While the demo that we saw was at a very early stage, we got to see some of the AI reactions and interactions that will happen with or without you watching in the game. The Examples of interactions with the gaming world centred around the player trying to deal with an opponent using religion to try to rise to power. A priest under the opponent's influence was staging soapbox speeches in the city center every day. And that's exactly what we saw. The priest walked out with a soapbox, plopped it down on the ground, climbed on it and started speaking. People started gathering around showing varying levels of interest. Some ignored him, some walked by, and some stopped and stood raptly while he was talking. After he was complete the reaction to what he was preaching about was gauged by the crowd's applause. There seemed to be a lot of pleased people at this specific speech. Everybody then cleared out and went about their normal business.

Now as the ruling power can't be so happy about this priest spreading words against him, so it was then shown how one might take action against something like this. A meeting was arranged between a tough and the priest at a less trafficked area of the city. When they both wandered up, the tough started threatening the priest by pushing him and roughing him up a little. When the priest looked to be resisting, the tough started to rough him up even more. Apparently at this point players would have the option of how much pressure to apply, but in this case the tough put the priest in a headlock and started doing unpleasant things. After that, they parted ways.

But that isn't where it ends. The priest may end up listening to the tough depending on how loyal he is to his particular leader, but in this case, the call was made to try an assassination attempt, which can only be done during night hours in the game. The door to the priest's building was surrounded by some bodyguards, as it is an option to protect people if they are important enough to you. A pan up to the rooftops showed a sniper waiting for the priest to emerge. When he did come out, the guards walked with him a little ways until the sniper took a shot. He missed the priest but killed a guard. The priest and some bodyguards ran for the building and one last bodyguard started looking around the area for the assailant.

Even though, in that quote the journalist was really referring to the AI, it is possible to see the level of interaction with the characters. Getting people to follow you is your main aim - how you do it is unimportant in this context - and decent interaction with characters is needed for this.

Demis went further in a recent interview, stating more about the exact technicalities of it all:

"You can find out about anything in the game, including characters, by left clicking on it. All key characters in the game (the sorts of people that would have power in real life) have up to six actions they can participate in. After a character has been recruited to your faction through the use of special ‘recruit’ actions, such as ‘bribe’, ‘indoctrinate’ etc. you can then order this character to instigate one of their own unique actions."