The Apostolic Palace Guide

I fixed many errors in the Proposal Cycle section and what appeared to be bugs are now found to be features of the rules. Thanks to this post and some testing:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=296328

For example, normally things work like this:

Turn 100: Resident Election is conducted
Turn 110: Proposal #1 made
Turn 120: Proposal #2 made
Turn 130: Proposal #3 made
Turn 140: Proposal #4 made
Turn 150: Resident Election is conducted

However, if there are no possible proposals at the time that a proposal is scheduled to be voted on something like this might happen:

Turn 100: Resident Election is conducted
Turn 110: Proposal #1 not made due to no possible proposal
Turn 111: Proposal #2 not made due to no possible proposal
Turn 112: Proposal #3 not made due to no possible proposal
Turn 113: Proposal #4 not made due to no possible proposal
Turn 114: Resident Election is conducted

Instead of waiting 50 turns you only wait 14 turns for the election. The next scheduled proposal gets moved up to next turn when there is no possible proposal to be made this turn.

You could also have something like this:

Turn 100: Resident Election is conducted
Turn 110: Proposal #1 not made due to no possible proposal - a Full Member declares war on a non-Member this turn.
Turn 111: Proposal #2 made
Turn 121: Proposal #3 made
Turn 131: Proposal #4 made
Turn 141: Resident Election is conducted

By "no possible proposal" I mean that none of the conditions for any of the proposals have been met so:

1. All Full Members not at war with Non-Member
2. No Full Member trading with Non-Member
3. No Full Member at war with a Member
4. All Full Members have Open Borders
5. Not all Members are eligible for Defensive Pact
6. No Cities in contention between Full and Voting Members
7. There is at least one Non-Member Civ

Antioch is a Byzantine city. Barbarian black and Byzantine grey would look very similar beneath the fog of war, so it would be easy to not notice the barbs capturing it.

Moderator Action: Moved to the Strategy Articles forum.

Nice work, Yxklyx. The AP is definitely confusing...

Great article, look forward to seeing it further developed with nuances etc - the first 95% seems good, looking forward to the next 95%

There is an article on the cheese win here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=317892

.. and you seem to have shown me why my attempts at it didn't work (didn't know AP needed to be spread to all civs).

Also I have heard you can spread a religion to a theocracy of another religion by gifting the missionary, but I haven't tested this.

Added the non-Vassal requirement to the Declare War proposal.

Edit: Vassals might also influence the other proposals' conditions. For instance, if a Full Member Vassal (whose Master is not a Full Member) is trading with a Non-Member - the Trade Embargo proposal may not be possible.

smitsk00 said:

Antioch is a Byzantine city. Barbarian black and Byzantine grey would look very similar beneath the fog of war, so it would be easy to not notice the barbs capturing it.

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You are correct, it's in the middle of the Byzantine empire.

Negator_UK said:

...

Also I have heard you can spread a religion to a theocracy of another religion by gifting the missionary, but I haven't tested this.

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This might work - but who knows, perhaps the AI tries to spread it to its largest city - which will often fail. This won't work if they have Closed Borders of course. The best way to give the religion to another Civ is to gift them a city with the religion already in it.

On a related note: I don't think the AI takes the 2 hammer bonus into account when deciding on Temples/Monasteries builds. For instance, my building adviser will suggest that I build a non-hammer producing Temple instead of a hammer producing Temple - the code for the AI might be the same.

Yxklyx said:

This might work - but who knows, perhaps the AI tries to spread it to its largest city - which will often fail. This won't work if they have Closed Borders of course. The best way to give the religion to another Civ is to gift them a city with the religion already in it.

On a related note: I don't think the AI takes the 2 hammer bonus into account when deciding on Temples/Monasteries builds. For instance, my building adviser will suggest that I build a non-hammer producing Temple instead of a hammer producing Temple - the code for the AI might be the same.

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I know it works, I tried it some time ago, I think it was the second latest BtS patch (wasn't that 3.15?) but I don't think it was removed from 3.17.

Yxklyx said:

6. Assign city from X to Y:
Prerequisite: Civ X must be a Voting Member, but not Full Member, and Civ Y must be a Full Member. The two civs must not be at war. Civ Y must have a higher culture on the city plot (not the city itself) than Civ X does.
If passed the city is transferred intact with all buildings but no units.

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First, this is a great and well-written article, Yxklyx

Then, I have a question: is it sure / can anyone confirm that this 'Assign city'-option is not available between 2 Full Members?

This would come in very handy right now, as I play a large map where Hinduism is the very dominant AP-religion, and I thought that HC's Hindu-Shrine (netting >70/turn ) in his capital would serve me much better than him.
We are both Full Members, so the world cannot force me to give that city back?

ChrisFromLux said:

First, this is a great and well-written article, Yxklyx

Then, I have a question: is it sure / can anyone confirm that this 'Assign city'-option is not available between 2 Full Members?

This would come in very handy right now, as I play a large map where Hinduism is the very dominant AP-religion, and I thought that HC's Hindu-Shrine (netting >70/turn ) in his capital would serve me much better than him.
We are both Full Members, so the world cannot force me to give that city back?

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I am 99.9% sure you are safe - if you notice otherwise please mention it here with a save game.

Added some more info with regards to Vassals. I found that I could not declare a Holy War againt a Vassal Non-Member. In another case, I was not able to force a Vassal Full Member into War. It would appear that if a Civ is a Vassal, that it's ignored for all purposes when determining if a proposal is valid or not. Made a clarification under Diplomatic (Religious) Victory.

Yxklyx said:

I am 99.9% sure you are safe

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OK, 99.9% sounds convincing

Yxklyx said:

if you notice otherwise please mention it here with a save game.

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OK, I will do that ... but it would really hurt in my game

Yxklyx said:

Added some more info with regards to Vassals. I found that I could not declare a Holy War againt a Vassal Non-Member. In another case, I was not able to force a Vassal Full Member into War. It would appear that if a Civ is a Vassal, that it's ignored for all purposes when determining if a proposal is valid or not. Made a clarification under Diplomatic (Religious) Victory.

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Are you sure that's not because of their master?


When you could not declare a Holy War on a Vassal Non-Member, are you sure his Master was not a Member? Of course, you cannot initiate a Holy War against another Member!

In your 2nd example, maybe the Master could not be forced into war (Non-Member, forced peace, ...?) ... of course, you then cannot force the vassal then either?

ChrisFromLux said:

Are you sure that's not because of their master?


When you could not declare a Holy War on a Vassal Non-Member, are you sure his Master was not a Member? Of course, you cannot initiate a Holy War against another Member!

In your 2nd example, maybe the Master could not be forced into war (Non-Member, forced peace, ...?) ... of course, you then cannot force the vassal then either?

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Well yeah, it's because of the Master. Let's see

Example 1:

Egypt : Member
- Korea : Non-Member Vassal of Egypt

Dutch : Full Member and Resident (me)
Byzantine : Full Member

I declare war against Korea and hence Egypt.
Vote does not come up to declare war against Korea. Korea's Non-Member status is ignored.

Example 2:

Dutch : Full Member and Resident (me)
Greece : Member
- Byzantine : Full Member Vassal of Greece

Korea : Non-Member

I declare war against Korea
Vote does not come up to declare war against Korea. Byzantine's Full Member status is ignored,

I mean, it makes sense that that's how it works I suppose.

What's not clear though is whether you can propose a Trade Embargo on a Vassal - also, what happens in the case of a Member who's a Vassal of a Non-Member.

When you're trying to spread your religion, and the opposing civs have theocracy, you can use spies to force them to switch civics, provided you're running a different religious civic. Spies can actually be quite helpful to manipulate other civs for Religious victories. In a recent game I played, I had to use spies to manipulate an opponent to have the AP religion, I had to force him out of Free religion so he would be a Full Member of the AP, and I used spies to poison his cities and reduce his population.

A situation I'm facing in my current game:
I'm playing on Monarch. Buddhism was founded by Willem, a neighbour on my continent, and he also built the AP. By the time I conquered/vassalised my continent I took control of the AP. Meanwhile on the other continent Mansa Musa has conquered/vassalised the whole continent so its basically me and Mansa racing to a victory condition. Buddhism hasn't spread to the other continent. Through espionage I can see Mansa is 5 turns away from Mass Media. I have no great desire to get Mass Media any time soon (there is no way I can win a UN victory given we're fairly even and we both have two similarly sized vassals). We're now in the 1800's.

My questions:
1. Mansa is 5 turns away from Mass Media. I know it obseletes AP if I get Mass Media but what about if Mansa gets it? Can I still get AP victory?
2. Assuming an AP victory is still possible when Mansa gets Mass Media, he is likely to build UN. Will this mean I can't get an AP victory? Or are both UN and AP victories possible?
3. Based on people's prior experince - is it worth trying to spread Buddhism overseas for an AP victory? Or is it not achievable. I could just focus on a domination/space victory.

Cheers!

EDIT: Sorry, I see questions 1 (yes I can still get AP if Mansa gets Mass Media) and 2 (UN doesn't obselete AP) are answered in the article. So, anyone want to take a stab at #3? Is it worth trying?

darreljnz said:

3. Based on people's prior experince - is it worth trying to spread Buddhism overseas for an AP victory? Or is it not achievable. I could just focus on a domination/space victory.

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That should be possible!

You only need to have Open Borders with Mansa Musa and his 2 vassals, and they must not run Theocracy, to be able to spread Buddhism.
And you have to consider that 1 of your own vassals will (normally) be your opponent in the election, and thus vote for himself.

So, you only need to make sure that you and your other vassals have enough votes for the election to succeed, but that you don't have too many votes on your own ...

3. Based on people's prior experince - is it worth trying to spread Buddhism overseas for an AP victory? Or is it not achievable. I could just focus on a domination/space victory.

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Thats quite easy really, you can carry missionaries in Caravels so you can even start early! Each civ only needs 1 city of the AP religion to allow the diplo victory vote, so you don't need a massive investment.

To get around Theocracy and/or closed borders you can settle a city near the AIs culture and use a missionary to spread the AP religion to it, then simply liberate or gift the city to the AI

Ghpstage said:

Thats quite easy really, you can carry missionaries in Caravels so you can even start early! Each civ only needs 1 city of the AP religion to allow the diplo victory vote, so you don't need a massive investment.

To get around Theocracy and/or closed borders you can settle a city near the AIs culture and use a missionary to spread the AP religion to it, then simply liberate or gift the city to the AI

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Unless you're using an unofficial patch just gifting the missionary works, too.

Good article. I've never won an AP game, but would like to try.

I see you've numbered the proposals. What if more than one proposal is available for voting? Does the AP select on which to vote in the order you numbered? If not, any idea how they choose between the possibilities?