Stopping when you break the AI

usually if they declare war on me i continou untill they are dead

Once I have got to the point where I know I will win, seek to finish them off as quick as possible, does'nt take very long at that point usually. Never seen the AI recover from a losing position.

I've never seen the AI come back from a losing position either.

Never seen them come back to win, but when they all gang up on me they make it interesting,

They sometimes together have the potential to destroy me if I would sit back instead of taking the fight to them..

I usually build very fasst ships and transports in the endgame and mop them up.

I have seen an AI recover. The Drenjin got beat back to one system, witht he rest of the galaxy occupied. Then I got jumped by all the other races (which I had been supporting in thier wars against he Drenj. ). That ticked me off, since I had basicaly been spoon feeding them all. Well, under thier combined might, they (about six or seven races) beat me back to three planets, so I decided to take everyone down with me. I gave all my tech to the Drenjin, and what little money I had I gave tot hem, or purchased some minor conflicts between those attacking me. Suddenly, with everyone focusing on finishing me off, the Drenj. came unglued on everyone, and with ships sporting my superior tech, they anniliated the galaxy. One by one, EVERY civ. who betrayed me surrendered to me in hopes I could save them, but by the time that happened I was economically broken, and the galaxy soon fell.

It was the most I've ever enjoyed losing. I was laughing like a maniac the whole time, revenge is awesome.

More on topic, when I have someone beat, I'll only stop if I run low on troops, then I'll declare peace for a few months while I restock, then finish them off before they surrender to someone I like.

I don't think I've seen the AI come back from a serious defeat, unless they make peace first and rebuild. Every now and then I have to rescue the Altarians from the Drengin, to keep the Drengi from becoming too powerful.

I've never seen them recover from a military defeat, though I once had the entire galaxy turn around and sack all my starbases half way through the waiting period at the end of an influence victory.

well, if i would have kept up my attack against the torians, i would have won (because their weapons tech was nowhere near mine), but i was running low on ships and transports, so i decided to let them have their peace treaty for a few months. bad idea.......then next time i attacked them, they took me down in a matter of turns. moral of the story, peace is a bad thing

Once, in a game I'm still playing, the Drengin were badly beaten by the Drath. I'm sure that it had something to do with a Precursor ship that the Drath uncovered. Anyway, although I kept out of the actual conflict, I cranked out a pile of ships to keep the Drengin fighting. I even built them a few starbases. Basically I saved them from total annihilation

Then, when I had my economy in order and a big pile of ships for myself, I joined in the war and ground the Drath beneath my heel while they were still trying to crank out enough ships to counter the newly-armed Drengin. After taking a few of their planets with ease and wiping out the defences of the rest with ease, they quickly surrendered.

Now I just have to worry about the Drengin accidentally vaporising stuff with their plasma weaponry

If you want to make it a game again, just give every AI all the techs you own. Give them 20 turns to assimilate the new technology and then see how "easy" the game is. May not seem like much but I tried it and turned a sure conquest victory into a stunningly fast defeat. It was actually kind of cool.

I always finish a game if i get that far because i do metaverse.

Usually I can just press end turn like 20 times and win a cultural victory. Often I have it set up so i can do that in the end.

If I know that I'm going to win, I set up the A.I so that I will lose, by giving them all my tech and money. Mabey a few ships as well.

Since my last post in this thread, I have seen an AI come back from the brink.

The Altarians declared war on the Korx, who started in a bad spot and only had 4 or 5 planets colonized. The Altarians had maybe 2 dozen planets and a huge military. Somehow, amazingly, the Korx absolutely whomped the Altarians and took their whole empire, minus the last 2 planets which they surrendered to the Iconians. I don't know how the hell they did it.

this is what alliance victory is for.