I Won, But I'm Not Sure How

Yesterday, I finished a game that I started a month ago, and got an unexpected victory. I had abandoned the game because I thought it was a lost cause. I just opened it yesterday to play the game out to the bitter end, and make it "official," but instead I ended up winning. Since I had miscalculated my chances originally, it occurred to me that I might be doing this in other instances as well. If I can figure out the flaws in my analysis, then hopefully I can avoid giving up to quickly on games in the future.

This game was an archipelago map on level 5, and I was playing as America. The two screenshots and the first save are at the point where I stopped playing last month, thinking that the game was lost. In screenshot #1, you can see the Demographics screen. It shows me as #6 in troop strength, and #5 in literacy. This is why I though the game was lost. The Chinese had a huge technological lead, and a much larger army. In screenshot #2, you can see some of the results of this gap. China has just completed the Apollo program, and I'm still 14 turns away from finishing Flight. They also have more advanced units, as evidenced by the Battleship near my fleet of Frigates. I assumed that China would cruise to a Space Race win, and their military strength would stop me from my only avenue of victory, which was Domination.

What ended up happening was exactly the opposite. After defeating the Dutch and the Siamese, time was running out, and I figured I would declare war against China and just get it over with. I had noticed that while I was fighting Siam, Chain was at war with Byzantium, and they were still using some older units, particularly Privateers and Great War Bombers. I had advanced to Battleships and Great War Triplanes by this point, so I figured maybe China's entire army wasn't fully advanced and I might have a shot. It ended up being a cakewalk. I took Beijing and two other cities, before declaring peace and attacking Carthage to win the game.

What I can't figure out is, why was I able to get back into the game? When China completed the Apollo program in 1915, I wasn't even anywhere close to Rocketry. Why didn't they win a Space Race victory well before I was able to win by Domination? Why was I able to defeat China militarily? The troop strength disparity was even worse that the point at which the snapshot was taken. They eventually got to around 400, 000 before I attacked. Did they produce too many land units or what? I also don't know why they didn't field more advanced units. I did see one Giant Death Robot, a Missile Cruiser, and some Rocket Launchers, but they still had some older units, as I mentioned earlier. Were they lacking resources, or did they just incorrectly prioritize their units?

They also made a couple of questionable tactical moves. They never allied with City States, which would have deprived me (and others) of resources, as well as bolstering their own supply. They also never attacked me when I was in a much weaker, technologically inferior position. I kept a reserve force near my homeland for much of the game, specifically for this reason, but the invasion never happened. I just don't quite understand how China didn't turn this advantage into a victory. I don't know if it was something specific to this game, or if my general assessment of the AI's capabilities is flawed.

Apollo does not guarantee win, because of their wars I'm positive that the AI reduces its' focus on infastructure and it focused on defending/attacking. Because of that they negletced to built any of the required space parts (They could've also beeing aiming for militaristic technologies which ahppened to be part of the Science Victory techs)

Because you conquered Beijing and likely Carthage you won Domination because maybe you were the last civ still with a capital in possession that was yours.

I'm looking at it from a little bit different angle. I understand about the requirements for the different victories. I'm more interested here in the process that led up to the victory.

I've included three screenshots from the final save (1993) included in the opening post. This was the turn when I initially declared war on China. In Screenshot #1, you can see Space Race progress. Here, the Chinese have already completed two Boosters and the Stasis Chamber of the spaceship. Screenshot #2 shows the Demographics. The Chinese outnumber me 408k to 292k militarily, and have completed 98% of the technology tree, to my 72%.

This is where I'm having trouble with my analysis. China was well on its way to completing the spaceship. They had most, if not all, the technological requirements to complete the spaceship. I don't understand why they didn't complete the spaceship in a matter of turns. If you look at Screenshot #3, you can see that they enough cities that they could have conceivably built the remaining four components at the same time. They also had the military capability (theoretically) to hold me off while completing the spaceship. I can see the theory that they neglected infrastructure to some degree, but with their technological lead and potential production capability, it seems like they could have done both at the same time.

As far as I can tell, the AI doesn't really follow any meaningful plan. They just "do stuff" and on higher levels they "do more stuff." Sometimes they stumble into a victory condition, but more often they'll build a booster, then a bank, then an infantry, then...

So, yes, if you swapped a human into China's slot, they would have picked a VC, driven to it, and won. But, because the AI wastes so much effort on irrelevancies, they can create a winning position and be unable to finish the game.