Does the AI know how to win with each victory condition?

[mantis2007]

I've never seen the AI go for a diplomatic victory, nor a culture victory.

I have seen conquest and science (space race), and I think obviously it can win a time victory.

 

[notadummy]

yes, they will go for a set victory goal. I think they have some sort of back up VC too.
For example, Alex loves his CS and will probably try for diplomatic VC.
In general, the AI isn't too good at setting their minds on one VC...

 

[Gucumatz]

Persia gets killer for Cultural games on higher levels.

The bonuses Persia gets with happiness and the seemingly inability to stop making cities while maintaining a crazy high Culture rate is insane. The few times I have tried Culture on Deity, Persia becomes insane and impossible to beat.

 

[joncnunn]

Sometimes an AI will buy out every City State in sight. In which case if they (or another AI) builds the UN, they have the possibility of winning if the human doesn't take action. But they do a poor job defending and don't know about the DOW everyone else to assure your city states don't slip out of your fingers at the end.

Also when the AI reaches the techs, it will build the Apollo program and also build the parts. Again, human would do a better job towards this.

The AI will take other AI out of the game. And they can cause the human to suffer a conquest defeat. But unless the game is on Duel or Tiny size map, an AI is unlikely to achieve domination victory as the game automatically ends when the human is defeated. (The AI doesn't know about the let their opponent keep their last city to avoid being thought of as a war mongler)

It looks like the more culturaly inclined AIs can stumble into a cultural victory; that is unless the human takes action to deny those late wonders that really help. (Those AIs tend to fall behind in science) Humans do a much better job here as well.

Time victory: Here the AI actually does a decent job. It actually cares about those things that runs up the score but are meaningless towards other victory conditions. It's problem is that the human will normally choose some other form of victory that is quicker.

 

[qemist]

The AI plays the late game extremely badly and will frequently miss an easy win. This is apparently deliberate.

 

[gozpel]

Ghandi and Darius on levels higher than King, seems adamant to go Cultural and sometimes they win. Alex is a bit of a strange creature, amassing CS, but also go to war too much and loses tracks. So he loses to the human player, on Diplo.

Egypt sometimes on beyond King.

One time Mongols on Emperor won science victory!? Against me? Well, they did RA's all the way and didn't kill anyone off and beat me by 10 turns.

So the AI can win.

 

[DavidCAD]

The AI plays the late game extremely badly and will frequently miss an easy win. This is apparently deliberate.

This. Civilization (any version) as a single player game is always handicapped in how well the AI can persue victory, if it is pursing it at all (rather then winning by accident). The single player game covers over 6000 years and there are victory conditions that can be met in almost any century. To be fun and interesting the game is designed with the intention that it is exclusively the player's game to lose.

If the AI was free to pursue victory a lot of games would get cut short regardless of the players choices through a run away AI that had weak neighbors or 'abuse' of a victory condition - religious victory in Civ 4 could be won with minimal contact with one or more opponents, so the player could suddenly lose to an AI on another continent they met just a few turns ago. It's just not fun to have your game end because of events on the other side of the world.

This is born out in multiplayer civ, where military victory is the only viable path in most versions of civ because all the players are actually trying to win. The only way to allow the AI to be competitive and not just pretend to play is if the victory conditions and play mechanics where designed around multiplayer.

 

[headcase]

This is why I like to shake things up sometimes and play Time or Domination Only. The problem with this is things can get very boring late in the game; at that point I often declare the game "won" and move on. Maybe a 400 turn limit would be best in this regard.

 

[apocalypse105]

The reason why the AI doesn't do well on other victory conditions other then war is because they tech bad and are programmed to expand fast

I have seen a lot of AI's trying for a culture victory with 6 cities good luck budy... Its possible but it will take a lot of time and by the time they could win they could allready won by other victory or time victory


In the late modern era they allways go for the Manhattan Project and late game wonders(sydney opera house, statue of liberty) first instead of apolo.
After the manhatten they usally try to build the UN

When they complete spaceship parts they bring it to the capital but don't add it to the spaceship So the parts just sit there and sometimes get destroyed by other AI's.
It usally combines all parts at once instead of seperatly wich doesn't make sence...


ANd there you have some of the major causes why The AI usally doesn't win a space victory or culture or domination. I have seen a lot winning a diplomatic victory but thats it.

 

[FeiLing]

In my current Deity game Gandhi is doing ICS...

 

[CivilizedPlayer]

In my current Deity game Gandhi is doing ICS...

My last game Ghandi was a straight up war-mongerer. I was pretty confused. He wiped out every last city of Songhai (Askia begged me nonstop to join the war) and then started on Germany, and later on Rome. He had 20+ cities. I was baffled. And (like all of the AI), he had no clue what VC to go for. I think he went cultural, but obviously that didn't work out to well.