I keep facing this damn scenario game after game(monarch player) and wondering what the hell is the right thing I should be doing. I realize it differs based on the situation. But when I'm at war with a nation I want to finish em off. Sometimes I have the force to do that, and when that damn apostolic palace resolution to stop the war against whomever I am killing comes up I just can't help but say never.

But as we all know, there's a nasty penalty comes with this. And I just never know if I did the right thing or not. Now when I say never, I do end up taking a couple their cities. But at the expense of my own, a bunch of my cities get penalized and whittled down from the unhappiness penalty. And if you have to defy it twice you get another one on top of that.

So in general, what's the right thing to do? Go with em and wait 10 turns while you build up your military for another surge, or defy the resolution and eat the penalties?

Like you said, this probably can't get any more situation-specific, but I've been DEFYing a lot of silly resolutions lately. Generally, I find myself in one of two situations: sometimes the AP religion is new to me (perhaps because I'm taking over its owner...) and defying the resolution just puts 5 unhappiness on a handful of small, already useless cities that I don't care about. I mean, I was going to turn all their people into buildings anyway, if you know what I mean. Other times, I'm inundated with the AP resolution and can veto a resolution all by my lonesome. Sometimes in that case I still pick DEFY, just in case something unexpected happens and I would be completely unprepared for the consequences of a surprise vote outcome. Admittedly, lots of times it would be safer to just vote "No", but I get a little pig-headed maybe :)

Edit: To maybe make this cover a wider range of situations, if you find yourself in such a condition that you have the AP religion in your big/important cities, but not enough votes to really affect the outcomes, you probably have to knuckle under for awhile. Work on spreading the religion around (or adopt it as your state religion) to get more votes. Organized religion might be useful so you don't have to build monasteries. If you can't get enough votes, then you have to play nice, selectively defying maybe one occasional resolution at most, because the 5 unhappiness and the ridiculous stacking of it (I've seen at least 15, and I would assume it can go higher) will absolutely cripple you over time.

Two things:

1)The 5 :mad: penalty only occurs if the resolution would have passed if you had not Defied. Thus, if you can get some AP Voting Members (anyone with the AP religion in their cities IIRC) to help you in war, the odds of the bill passing will get lower and Defying may not have the :mad: penalty.

2) If you know the opponent will die soon, and the AP religion is not present in any of your core cities, then go ahead and defy. If unhappiness penalties will cause parts of your Core to shut down (i.e GP Farms, Military Cities, Science Cities), then hit No and hope for the best. At any rate, its 10 turns of easy buildup and getting Roads to your new acquisitions.

Also keep in mind that you will incur additional "you declared war on our friend" penalties, which are permanent, when you resume the war.

Never forget the option to razz the AP, also. I consider who has it when I go to war. I usually don't go for a raze, but quickly capturing a controlling amount of AP votes, razing it, or merely warring against AP enemies are certainly better than having situations where defying is optimal! The UN kind of sucks to defy, but at least with the AP you only take damage in the cities that have the religion. If you plan to war on an AP civ, you probably shouldn't be in that religion, and you might want to discourage its spread...

I understand there are situations and timeframes that force the issue and you may be stuck with a tough defiance choice, but try to minimize them!

I was about to post a thread titled "-12 You control the apostolic palace!!". Unless the controlling AI gets lucky and I'm busy somewhere else or not in a shape to, having the apostolic palace is a top reason to go to war at once with that particular AI. I had some not so funny situations in the past that would warrant that, e.g. an AI attacks me with a huge stack, conquers one of my cities, votes to stop the war against it, which I had to do. I later declare, take that city and one more of the AI's, am exhausted and sue for peace. Next vote is, return the city that I just conquered to its rightful owner ... :eek:

As I said, "-12 You control the apostolic palace!!". If I can't have it, burning the city is definitely an option.

Sometimes AP can also be dowright nasty to the AI :lol: Or more often it is the UN. I remember in one game I had Mansa Munsa on some other continent happily teching, but running a religius civic cause he had a big neigbour of the same religion. Well I got voted into Secretary General and kept picking "global civic free religion" choice and Mansa defied every time. By the end his cities starved to pop 1 :lol: and they were big cities to begin with, typical Mansa cottage paradises.

I'm finding myself more and more just defying the resolutions. Really, when you decide to go to war, you should be doing it with the plan to acheive a goal. Either to completely wipe out your opponent or to vassalize them or cripple them with the idea of coming back for the kill ASAP. You should never "dabble" in a war, because your economy will suffer for no gain, and your opponent will then have his border cities filled with huge armies that you will have to work much harder to overcome the next time.

If you have not acheived your goal, then go ahead and defy the resolution. Most of the time, someone else will vote "no" and you will be fine. If they vote "yes" then just suck it up, crank up the culture slider (rush a theater/coloseum if you don't have them in the city), and get 'er done. Finish your plan. Carve out the territory that you need and then worry about getting your economy back in shape after you reach your goal.

on a recent game as Pericles I was on a continent sharing Judaism with the zulu, chinese, and celtic empires. I took a couple of chinese cities, took a couple of zulu cities (including the holy city), and then a few more chinese cities (3 seperate campains)..I spent most of that time with my culture bar up because of defying AP resolutions trying to take the cities back.. I was usually at -10 and at the end -15(all of my cities were jewish). I was defiantely not willing to give the cities back though, as I probably got 10 wonders in all, but the unhappiness and having to run my culture bar for so long definately ruined my economy.... I wound up having to beeline the internet and win the space race.

Either way though razing the apocalyptic palace is going to definitely have to be a strategy next time i try to conquer my brothers of the faith