Leveraging diplomacy

Two questions, actually:

1.) How does one achieve diplomatic victory while holding the AP? Do a sufficient number of civs have to have the religion to make votes other than "Stop trading with non-believers"?

2.) How the hell do I manage to control which resolutions come up when? One thing I've noticed is that with either the AP or UN, the game chooses (A) when to vote for a resolution, and (B) which resolutions are available for voting. I mean, what if I want to declare this non believer off-limits, and then change my mind? Why can I not say "Lift the ban on trading with Washington" or whatever?

Just wondering. I find diplo victories to be basically inattainable in my games.

For an AP diplo win every civ must have the AP religion in at least one of their cities. If any civ doesn't have the AP religion in any of his cities, diplo victory is not available. This means you want to spread the AP religion to your friends (friendly civs vote for you, unless they are the second candidate) and to a single city (preferably small: less pop=less votes) of the civs not voting for you.

UN resolutions pop up every X turns (not sure, but I think it'e less than 10 turns on epic). AP resolutions are more erratic and sometimes the AP gets "frozen" and no resolutions pop up for centuries. Usually re-loading the game is enough for me to fix this issue.

Reloading doesn't do crap for me. The AP is erratic by nature. They really should have programmed a regularly occurring vote. Like every 10 turns scaling with game speed. Even if there is nothing that qualifies to be voted on (therefore only displaying the NONE option), there should at least be a looped vote event. Lets face it, there have been times when you (the AP Resident) are at war with a "non-believer" and wanted to declare a worldwide holy war but the option never presented itself. Pretty lame if you ask me. When BTS first came out, that was the one thing I was extra amped about.

Yeah, I have to say that I'm fairly disappointed with what actually lies beyond the sword in BTS. The diplo options aren't that different and the "religious" victory is basically the same thing as a diplo victory, just earlier.

What's more, diplomacy is still limited to the diplomacy screen. It's not like there's a diplomat unit who can do diplomatic things the way spies do espionage things. I like how espionage was developed, but the rest of it seems pretty similar to what came before.

The EP system is cool. However, I'd like to see the option to do a "false flag" operation with my spy (IE a spy mission on your own land that blames another CIV) for reduced War Weariness against that civ for x number of turns. Also, the ability to do a spy mission against Civ X and blame it on Civ Y (to try to insight war between them).

When it comes to diplomacy, the AP should really be overhauled.

Does espionage where you get caught cause you to take a hit diplomatically? Like "-1 You spied on us!"

Sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the leader in question (i think). Sometimes, my spy will get caught in an active mission and there won't be any diplo penalty shown. Sometimes when my spy is just passing through their territory, I'll see a diplo hit for (your spy was caught causing trouble). This might have been fixed in the 3.17 patch, but I don't know since I haven't gotten it yet.

Yeah, me neither. I heard mixed thigns about 3.17.

The odds to receive the -1 diplo hit after one of your spies gets caught are 25% (ESPIONAGE_SPY_REVEAL_IDENTITY_PERCENT) + it does not happen during times of war.

BTW the vote intervals for the AP/UN are "fixed" at 10/6 turns scaled for game speed. But I agree, the lack of a pop up for the AP in situations when not a single resolution is possible lets it appear very erratic. To avoid the hibernation-bug, best get Dresden's unofficial patch.

Dan, do you know how often the Leadership vote (Not Diplomatic Victory, but AP Resident and its UN equivalent) comes up? With the Un it looks like it is once every 3 votes, but with the AP it seems longer.

Another question: does anyone know if the "You voted against us" diplomatic penalty takes effect only if the resolution is passed or whether is applies regardless. In the latter situation you could ferment some discord between AIs if you are in control of the AP/UN. Just put forward a resolution targetted against one player, like reassign city, and then abstain from your own vote. You won't get a penalty, but any other civ that votes for it does.

Every 5th vote will be an election for the Secretary General / AP Resident, this interval is equal for both and controlled by DIPLO_VOTE_SECRETARY_GENERAL_INTERVAL = 4 from GlobalDefines.xml (it functions as a timer counting down from 4 to 0). The above vote intervals 10/6 are given in CIV4VoteSourceInfos.xml.

Every player receives the +2 "You voted for us" / -2 "You voted against us!" immediately after his vote, even before the actual results pop up at the beginning of the next turn, so it is also irrelevant whether the resolution eventually succeeds or fails. If you are the AP Resident you can use this resolution to earn +ves by proposing the vote to assign a rival's city to you but then vote with "NO". Can help to get someone to pleased or even friendly to avoid WFYABTA or eliminate DoW danger. But it is also kind of difficult, since this resolution will only show up if there is a city owned by a voting member in which a full member has the highest amount of culture and both these members are at peace (plus the general requirement must be fulfilled that the AP has at least 3 members). So at the moment of the vote you won't be sharing the AP religion with this rival (it's best to get him into Free Religion temporarily, and of course spiritual leaders are optimal for this kind of manipulative play ...).

I had proposed to include the timer info in the BUG - F8 screen, but the BUG gurus found it too spoilerish and exploitable (and I kind of agree).

And the war vs infidel?

funny, I think of the AP as a way to boost hammers in my cities...the diplo stuff isn't as important, lol

r_rolo1 said:

And the war vs infidel?

Click to expand...

Ok, ok fine I'll weigh in.

Most resolutions require at least 2 full members of the AP religion. Note that full members include people either running the AP religion or the person who has the AP.

Then, anytime one of the full members doesn't have OB/is at war etc with a heathen (someone who has 0 cities with the religion), he can run a resolution to force all other members (full or otherwise) into that action. As it stands, the AP's potential is therefore somewhat limited in this regard.

Note that an exception is the diplo win resolution. You only need one full member - yourself - to get it, but every civ in the world has to have at least one city with the AP religion, and of course you have to get enough votes (that can't all come from you). This is supposedly challenging...but...

If you build the AP in an obscure religion and control its spread, it is BY FAR the easiest victory in the game. Getting 1-2 civs to friendly via THEIR religion or even just no religion and favorite civics is very, very easy. Then you just spread the religion and win instantly.

The snag is that there is a hibernating AP glitch, which DanF mentioned, and that has screwed me multiple times, including a HoF game (which I won later regardless, and it wouldn't have been fast enough either way, but still). It DEFINITELY does NOT occur every 10 turns as intended in some cases (my APG I is another good example, that was horrible. No resolution for 100's of yeas in the post 1000 ADs). The unofficial patch does not allow for MP play, nor is it allowable under HoF or GOTM rules, so I skip it. This is a major oversight but the default 3.17 patch is most convenient for me.

No matter how the coding goes, the AP is way more lame than I was expecting and was a huge letdown.

Hold on, newbie here. You have can pass resolutions in the AP? I've ended up building the AP in most of my games and the only thing i ever voted for was pope. how many civs need to hav the religion to do this whole resolution thing, cuz it sounds pretty cool.

@TMIT

AFAIK, the owner isn't necessary a full member. The owner is always eligible for the win, but that's not the same as being the full member (running AP state religion). Votes for example aren't doubled and this classification *should* apply to other resolutions. At least that's the way I understand it reading the civilopedia.

Another point is declaring on the infidels. According to the civilopedia: "Declare War: Vote to have all members declare war on a voting member, or to declare war on a non-member already at war with any full member. Full members cannot be declared on in this manner."

This states that voting members can be declared, you are saying that they can't. According to this thread it seems you are right: Apostolic question: elegible infidels?

The thread is not conclusive, but it seems that civilopedia has it wrong then. B**y AP palace...

It can be really useful if the continent is of one religion but very divided. I've swayed a lot of critical resolutions with my votes -- continuing a war, giving cities back, etc.

That's pretty rare, though.

This issue is bugging me so I've done some WB testings. Some very systematically and some just partially, this business is really messy. Main setup: my civ with AP state religion, ownership and residency, 3 full members, 2 voting members and 1 infidel.

Declaring war and forcing peace

I've tested all options, me at war and me not at war, full members vs voting members etc...

The summary:

Only infidels can get declared and that's that.

Stop the fighting resolution will only occur if a full member is involved and not against infidels. This just means full vs full and full vs voting. There will be 2 resolutions in the first case and one in the second case to stop the war against the full member. I wonder if there is a difference in AI decision making depending on the chosen resolution. Say Sal and Izzy are two full members in war. Do you call the resolution to stop the war against Izzy or the one to stop the war against Sal?

After that I've changed the setup: what if I don't have AP state religion but still own the palace and have residency?

When other civs are at war, it's all the same like in the first setup. However, things change when I'm at war:

With a full member - only one resolution to stop the war, not 2 anymore
With a voting member - nothing. With AP state religion, there was a resolution to stop the war against me.

This makes sense, I'm not regarded as a full member anymore. There is a twist though, I still have the chance to call for holly war if fighting infidels. In the first setup when infidels and voting members are fighting nothing happens.

OB and trade embargo

I've only used the first setup and tested just a few options. I've noticed that if I don't have OB with one of the full members that the option to OB with all members will appear and cause all borders between all members to open if the resolution passes. If I or some other full member don't have OB with the infidel, there will be an option to start the trade embargo from all members towards the infidel.

DP

Here I also only used the first setup. Giving MT to myself didn't do anything, but gifting it to all civs made the resolution to appear. I suspect it's enough that all pairs can sign DP, that's what happens with members if the resolution passes.

*cough* Dan?

I've never got a Diplo win through the AP, but the UN makes it easy as hell. I guess if it wasn't so bugged up that would be a different story. As is, the AP seems to only be a source of hammers to me. Certainly this isn't what Firaxis intended it to only do.

Once in a while something interesting comes along... but I sure wish it was more predictable.