Has the AI ever won a conquest or domination victory?

[hewhoknowsall]

I don't remember the AI winning a conquest, domination or diplomatic victory in any of my Civilization 4 matches.

 

[G-Max]

I've certainly never seen it, even with "Aggressive AI" selected. Although maybe if I rig a Pangaea map so that the sole competitors are Shaka, Monty, Toku, Genghis, and one or two other psychos...

 

[civfan1]

Haven't seen it, some AIs need more and less On deity this should happen when you attack the AI with a tank. Otherwise don't think it is possible.

 

[Junuxx]

Try a Duel map on Deity. Or any map size with one opponent and OCC on.

Make it Always War just to be safe.

 

[joanne]

I believe it could work, there's nothing in the game that prevents them from winning a military victory, but the human usually quits when this becomes apparent so maybe that's why we never hear about it

 

[Psyringe]

I remember at least 2 games where one AI probably would have won a domination victory if I hadn't stopped it. Perhaps two more, but I think in these cases the AIs had too many vassals occupying too much land; they certainly would've won by conquest though.

I'm always playing with the Better BTS AI mod, which s probably a factor here.

 

[mechaerik]

Conquest is far less likely to be seen than domination, partly because Conquest requires that the AI declare war on everyone at one point or another (which would require that the AI have no friends), but mostly because the human very likely isnt the last civ, which means the game stops before it could happen.

 

[PibbZ]

I was about to win on Deity for the first time when Ragnar and his million vassals suddenly pulled a diplo win. Nerdrage

 

[Fleme]

In one of our deity (co-op) games, Hannibal and his teammate (it was all Hannibal, though) snowballed to a domination win around 1300 AD. He had a huge well-promoted stack, his land was superior to others and he was a heathen. Therefore he just plain outright declared new wars as soon as the previous dominoes fell.

Other than that, no. The AI honestly isn't playing to win but rather to prevent you from doing it while pulling the occasional space/culture/diplo itself.

 

[bob_d]

After the AI civ DOWs me and shows up with a massive stack of doom next to my lightly defended capital, I quit at that point, so I never see the actual victory.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Leaders like Shaka are always a risk for conquest, domination.

Leaders who don't declare at pleased will not win conquest for the reasons stated above. They don't attack their friends.

Civs like Shaka who declare war often, declare at pleased and are very hard to get to friendly are the main risks. If they get on a roll, they are the danger for conquest/domination.

Map type matters here. Continents, islands is virtually impossible for the AI to win domination or conquest because it doesn't do intercontinental invasions very well.

 

[Tristan_C]

I lost a space race on immortal when one of the AI's (Louie, I think) just suddenly seemed to go nuts. He fired tacticals all over the place, which, due to their terrific -for- potential, cause AIs to offer capitulations quickly. He capped practically everyone in a few turns and won before I even knew what was going on. Domination victory, obviously.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

This was in Civ4Col, but it's still a conquest/domination victory.

I had modded the game and put conquest and domination victories in. I started a game with all 4 colonial civs, and one native. Just one native. Turn 2: That native (Who I later found out was monty) had won a domination victory.

 

[raxid]

Just played an emperor level standard sized map on Fractal with OCC enabled. The map was set up as 2 continents and i was landlocked so by the time i got knowledge of the other continent Justinian had 30 cities himself (eliminated 2 rivals) and then was first AI to infantry and marines and just rolled rest of his continent into quick capitulations.

not too much i could've done about it because i had no way of getting contact with him for so long and once i did make contact it was just too late to effect the outcome.

Without OCC enabled i probably would've been able to stop it (as i could have sent a caravel and met him earlier).

Also i'm pretty sure AI can't win a conquest because that involves destroying human and the game ends there with L-None instead of L-conquest.... i mean if you're the last person then its basically the same thing but the AI doesn't get the credit

 

[Derakon]

Functionally, I don't think the AI can win conquest without lots of luck from barbarians, as the AI never razes cities (except in the "this city has only ever had 1 population" auto-raze case, of course). So the AI would have to go on the warpath very early to take out the other civs before the total land settled meets the domination requirement, and in practice AI civs REX too fast for that to happen.

 

[zeolite]

(except in the "this city has only ever had 1 population" auto-raze case, of course)

I always wondered why you could sometimes capture a size-1 city and other times you couldn't. You learn something new every day

 

[ParadigmShifter]

In one of my games I captured a large (size 17 or so) city from Hannibal. Later on he captured it back and razed it! What a doofus!

EDIT: Maybe I captured it from someone else though - I don't think you can raze cities you once owned... hmm

 

[drhirsch]

I am sure I have lost a domination once, I think it was shaka and I was playing OCC.

 

[Psyringe]

Functionally, I don't think the AI can win conquest without lots of luck from barbarians, as the AI never razes cities (except in the "this city has only ever had 1 population" auto-raze case, of course). So the AI would have to go on the warpath very early to take out the other civs before the total land settled meets the domination requirement, and in practice AI civs REX too fast for that to happen.

Hmm. I'm not entirely sure, but don't you also win by conquest if you vassalize everyone left without reaching the domination thresholds for both population and controlled area? When I play militarily, I usually take out one or two neighbors completely, so my controlled area is usually large enough to trigger a domination victory sooner or later. The AI usually doesn't, instead it vassalizes everyone it can. Since vassals only contribute 50% (IIRC) of their population and controlled area to their master's with regard to the domination threshold, I always thought that it would be rather difficult for the AI to meet that criterion, due to its comparatively small home area.

I may be wrong though - I think I made most of this analysis when Warlords was released, and I think we still had a fixed (and pretty high) domination threshold back then. Also, I tend to play with up on super-huge maps with up to 34 civs, where the AIs tendency to vassalize instead of eradicate enemies will obviously have bigger impact.

 

[6K Man]

The AI can definitely win domination victories... there have been a couple of games I almost lost that way, particularly when you start on the smaller of 2 continents and an AI on the other continent turns into a monster.

As others have noted, it's unlikely that a human player would ever see an AI conquest win, as the human would have to be the last civ eliminated.