Requested arguments: $ARGUMENTS

Context budget

Focus trees run 8k–42k lines. Never read one end to end, and never open another country's tree to learn a shape. Everything you need about the tree comes from ai_path_report.py; grep for the specific lines it names. Templates for every artefact are in references/write.md.

1. Target

An argument names the country; find its checklist line. Otherwise gh issue view 3162 → first unchecked - [ ] in the Checklist. Its annotation names that country's known defects. Line numbers in the checklist are stale — grep TAG_ai_behavior. If only "Cross-cutting" is left, say so and stop.

Branch 3162-[country]-ai-paths off main.

2. Facts

python tools/analysis/ai_path_report.py --tag TAG

The report decides every mechanical question: rule and loc conformance, flag wiring, which focuses carry path modifiers and whether they are multiplicative, path flags that appear nowhere, killswitch orphans per rule state × historical AI on/off, mutex ties, focus_factors disagreements, dangerous completion rewards, and the country's own mechanics — the burdens its history file hands it, what relieves each, which burdens go unrelieved in some rule state, and whether each country GUI is decision-backed or player-only. Read references/audit.md after the report — it covers only the judgment the report cannot make.

3. Design

The judgment calls: which fork axis and how many options, whether each branch root is reachable by something the AI can satisfy, whether party drift smothers the ramp, what must be killswitched. Derive the fork from the prerequisite graph and each side's available, never from the option names. Where the report is ambiguous about branch structure, dispatch one Explore subagent for the taxonomy — it returns the taxonomy, not file contents.

4. Write

Every artefact from references/write.md. Focus weights are not written by hand: author the mapping and run

python tools/standardization/apply_ai_path_weights.py --map <mapping>

Loc drafting and _desc sentence-count fixes go to a localisation-editor subagent on haiku.

Rule standard. Exactly HISTORICAL + one option per alt-history path + RANDOM_PATH + NO_PATH, and NO_PATH is the default = { } block, listed last — a country the player never configures runs unscripted. Delete DEFAULT; merge any duplicate DEFAULT/HISTORICAL. Write the options fresh — don't recycle a stub's names or bucket count. The historical option's displayed text is literally "Historical"; its _desc carries the country's history. Player-facing names, no internal jargon, no "random" in a path name. Every _desc exactly two sentences, present tense about the country, no hard dates, §8…§! on party names. Don't reorder the file — the alphabetical pass is a separate cross-cutting item.

Wiring. Rule → set_global_flag = TAG_<PATH>_FOCUS_PATH in 999_game_rules_on_actions.txt. RANDOM_PATH's random_list includes the historical bucket; NO_PATH gets no branch. Convert country flags to global. Gate on has_global_flag, never has_game_rule, everywhere including events and strategy plans — otherwise a RANDOM roll enables the flags but not the plan. Verify NO_PATH leaves a working AI: an unconditionally-enabled strategy plan and a sane focus ai_will_do base.

Historical government. Read the report's government section. On a dated timeline verdict, write the walker (references/write.md §8) and its 00_yearly_effects.txt schedule lines, so historical AI delivers the historical head of government and not just the historical party. On an undated successor roster, write nothing and say so in the PR — the ramp decisions already deliver the party, and a walker over an undated roster installs the wrong person. Never pass change_leader_temp = 1; never inline create_country_leader.

AI hardening pass, mandatory. ai_is_threatened weighting on combat-capacity focuses (.claude/docs/ai-strategy-reference.md, the ai_is_threatened section); bankruptcy / can_staff guards on spending focuses (run tools/validation/validate_focus_tree.py --path . first — it may already be clean, and it flags guards on focuses that spend nothing); review common/ai_strategy/[TAG].txt for gaps, especially a losing-war brake on any wargoal-generating focus. Under historical AI the AI must stick to history: killswitch non-historical branch roots, boost the historical branch.

The country must also stay able to fix itself. Every burden it starts with keeps a live cure in every rule state you leave standing — if killswitching a branch takes the last one, re-own the cure focus or exempt it. Where a burden's only relief is a player-only mechanic, an is_ai = no decision or a base = 0 one, give the AI the same outcome through its TAG_ai_path_category (references/write.md §6). Crisis focuses get a real weighting modifier, not the default base.

5. Verify

Re-run ai_path_report.py --tag TAG: 0 orphans in every state, no additive path modifiers, no unreferenced flags, rule and wiring clean, a clean mechanics section (no burden whose cures are all dead in a state, no cure focus at flat base, no AI-untakeable cure decision left without an AI route; the nothing relieves line is inventory, not a failure — say in the PR which entries you judged bonuses), and a clean government section (every walker branch asserts an in-range roster index, no change_leader_temp, no unbounded party change, every scheduled date resolves to the person history had). Then validate_focus_tree.py --path ., and validate_decisions.py warning-group counts against a stashed baseline.

6. Finish

PR (create, or update title/body if one exists), then tick the checklist line to - [x] and append (#PR) via gh issue edit 3162 --body-file — re-fetch the body and change only that line. Report the PR URL. The next country starts in a fresh chat with /country-ai-path.

House rules

• Zero comments in every file you touch — .txt, .yml, Python. Don't carry one over from a template, and don't add one to explain a killswitch, flag, weight or path. Delete any sitting inside a block you rewrite.
• Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria and Comoros are naming references only, never files to open. Cuba is a bad example. Countries converted before this standard carry older shapes; don't copy them.
• git diff before the PR and revert anything out of scope, including whitespace noise. Scope hooks with pre-commit run --files <paths>.