9 empires all against each other; like 9 empires fighting each other for dominance; I turn out to defeat the 8 other empires (well, others may have been destroyed by others)
Luck? I sometimes wonder about how computer players behave here...
About the computers: The AI choses a most-hated-player, which it attacks with its main army. I dont know if that might change before one of them dies, but thats how it basically works. I looked the AI-Files up one day and thought about makeing a new one, but didn't get deep into that yet. >,>