I'm debating whether or not to build this AP thing in my current game. The civilopedia entry is not entirely clear on how it all works, and I can't tell if this cheeky strategy will work or not:

I rule an entire massive continent of Jewish cities, and the other continent is all Buddhist (two civs)

So if I sent two missionaries in, get Judaism into one tiny city of each rival, and then build the palace, am I right in thinking that they will be voting members with hardly any votes, and I will totally dominate the voting?

And can I then win the religious victory vote really easily this way? It doesn't seem that this would be the intended effect of the AP, but from reading the Civilopedia, it seems ok...

Can someone let me know where the flaw is in my logic before I go and do it? :D

You pretty much have it all figured out. :)

Unless you installed the patch I think that 3.13 nullifies that sneak attack.

"Can someone let me know where the flaw is in my logic before I go and do it?"
No flaws here, just go ahead.

Well, that sounds way too easy! :D I'm doing it.

And I guess another reason that I'd better build that AP fast is that if one of them builds it, and then one buddhist missionary makes it across my borders, I am in trouble.

And GPShaw, thanks for the tip, could you give details of the rule change in 3.13 that you say might nullify this approach?

The rule change in 3.13 is that at least one other civ has to vote for you, as well as you having the 2/3 majority. You can't solo dominate the votes, someone has to like you.

So this trick isn't going to work unless one of your Buddist rivals will send their piddly votes your way. If you have 3.13. You have to be nice to one of them perhaps.

It can also be hard to infiltrate your Missionaries if they have Theocracy, or will not open borders. So you might have to pull some other sneaky tricks with Spies, gifting cities or planting cities in their militarty path to make them see the joy of Judaism.

Good Luck!

The rule change in 3.13 is that at least one other civ has to vote for you, as well as you having the 2/3 majority. You can't solo dominate the votes, someone has to like you.

So this trick isn't going to work unless one of your Buddist rivals will send their piddly votes your way. If you have 3.13. You have to be nice to one of them perhaps.


The exact wording in the 3.13 changelog also implies that diplomatic victory is impossible if you have enough votes to win all by yourself, regardless of whether someone else votes for you:

"Can't vote on a winner if one team already has all the votes necessary to win"

Can anyone confirm/deny this? I haven't played 3.13 yet.

^^that kinda sucks. I understand this is justified for AP diplomatic victory as you can limit other ai's power in voting. However, the new rule should not apply to the UN as all ai are full voting members. If I am achieving domination, but want a backdoor for diplomatic (if I have the pop but not land), I should be allowed to do this. Sometimes if I am winning but it will take me another hour or more to win, I would just take the diplomatic over domination.

Thanks MrFrodo and others for the update.

I have downloaded 3.13 but not installed it yet... I'm waiting to finish the current game, as I have read that 3.13 changes AI behaviour a little (more aggressive etc).

But I've decided not to do the sneaky AP religious win, it seems like an exploit (confirmed by the fix in 3.13) and it's a shame to win that way when the game is going so well anyway! :D I am caning, it's my first BTS game so I dropped the skill level, probably shouldn't have :D

I am going to build the AP though, so the buddhist brothers can't try the same trick on me.

From what I've seen post-3.13, if you have enough votes to win AP diplo all by yourself, the AP diplo victory vote simply won't come up. It doesn't matter if other Civs are willing to vote for you or not.

I suspect the same applies to the UN diplo victory vote.

^^that kinda sucks. I understand this is justified for AP diplomatic victory as you can limit other ai's power in voting. However, the new rule should not apply to the UN as all ai are full voting members. If I am achieving domination, but want a backdoor for diplomatic (if I have the pop but not land), I should be allowed to do this. Sometimes if I am winning but it will take me another hour or more to win, I would just take the diplomatic over domination.

Actually, the "back door diplomatic" aka "poor man's domination" is the exact reason why this rule was introduced.

Frankly, it hardly made any sense to have a "diplomatic" victory in which all you needed to do was to go on a conquering rampage.

Also I don't see any difference between using the 3.13 system for AP and UN. :confused:

So what do you need to do if you have more than the 75% of the votes?

Spread the religion further (or convert a Civ to double his votes) to drop you below that magic limit (as well as making sure you're really well liked by the Civ you're spreading it to)?

The exact wording in the 3.13 changelog also implies that diplomatic victory is impossible if you have enough votes to win all by yourself, regardless of whether someone else votes for you:

"Can't vote on a winner if one team already has all the votes necessary to win"

Can anyone confirm/deny this? I haven't played 3.13 yet.

I haven't either, I probably misunderstood the rule change. It definitely sounds like the vote wont even come up if you have enough votes to win by yourself. So not only do you have to get another civ to like you, you have to spread the AP religion to them like crazy to make your % of votes low enough to get the vote to come up. If you are too good at spreading it to your friend, and the rest of the world likes your friend better than you, your friend might just change state religions and win instead of you. :(

This seems to take care of the borderline exploitive manipulation of this Wonder to get a Diplomatic Victory. On the other hand, people will still not understand how this works and loose occaisionally by taking a city into their civ that has the AP religion.

The exact wording in the 3.13 changelog also implies that diplomatic victory is impossible if you have enough votes to win all by yourself, regardless of whether someone else votes for you:

"Can't vote on a winner if one team already has all the votes necessary to win"

Can anyone confirm/deny this? I haven't played 3.13 yet.

I haven't either, I probably misunderstood the rule change. It definitely sounds like the vote wont even come up if you have enough votes to win by yourself. So not only do you have to get another civ to like you, you have to spread the AP religion to them like crazy to make your % of votes low enough to get the vote to come up. If you are too good at spreading it to your friend, and the rest of the world likes your friend better than you, your friend might just change state religions and win instead of you. :(

This seems to take care of the borderline exploitive manipulation of this Wonder to get a Diplomatic Victory. On the other hand, people will still not understand how this works and loose occaisionally by taking a city into their civ that has the AP religion.

Anyway, good luck trying to win a less sneaky, and more glorious victory without the AP!

Is these the only other civs in the game? All civs must have a city with your religion in order to achieve the diplo victory from the AP (at least in the previous patch, that was the rule).

That being said, I would definitely build the AP anyway only to prevent the AI from having it. And employing trade sanctions against you. If they are the only other 2 civs in the game, though, it wouldn't matter much. At that point, I might actually skip the AP and just start preparing to violently teach the heathen a lesson.

I think it's worth building the AP just so you can dictate which religion will get the +2 hammers for temples, monasteries and cathedrals. Otherwise you may end up having to spread your rival's religion in your own cities to get the bonus - probably giving them +1G for each city you convert.

If your state religion is the AP religion, you get the hammer bonus, which combined with Sankore and the Spiral Minaret gives you beakers, gold and hammers galore for building those temples, etc. Very nice if you can manage it.

This is a very good point. It depends on your difficulty level. Below noble, you should be alright leaving the AP alone and just going for a steamroll. The hammer bonus is already in your difficulty setting ;). Noble / Prince, you'll probably want to grab that AP and take advantage like Naismith says. Higher than Prince and you may not even be able to complete it in time (at this point in the game).

OK - there is lots of good advice in there, thanks! :goodjob:

So I'm going to build the AP to get the production bonuses, and to stop the buddhists from shafting me if they build it later. I already have that wonder that increases the culture of religious buildings, is that Sistine Chapel, can't remember..., so my half-price Jewish temples (spiritual) will be beautiful little buildings pumping out 6 :culture: and 2 :hammers: per turn plus the usual happiness bonus :D

Meanwhile I'm not going to use the AP for victory, it's pretty clear I'm going to win this one anyway so I'm going to keep the game going until Corporations so I can play around and learn about them while securely in a position of power. :king:

:goodjob: The Sistine Chapel indeed, Airefuego (fire air?)

OK, I built it. How do I propose a resolution? Thanks.

You don't. The game will decide when a situation arises that allows a vote. It then provides you with a pop-up to vote. For example:

If a full member of the AP (Mehmed) is at war with a non-member (Shaka), after a few turns, a pop-up will be presented with options like "Stop the war on Mehmed" or "All members declare war on Shaka".

Trade embargo resolutions often pop up when trade is occurring between members and a heathen state. Also, if there are members who aren't trading with one-another, you might see a resolution pop up: "All members open borders."

There are plenty of others, but the AI assesses the current status of the game and presents you with resolutions situationally.

But I never got whatever option it is for a victory. In this case, I had spread my religion to the other two Civs. Do they have to switch to my religion to allow such a vote? Thanks for the help.

all civs have to have the AP religion in at least one city for the victory vote to be an option. it doesn't matter whether they're full or voting members, just that they're members. you said "the two other Civs" tho, so i guess that was everybody.

as of patch 3.13, the victory votes for the AP and the UN won't come up if one civ has enough votes to win. even if others would vote for you, you just don't get the chance. so that was probably it.

Yeah, a good change IMO. It makes the diplo victory harder on smaller maps (much easier before this change).

^^ Even with the 3.13 changes, you can still get a cheesy AP diplo win: just have a good idea of how many votes you can have max and have a vassal....

Good point. But at least you have to do some homework ;)

So I'm going to build the AP to get the production bonuses, and to stop the buddhists from shafting me if they build it later. I already have that wonder that increases the culture of religious buildings, is that Sistine Chapel, can't remember..., so my half-price Jewish temples (spiritual) will be beautiful little buildings pumping out 6 :culture: and 2 :hammers: per turn plus the usual happiness bonus :D

I have built the AP many times and am not familiar with the production bonus I get from it...?? Also, I really don't think that the Sistine Chapel increases the culture of religious buildings, but gives you "specialists" in your cities (might be the same thing, but I don't think so). Please enlighten me on both points.

Regarding the "half-price Jewish temples", don't forget the monetary and science perks you get from them if you have the Spiral Minaret and University of Sankore (two of my "key" Great Works for progressing nicely through the technologies!!).

I really don't like the idea of Firaxis "fixing" the diplomatic victory -- my eyes always lit up when I saw the option come up since I knew I would be virtually guarantee a victory (I've only had one time where the other "voting" civs didn't support my election -- the seem to back you a LOT more in AP elections than in UN attempts at victory).

Also, the AP can be useful in stealing cities from other civilizations -- anyone know if this is still an option with the 3.13 patch? And, if I REALLY didn't like another civilization, the various trade and war options are always good.

I have built the AP many times and am not familiar with the production bonus I get from it...?? Also, I really don't think that the Sistine Chapel increases the culture of religious buildings, but gives you "specialists" in your cities (might be the same thing, but I don't think so). Please enlighten me on both points.


OK there is definitely a production bonus for other religious buildings of the AP's religion - quote from the Info Center:

Leaders who share the Palace's religion (or who own the Palace) become full voting members. They also enjoy a production bonus to every building of that religion in their cities. Leaders who don't have that as their state religion, but happen to have cities that share the religion don't get the production bonuses but they still get a vote on all Palace resolutions. A full voting member can have their production bonuses revoked and suffer a happiness penalty if they openly defy a resolution.

I couldn't remember how much the bonus was but Naismith says 2 hammers so I went with that.

As for the Sistine Chapel, as of BTS it has changed a bit, it now gives a +5 culture bonus for each religious building, its major benefit is something else, probably still specialist-related, but again without the Civilopedia loaded I just can't remember what :( Terrible eh? ... but believe me it's there :D


Regarding the "half-price Jewish temples", don't forget the monetary and science perks you get from them if you have the Spiral Minaret and University of Sankore (two of my "key" Great Works for progressing nicely through the technologies!!).


YES! great points :king: if you have all four wonders mentioned above, temples become all-powerful!

^^ Even with the 3.13 changes, you can still get a cheesy AP diplo win: just have a good idea of how many votes you can have max and have a vassal....

Has anyone verified that this works? In other words, can you really just arrange things so that you're barely below the threshold and then earn a vassal to put you over the top? Does the vassal always vote for you like with the UN?

I wonder if someone can remind me of the new rules in 3.13. Here are some other things I'm still not sure about:

1. What is the threshold percentage for victory? I've seen both 2/3 and 3/4 asserted in this thread.

2. Does an AP diplomatic victory require that at least two civs have the AP religion as their state religion, or does it work if you're the only one?

3. Is it possible for your vassal to be your opponent? If so, does he still have to vote for you?

But I never got whatever option it is for a victory. In this case, I had spread my religion to the other two Civs. Do they have to switch to my religion to allow such a vote? Thanks for the help.

For some reason, I've always thought there had to be at least 3 other civs for the AP to give you a diplomatic victory option. Not sure where I got that idea, but if that is the case, that would explain why you couldn't get it with only 2 remaining civs.

Where can I find a list of exactly what resolutions can be passed with the AP?

Where can I find a list of exactly what resolutions can be passed with the AP?

F8 screen ingame. i haven't cross-referenced it with the pedia to see if they match. if they do disagree, F8 would be the correct one is my guess.

Has anyone verified that this works? In other words, can you really just arrange things so that you're barely below the threshold and then earn a vassal to put you over the top? Does the vassal always vote for you like with the UN?

I wonder if someone can remind me of the new rules in 3.13. Here are some other things I'm still not sure about:

1. What is the threshold percentage for victory? I've seen both 2/3 and 3/4 asserted in this thread.

2. Does an AP diplomatic victory require that at least two civs have the AP religion as their state religion, or does it work if you're the only one?

3. Is it possible for your vassal to be your opponent? If so, does he still have to vote for you?

I ended up answering some of these questions for myself in my latest game, with Prince difficulty, Standard map, Monarch speed, Raging Barbs, and 7 AI opponents (in case that matters):

1. You must obtain 75% of the votes for a religious diplomatic victory. Also, if you yourself (excluding vassals) have less than 75% but your vassals have votes that when supplementing yours passes 75%, then the diplomatic victory option does indeed come up. So it appears that you can simply bully your way into religions diplomatic victory, just like before. Only difference is you need to make sure you have less than 75% of the votes all by yourself. If you have 74% and get a piddly little 1-city vassal with your AP religion, you win.

2. Donno, I had a vassal with my AP state religion the whole time.

3. Your vassal can be your opponent, and he votes for himself.

If you do have all the votes you need by yourself, don't fret. Just build some missionaries and convert AI cities until you are under the threshold again.

If you do have all the votes you need by yourself, don't fret. Just build some missionaries and convert AI cities until you are under the threshold again.

True, but you'd still need a vassal or a great friend.

Just a little anecdote about how I won my last game... Since my opponent (Zara) was my vassal, I tried to starve him into 3rd place so that Willem would become my opponent and Zara would have to vote for me. So I spammed spies and poisoned and fomented unhappiness in all Zara's cities every 8 turns. He lost about 10 population by the time the next vote came up, to 108. But the next rival had only 107. DOH! However, I happened to get a random event 2 turns earlier where I donated archives to a museum and gained a +1 relations boost with everyone, and that was the tipping point for Pericles to vote for me. Random events FTW! It preserved the "diplomatic" nature of the victory too. But don't think I won't be willing to employ starvation diplomacy next time :).

I ended up answering some of these questions for myself in my latest game, with Prince difficulty, Standard map, Monarch speed, Raging Barbs, and 7 AI opponents (in case that matters):

3. Your vassal can be your opponent, and he votes for himself.

Just finished a game where I was bitten by this. I was just a few votes short of the margin (including votes of my 3 vassals), so I attacked my rival to take a few of his cities. But when the next vote came up, my competition in the vote switched to my vassal, and I failed again to achieve diplo victory! Glad see a forum search turned up that this does seem to the design behavior of the AP.

BTW, I did win the game-- by conquest. My original rival was the only remaining free civ; after another 15 turns of war and I had taken enough cities to force capitulation. Given the way I was playing the game, a conquest victory was more appropriate-- though it would have been nice to avoid the 15 rather tedious turns of combat.