I have never tried for an AP or UN victory, but I have seen it happen in games where I was occupied with something else. Is there a good FAQ or guide as to how to achieve victory using these two Diplomatic conditions?

Specifically I wasn't sure on what all the voting options were and what conditions were needed for each. Also stuff like how are votes calculated for the AP ballots... If I found the AP and spread my religion to one city in a foreign empire will it get less votes than if I spread it to every city?

I'm so confused. :confused: All help is welcome. :sad:

AP victories are actually the easiest way to win the game, and it's kind of cheesy but...

You basically want to build the AP in a religion no one else has-Christianity is very convenient for this since you can found it when you research Theology to be able to build the AP. From that point on, you basically need one good buddy to spread it to so he will vote for you. You only want 1 city from every other empire to have the religion, so they won't have very many votes.
Once every civ has at least 1 city in the AP religion, then the vote for diplo victory will come up. You CANNOT have enough votes to vote yourself in, however, which is where the good buddy part comes in.

UN isn't as simple or cheesy, but the easiest way to pull it off is with vassals. They will always vote for you. You might see the term "diplomation" thrown around a lot around here. Basically, when warmongers don't wanna make the "final push" for the conquest or domination victory, it's easier to just win via UN. Another easy way to do it is to gift mass media (the tech which enables the build of the UN) to a smaller civ who doesn't have many friends. That way, as long as you have the highest population, it will be you vs. him. Much better than building it yourself and having to go against the #1 or #2 civ, who may well have vassals of his own.

There's a strategy articles forum below this one.

Here's a guide to the AP, haven't read it fully.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319452

Principles of getting the civs to vote for you is the same for UN and AP, there's a war academy article about that here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319452

Generally civs need to be +8 disposition or higher to vote for you. Some have built in bonuses that you can't see (I think Zara and Gandhi give a secret +2, Shaka seems to be -2), I have seen that info but don't know exactly where it can be found.

My deity AP cheese guide for winning cheesy on deity ;)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=317892

Cheesy is right. I recently won an AP victory pretty much unintentionally. I was #1 in population for most of the game and had the AP religion as my state religion. The AP had been built by one of my neighbors who I at some point accepted as a vassal. I'd been pursuing the AP victory for a while by trying to get friendly with one of my larger rivals, but over the course of time it just seemed to be slipping further and further out of reach so I gave up and started working on a domination win.

However, since my vassal didn't have the inclination or beakers to go for Mass Media, and the UN never got built, the AP votes kept coming up. So I just continued to vote for myself. I was just about to start my final domination war when suddenly the bells went off and I realized I'd been elected religious leader. This was early in the 21st century, too, which was kind of funny.

Anyhow, I think the AP victory could use a nerf of some kind. Maybe the AP religion would have to spread to a certain percent of the world's population or something like that, not just to one city per civ.

Yep, it is busted alright. It is the new way to fill your HoF deity slots since Quecha rush on duel maps no longer qualify for EQM, and future conquest doesn't count in the main EQM categories either ;)

Yep, it is busted alright. It is the new way to fill your HoF deity slots since Quecha rush on duel maps no longer qualify for EQM, and future conquest doesn't count in the main EQM categories either ;)

All victory types can be cheesy. Inca Quecha rush, culture victory, backdoor diplo, single-landmass conquest agianst Ghandi+Asoka, etc.

If you want to try to optimize for a fastest possible victory, the AP victory is just as challenging as any other. However, surely some game mechanics could be improved.

I think AP just gets a reputation for being cheesy because the chop/whip/dom-conq strategy (talk about one-dimensional gameplay!) have it as an escape hatch in the event of failure with their original strategy. If you shoot for an early AP victory from the start, failure can often require a total restructure of your civ to salvage a win.