ALC Game 18: Spain/Isabella

[Winston Hughes]

until recently I never really went crazy going after the AP and would lose getting it more often than not.

Aye, if you don't aim for it from fairly early in the game, then the chances are you'll miss out on the AP more often than not.

Pre-BtS, Theology was rarely a tech I'd bother researching myself - it was one of those 'trade for it later' techs. In fact, I'd often end up missing out the whole religious pathway for a long while. But now the threat from the AP means I no longer feel quite so comfortable in my atheistic beelines, which is generally a good thing.

I'm thinking that the best way to "cure" this cheesiness is to nix the victory condition altogether. It's still a powerful wonder to have with the other aspects.

Yeah, I've been thinking about that too.

There seems to be a twofold problem here:

1) The AP victory is too easy for the human player. It lacks balance with the other victory conditions. Winning that early should not be that easy.

2) If the AI goes for an AP victory, the human can be defeated through no fault of their own (which is never fun).

Trying to figure out a way of balancing this feature for both human and AI players, without making it nigh on impossible to pull off for one or both, has left me thoroughly baffled.

Edit:

@Florian

Maybe you're right, make the victory super-hard - at least it would feel like a real achievement. But a simple worldwide majority would just make it an early UN - if you ask me it should be harder still.

 

[Uncle Istvan]

Commenting on the AP cheesiness, I think that instead of winning, it should be a vote to vassalize all civs w/ that religon. So if all the civs were the same religon, you would win, but missionary tricks wouldn't work, as a civ w/ only one converted city wouldn't be affected.

 

[petey]

One solution would be that if you gift an AI a Caravel, the units in that Caravel are lost. That way, you can't just send Missionaries over to people that you don't have Open Borders with. This doesn't solve the core issue behind the cheesiness of this victory, but it would make it more difficult to do.

 

[Sisiutil]

Perhaps the easiest way to nerf the AP would be to either eliminate the religious victory option or to make it much more difficult to get the required votes.

I think that's my biggest gripe against the current AP victory condition, you can become world leader by being elected by the majority of a minority.

One solution would be that if you gift an AI a Caravel, the units in that Caravel are lost. That way, you can't just send Missionaries over to people that you don't have Open Borders with. This doesn't solve the core issue behind the cheesiness of this victory, but it would make it more difficult to do.

I remember thinking way back, with vanilla, that there should be some sort of "religious victory" option to highlight this significant game feature they introduced in Civ IV. Therefore, I do not want to see the option go away.

However, it needs to be changed. As this game (and countless others several of you have played) showed, it's too easy to accomplish this victory. It's not only too easy for the human player, it's also too easy for the AI (which, as some of you noted, can be frustrating).

Gifting units is part of the game that I like and I'd rather not see it go away. I'd like to see the AI revised so it is aware of the tactic and uses it, but also makes more intelligent decisions about what to do with the Missionary--such as deleting it, or saving it as long as the AI runs Theocracy then using it if and when it switches to Free Religion.

When I first started thinking of a religious victory, I thought it should involve spreading your religion to a certain % of the world's population--similar in concept to the domination victory. Perhaps that should be a prerequisite for the AP diplomatic win: a majority of the world's population must be following your SR, and perhaps only AI civs which have adopted your SR can vote for a diplomatic win candidate--full members, not voting members, in other words. Then and only then can you win an AP diplomatic vote.

 

[ratrangerm]

Sisiutil sums up exactly how I believe the AP diplomatic victory needs to be changed... and it should be changed so that every civ has to vote in order for the diplo victory option to be available. Meaning, if you end up with somebody who doesn't have the chosen religion and that somebody adopted Theocracy, you have to eliminate that somebody to get a shot at an AP diplo victory.

It works both ways, though... if the AI builds the AP, that AI civ can see you as a threat to getting a diplomatic victory and come after you.

And it would certainly eliminate the cheesiness that comes with the AP as it is. Now the AP becomes something that you actually have to implement a bigger strategy than just "spread my religion to one city per civ." It would actually require diplomacy with multiple civs and utilizing it for its other features... if you have one heathen who refuses to convert, and you want that AP victory that badly, then it's time to organize a holy war.

 

[Florian]

Winston,

My idea isn't just an early UN. It's along the lines Sisiutil suggests.

Namely, you need a majority (maybe a 2/3 majority) of all the potential votes in the world, but the only civs that can vote are civs that share your religion. So if there's a civ who might have voted for you for other reasons, but it has a different religion, you don't get their votes to help you reach the required number.

In that regard, it would be harder than the UN. But another consideration might balance that out: namely, when this vote is held, you aren't actually running against anyone, so your co-religionists have no one else to vote for. Unless you've ticked them off, they will be more likely to vote for you than they would have been in a UN election.

The difficulty should lie in 1) Getting civs representing 51% or even 67% of the world's population to adopt your religion, and 2) Remaining the most influential member of that power bloc as you're building it.

Or a slightly different way to do it (and better, I think): the percentage (67% in this case for certain) can be reached by adding together the pop. of all civs that have adopted the AP state religion, and the numbers of believers who live among the infidels. Once that percentage is reached, it will trigger the victory election, in which only the civs with that state religion may vote.

 

[Cornhog]

Maybe you should simply need to spread that religion to 66% or 75% of the global population and THEN win an election.

...well... I shoulda read Florian's post more carefully. I still think that's a simple, effective, albeit unoriginal answer

 

[popejubal]

I think that the AP victory certainly can be cheesy, but in this case, it was not as cheddar-filled as many people seem to imply.

The "easy" AP victory is to switch to a relatively new religion just before the AP is built, spread it to all of your cities and then spread it to one and only one of each AI's cities. That way, you can elect yourself with 2/3 of the votes even if no one else votes for you.

Sisiutil got another Civ to vote for him. That means Pacal wanted Sisiutil to win the game more than Pacal wanted Pacal to win the game. That's not nearly as lactic as people seem to be implying.

I'm not saying that it was Sisiutil's most impressive victory (I think that Japan gets that nod from me), but it was at least better than many people seem to be thinking.

Good game!

 

[Percy]

Sisiutil got another Civ to vote for him. That means Pacal wanted Sisiutil to win the game more than Pacal wanted Pacal to win the game.

That raises the problem of a diplomatic victory...

Anyway, as i pointed out in my post, he only needed that because he actively converted Pacal. If he hadn't, he could have voted himself leader.

 

[Sisiutil]

That raises the problem of a diplomatic victory...

Anyway, as i pointed out in my post, he only needed that because he actively converted Pacal. If he hadn't, he could have voted himself leader.

Actually, Pacal never converted to Christianity, though he was "Friendly" in spite of that. (This is useful information for future reference about a new BtS leader: Pacal is definitely NOT one of the religious nuts. Interesting.)

And while I was definitely able to vote myself AP resident, I lacked enough votes to give myself the AP diplomatic victory. Pacal's votes were required. Mind you, with the expansion I was performing, this might have changed in a few turns if I'd focused solely on growth. Ditto if I had conquered England and had that population's votes as well.

 

[slobberinbear]

Trying not to beat a dead horse here, but I still think the Vassalize and Convert (tm) strategy needs to be tried in conjunction with the AP, then building up the unstoppable jihad of nations converting their enemies one at a time ...

 

[Percy]

Actually, Pacal never converted to Christianity, though he was "Friendly" in spite of that. (This is useful information for future reference about a new BtS leader: Pacal is definitely NOT one of the religious nuts. Interesting.)

And while I was definitely able to vote myself AP resident, I lacked enough votes to give myself the AP diplomatic victory. Pacal's votes were required. Mind you, with the expansion I was performing, this might have changed in a few turns if I'd focused solely on growth. Ditto if I had conquered England and had that population's votes as well.

I didn't express myself properly and so you didn't get my point =)

You did send Christian missionaries to Pacal's cities, am i right? That's what i meant with "convert".
If you had only converted one of his cities, he would have had the same number of votes than the others. And so you would have been able to vote yourself as a religious leader.

Hope that clears it up =)

 

[Sisiutil]

Trying not to beat a dead horse here, but I still think the Vassalize and Convert (tm) strategy needs to be tried in conjunction with the AP, then building up the unstoppable jihad of nations converting their enemies one at a time ...

Well, I think that's the sort of AP victory I was positing above as the preferred, honourable method. You could do it that way, but the game as it is currently built doesn't require it.

I'm not lining up to beat on the Firaxis programmers here, though. They came up with some very enjoyable new features for BtS. I find that in each iteration of the game they put in new features and the fans find exploits they never dreamed of during their on QA testing. Then in later expansion packs and/or patches, they introduce rules changes to close off those exploits and keep the game balanced. Such as how they nullified the CS Slingshot in Warlords, I think it was. So I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that the programmers are paying attention and will close off this loophole in the first BtS patch.

Hope that clears it up =)

Yep, that does, thanks.

 

[Molon Labe]

Dang, you made that look easy. My AP win occured about 250 years later and was tougher to eke out. For a while there I was feeling pretty full of myself because I took out Charlie quicker but I didn't get the Oracle and Liz founded Confucianism. She converted and Pacal did shortly after as well. I ended up with it in one city so converted to keep us friendly.

I did get theology and AP and spread Christianity throughout my empire, and gave it to Liz, Pacal and SB each in their smallest cities. Liz and SB just sat on it, Pacal spread it everywhere. He had a ridiculous amount of votes, almost as many as myself.

In my game Brennus went on a tear and completely wiped Sitting Bull out. It was pretty impressive really because he clearly didn't want a vassal, and just wanted SB gone. Fortunately he kept the Christian city of Poverty Point and so I snuck in my influence. Survy was kind of surly really, because of trading with his worst enemy, Pacal apparently.

Eventually I went free religion so that improved relations with Survy and declared war on Pacal to get his Christian cities as well as to garner favor with Survy. I got open borders, got a missionary in and while Survy abstained, his vote like Brennus and Liz, was negligible. I took three of Pacal's cities and I got the win.

Hardly "diplomatic" so it is a weird victory. I actually want to go for a real diplomatic victory sometime, as soon as I can figure out how to do so. The times I've won diplomatic, it's because I've eliminated rivals, vassaled others and decimated the populations of anyone left. Now I want to figure out how to win diplomatic without practicing genocide and expanding by the sword.

 

[carl corey]

I'm not lining up to beat on the Firaxis programmers here, though. They came up with some very enjoyable new features for BtS. I find that in each iteration of the game they put in new features and the fans find exploits they never dreamed of during their on QA testing. Then in later expansion packs and/or patches, they introduce rules changes to close off those exploits and keep the game balanced. Such as how they nullified the CS Slingshot in Warlords, I think it was. So I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that the programmers are paying attention and will close off this loophole in the first BtS patch.

Same here. Won't stop me from criticizing what I think could be considered as exploits, but I'll still play the game even with a few errors like that in it. As is most probable they won't make another add-on, so I hope they'll take some time to concentrate on patching this one.