How hard does the AI try to stop you from winning?

[dante alighieri]

I was a bit surprised at the AI NOT trying to stop me from winning last night. I was playing America on Noble level, and after a long war with my neighbors, the mongols I had fallen behind my other neighbor, China, in tech. I made up for it though and took the Spaceship building lead and launched.

I fully expected China to attack me. They had a window of opportunity where my army wasn't as updated as theirs. One of my best producing cities was right next to their border and was at first lightly protected. (At least compared to the number of troops they had in their city) I'm not sure if it works the same way, but in earlier civ games you could thwart a SS victory by capturing the enemy capitol. Why didn't China go for it? I would have in their position.

Meanwhile acroos the sea, Julius Caesar was throwing nukes around like wedding rice. No one protested though. I remember in Civ II doing that pretty much assured you that the world would declare on you. (amazingly no one voted to abolish nukes 3 times when the UN vote came up. ) I never got around to the other continent but I'd have loved to see what the conditions were after ol' Nuke 'em Julius was done. I wonder why he didn't nuke me?

Has anyone had a game where the AI goes all out to thwart your victory?

 

[azzaman333]

The AI becomes generally unstable in the Modern Age, so I make sure I'm much more powerful before then.

 

[Arlborn]

They don't really try to stop you winning. For a lot of people it would be not fun, specially the ones who don't attack other AIs winning becuase they are 'friends'(ye, some people do it). Let's leave it for MP games.
They just try to win themselves.

 

[MrCynical]

I've seen a number of games where the main competitor AI's launched an all out attack on me at or about the turn of my spaceship launch. They weren't that competantly executed (they didn't prioritise my capital), but it's better on that front than they used to be.

The AI obviously doesn't try to stop diplomatic victory - everyone would simply abstain except the candidates every time. I haven't seen much effort to prevent a culture win either.

 

[kokoras]

Meanwhile acroos the sea, Julius Caesar was throwing nukes around like wedding rice. No one protested though. I remember in Civ II doing that pretty much assured you that the world would declare on you. (amazingly no one voted to abolish nukes 3 times when the UN vote came up. )
Has anyone had a game where the AI goes all out to thwart your victory?

First of all i agree with you that it's not right using nukes and have no affect on states that are friendly or pleased towards you.Nukes should have a major negative affect for whom uses them.
As far as the way AI reacts when you are close to win i may say that even if i have not seen until now AI trying realy hard in stoping you,yet it changes the way it responds,i mean it becomes more aggresive,even states that were friendly before becomes annoyed when i develop in power and eventually they declared war at me,(so i had to vassalise them).
So my conclusion is that AI does try to stop you,and this depends also from the level,(i play at Prince level).But it could try a bit more,or at least have a plan on how to stop you.

 

[r_rolo1]

I play at monarch and, like I'm a space victory addict, I normally see AI reaching Modern age. Believe me, if you try space, they will try to stop you... I've seen naval landings to my capitol, nukes ( lots of nukes: normally my end games end with a nice rate of 10 nukes launched per turn, between me and my foes ), AP diplo crusades, bribes....

 

[Syntherio]

In my last game (prince) I went for cultural victory. The relations to my neighbors weren´t that great and in the same turn, when my first city became legendary, four of them declared war on me. I don´t believe that was a coincidence. But their attempts to stop me weren´t that good. I could bribe two of them, the third started an attack on my vasale and only the fourth tried to conquer one of my other culture-cities.

 

[bob_x]

Maybe there's a difference between Prince and Monarch level?

At Prince level, the AI doesn't seem to do much to try to stop you from winning.

I won my first game at Monarch level yesterday, and about 15 turns before I was about to get a Cultural victory, everyone attacked me.

(I realized I didn't need to win this war, I just needed to hold out until my cities went Legendary, and a Great Artist I had in storage enabled me to move up my victory by a few turns.)