AP Guantlet I: Isabella
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BornSlippy
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I can answer that! I can answer that! *waves hand in air eagerly*
It's because the AP gives +1 bonus hammer to all religious buildings of the religion the AP is in! So a Hindu temple built when the AP is hindu would be +1 happy +1 hammer!
*beams with pride*
It's because the AP gives +1 bonus hammer to all religious buildings of the religion the AP is in! So a Hindu temple built when the AP is hindu would be +1 happy +1 hammer!
*beams with pride*
Bleys
Deity
Exactly Slip (except its +2 hammers per building). Unlike other Wonders that give bonuses ONLY to the Civ that builds it (+2 gold per religious building for the Spiral Minaret, +2 beakers per for the University of Sankore), the AP gives +2 hammers to every single one of its religions buildings in the game, for all players (other than those who defy resolutions, that is). So if the AP is Hindu, and Saladin is Hindu, all his Hindu buildings will get the +2 hammers, regardless of who builds the AP.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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APG: Isabella Part ONE - up through 130 AD
As suggested, we settle 1W to pick up the extra flood plains. The peaks there would indeed make using them hard for other cities, plus we don't appear to be losing any crucial resources to gain floodplains. Expansive is just the trait for this sort of thing.
We scout around with the warrior and it gets eaten
. It appears we're pretty far south as immediately below us is some nice tundra 
.
Opening techs are agriculture (to farm rice/FP), then to bronze working for some chopping. After that we go pottery and writing. Starting with mysticism, we decided to chop out stonehenge (one of two early wonders that can pop us a prophet). We already have it in the shot below:
Here's a visual on the tech path through 2000 BC:
From this point on we continue to settle the lands around us, gravitating towards first a 2x deer sheep city by a river (eventually working this into a GP farm perhaps), and a gold city to the NE that is also on a river near livestock. We have bronze and even have axemen but the barbs threatened the southern city pretty badly. We used a worker to bait the archer to kill it and move away from the city before it took the city defended by only an injured warrior...the ploy worked (workers are cheaper than settlers and a warrior, especially for expansive!). We are running scientists for early research to keep up, though we are building cottages also. Flood plains are great for this. We do, however, stop running scientists for 2 turns, so that the stonehenge capitol does not get overtaken in GPP, we want a prophet! Which we get for:
We switch to christianity and OR, immediately beginning to build the AP in Madrid. We also immediately cancel OB with China, since they don't have a religion. Unfortunately, it spreads there anyway
. This is TERRIBLE luck, and will make this game a lot harder early on. I'm now running a religion that isn't unique. In fact, china wins AP chair 
. Whats worse, somehow nobody is Buddhist, but that and Judaism (which only 1 weak civ is running) are the only other religions in my borders. Perhaps the only good news is that China running Christianity is going to allow for some religious diversity, and they'll probably go after someone else rather than me 
.
Completed AP in AD 115. Here's a look at my lands a few turns later, after brokering Theology around:
And finally a quick look at the tech screen at the time. Note that the reason they don't want to trade those techs is largely NOT due to dislike or WFYABTA, but actually because of AI monopoly tendencies, which means I have some tech trades coming shortly that should help.
I have room to backfill a few cities, and some of them would be ok. HOWEVER, considering the religion situation I'm a little nervous. My power rating is 3rd behind China and I think HC, but the 3 of us are very close (I've been making axes and recently swords). HC is teching decently and looks like he's going to be pretty strong. I'm pretty sure he founded more than one religion. I'm thinking along the lines of hitting him ASAP with swords axes, hoping to take 1-3 cities (including Cuzco) before he can get longbows.
The reason I wish to hit quickly is because I have a scientist and am a decent ways down through the paper tech. I'm only running scientist specialists now and should get yet another one after that. I can bulb pretty deep into the liberalism path and even trade to keep parity. However, I want more cities and I do NOT want HC going medieval on me. China going Christian also reduces the odds I'll get back attacked, as they border me pretty heavily. I'll check relations carefully before going this route, but it seems to make sense.
Final note: In order to win AP diplo, it's likely that I'll have to backstab China. If I do not, it is unlikely that I'll be able to get the kind of votes I need. For now though, I'll have to use the AP a bit more conventionally.
Edit: Considering the circumstances, does anyone still feel the AP win would be cheesy here. You see some obvious consequences for going for it early. IMO the game looks winnable, but was it easier than other methods? We'll see. Anyway this is a live game so I'm open to suggestions, especially about whether to go for HC now or later (I'm heavily leaning on now).
As suggested, we settle 1W to pick up the extra flood plains. The peaks there would indeed make using them hard for other cities, plus we don't appear to be losing any crucial resources to gain floodplains. Expansive is just the trait for this sort of thing.
We scout around with the warrior and it gets eaten
. It appears we're pretty far south as immediately below us is some nice tundra .Opening techs are agriculture (to farm rice/FP), then to bronze working for some chopping. After that we go pottery and writing. Starting with mysticism, we decided to chop out stonehenge (one of two early wonders that can pop us a prophet). We already have it in the shot below:
Here's a visual on the tech path through 2000 BC:
From this point on we continue to settle the lands around us, gravitating towards first a 2x deer sheep city by a river (eventually working this into a GP farm perhaps), and a gold city to the NE that is also on a river near livestock. We have bronze and even have axemen but the barbs threatened the southern city pretty badly. We used a worker to bait the archer to kill it and move away from the city before it took the city defended by only an injured warrior...the ploy worked (workers are cheaper than settlers and a warrior, especially for expansive!). We are running scientists for early research to keep up, though we are building cottages also. Flood plains are great for this. We do, however, stop running scientists for 2 turns, so that the stonehenge capitol does not get overtaken in GPP, we want a prophet! Which we get for:
We switch to christianity and OR, immediately beginning to build the AP in Madrid. We also immediately cancel OB with China, since they don't have a religion. Unfortunately, it spreads there anyway
. This is TERRIBLE luck, and will make this game a lot harder early on. I'm now running a religion that isn't unique. In fact, china wins AP chair . Whats worse, somehow nobody is Buddhist, but that and Judaism (which only 1 weak civ is running) are the only other religions in my borders. Perhaps the only good news is that China running Christianity is going to allow for some religious diversity, and they'll probably go after someone else rather than me .Completed AP in AD 115. Here's a look at my lands a few turns later, after brokering Theology around:
And finally a quick look at the tech screen at the time. Note that the reason they don't want to trade those techs is largely NOT due to dislike or WFYABTA, but actually because of AI monopoly tendencies, which means I have some tech trades coming shortly that should help.
I have room to backfill a few cities, and some of them would be ok. HOWEVER, considering the religion situation I'm a little nervous. My power rating is 3rd behind China and I think HC, but the 3 of us are very close (I've been making axes and recently swords). HC is teching decently and looks like he's going to be pretty strong. I'm pretty sure he founded more than one religion. I'm thinking along the lines of hitting him ASAP with swords axes, hoping to take 1-3 cities (including Cuzco) before he can get longbows.
The reason I wish to hit quickly is because I have a scientist and am a decent ways down through the paper tech. I'm only running scientist specialists now and should get yet another one after that. I can bulb pretty deep into the liberalism path and even trade to keep parity. However, I want more cities and I do NOT want HC going medieval on me. China going Christian also reduces the odds I'll get back attacked, as they border me pretty heavily. I'll check relations carefully before going this route, but it seems to make sense.
Final note: In order to win AP diplo, it's likely that I'll have to backstab China. If I do not, it is unlikely that I'll be able to get the kind of votes I need. For now though, I'll have to use the AP a bit more conventionally.
Edit: Considering the circumstances, does anyone still feel the AP win would be cheesy here
. You see some obvious consequences for going for it early. IMO the game looks winnable, but was it easier than other methods? We'll see. Anyway this is a live game so I'm open to suggestions, especially about whether to go for HC now or later (I'm heavily leaning on now).
TheMeInTeam
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I tend to wind up with more screen shots as the games go on. The only thing I really left out was trades I guess. I actually was able to pick up a lot of things (including math!) for a combination of monotheism and another random tech. Later on theology served a similar purpose, helping me grab currency and once they stops "not wanting to trade it away yet", probably code of laws also. I'm likely to switch into caste to get more scientists going in my deer/sheep city, if I can pop 2 more GS's I'll run away with the lib race.
I don't mind including more detail of course (I type and play quickly, so including more would only be a very marginal increase in time for me), but I often don't know what else the readers would want me to include.
Lucky Charms
The Contender
Well played, though was it the best move to immediately switch into Christianity upon reception, you now have five possible enemies due to the heathen religion factor?
If you wish to go into more detail, descriptions of city sites, technology paths and trades, including the reasons for them, would certainly be of great interest.
Keep up the good work.
If you wish to go into more detail, descriptions of city sites, technology paths and trades, including the reasons for them, would certainly be of great interest.
Keep up the good work.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Well, I switched to Christianity immediately in order to build the AP in it (you have to be running a state religion to build it). The IDEA was to be the only holder of the AP religion, which tanked due to the relatively rare occurrence of China having no religion yet, and it INSTANTLY spreading to him upon being founded, with the holy city right on his borders instead of one of my other cities. USUALLY, after building it I'd adopt a dominating religion and keep the AP uniquely mine until I'm ready to go for a diplo win. On this map, there doesn't appear to be such a thing. What's worse, my religious alternatives are: none
) hit and can't use OR), Christianity (my current, all but China see me as heathen), Buddhist (suicide - nobody is running that), or Judaism (only Justinian is running that, and he's not an immediate neighbor).I actually did explain the tech path. I went ag to bronze to writing, then down the religious path to bulb theology. I'm now headed to lib via paper using that route, all of which I actually did mention
. In future segments I'll also indicate trades, whether or not I go with screen shots for them I'll at least say who I traded with and for what. I'll also include city screen shots later. For now I'll just update them in text:Madrid: Stonehenge, Apostolic Palace, Granary, Library, Barracks
Barcelona: Granary, Library, Barracks, Christian Temple
Seville: Granary, Library, Barracks, will start on Christian Temple + monastary after military buildup
NE City (I forget the name and it's blocked): Granary, Library, Barracks
Toledo: Granary
I finished the AP very, very recently and will make christian religious buildings a priority shortly for the hammer bonus.
Final note: Civics are HR, Default, Slavery, default, OR.
I really wish I'd gotten hinduism or confucianism in my borders, I'd be running Confuc. for sure if I did, and prepping an attack on China to get those christian cities under my control. As it stands, I don't think I can afford to hit China, and HC isn't really a missionary spread spammer, so I think I'm going to have to go after them first...I'll be vulnerable later if I beeline liberalism.
Believe me, if in the course of the next segment I get a better religion to run into my hands, I'll run it. For now, I'm just relying on troop spam to prevent DoWs. (which is fine because I intend to USE them soon anyhow). After all, I'm far from the only heathen, and the heathens lower in score are sitting ducks relative to me in power rating...
BornSlippy
Warlord
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Here's a slightly daft question, perhaps spun off my lack of mathematic skills: Why are 2 hammers so damn important? Even if it's 4 with temple/mon? I think I know the answer (cumulative effect in addition to the other nice bonuses), but I'd like to hear it from you.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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They aren't *that* important, and they actually matter less to me than other players in terms of an AI getting them. Still, both the temple and the monastery have worthy benefits on their own (the temple in virtually every city, and the monastery in just the kinds of cities that tend to be hammer-poor). 4 (and potentially 6, with the cathedral) extra hammers without using pop for them is a nice boost. Those all go through the multipliers, so later on in the game (especially if you go through assembly line before scientific method), your best cities could be getting those 4-6 hammers multiplied into 8-12+.
Another way of looking at it that's more simplified is just to say that once you've got these 2 buildings, you have a plains mine in addition to the normal benefits. Every little bit helps, especially if this lets you get a market/university/whatever out that much faster as they become available.
The AP religion is much more important as a diplomatic/victory tool though. To me the hammers are just icing, although it's true there's no reason to give them to unfriendly AIs, who will then have both the hammers and annoying votes to bring against you.
Another way of looking at it that's more simplified is just to say that once you've got these 2 buildings, you have a plains mine in addition to the normal benefits. Every little bit helps, especially if this lets you get a market/university/whatever out that much faster as they become available.
The AP religion is much more important as a diplomatic/victory tool though. To me the hammers are just icing, although it's true there's no reason to give them to unfriendly AIs, who will then have both the hammers and annoying votes to bring against you.
Lucky Charms
The Contender
Forgive me for not having a complete knowledge of the Apostolic Palace, I did not know that a state religion was required for its construction, I have yet to purchase Beyond The Sword. This is also the reason I cannot look at the save.
You state you are gearing up for war, I would guess it to be Huayna? He is ripe for the taking as I am sure a player of your calibre has observed, the capital is merely four tiles from neutral territory, an easy march with hills all the way.
Being second in score and the tech leader at this relatively early stage, unless the globe condemns you for your heresy, I would guess this game to be won already.
You state you are gearing up for war, I would guess it to be Huayna? He is ripe for the taking as I am sure a player of your calibre has observed, the capital is merely four tiles from neutral territory, an easy march with hills all the way.
Being second in score and the tech leader at this relatively early stage, unless the globe condemns you for your heresy, I would guess this game to be won already.
TheMeInTeam
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The Incans are my target, but in the interest of now blowing through these games entirely in 1 day I'm holding off a bit before I do it, for suggestions also . I still have plenty of room to improve...for example I was building a worker up there @ pop 3 with 1 turn for growth 
.
I just hope I can get 3 or so Incan cities (including his holy city) without enduring a dogpile. Korea, the other civ using his religion, isn't particularly warlike, but if my power drops too much the Hindu block might pick me instead of China or Justinian.
In terms of tech, I'd say I'm more at parity than the leader. Nevertheless, I'm ok with that because in terms of the liberalism race at least I'm in good shape.
. I still have plenty of room to improve...for example I was building a worker up there @ pop 3 with 1 turn for growth .I just hope I can get 3 or so Incan cities (including his holy city) without enduring a dogpile. Korea, the other civ using his religion, isn't particularly warlike, but if my power drops too much the Hindu block might pick me instead of China or Justinian.
In terms of tech, I'd say I'm more at parity than the leader
. Nevertheless, I'm ok with that because in terms of the liberalism race at least I'm in good shape.
TheMeInTeam
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Apologies on the slow update, I might have seriously found a glitch in the AP. We're talking from 1480 to 1722 nothing has come up...not even the vote for chair.
TheMeInTeam
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Round 2: Isabella encounters the ultimate foe: AP GLITCH!
Sorry guys, it looks like the first game in the series will tank. I don't think I can get get an AP win, and I didn't save before I caused the problem. I'll write the update. See what you guys think:
When we left off I was massing on the Incan border, preparing to take them out before they became a problem. However, a turn of events caused me to rethink my strategy!
I swapped into confuc after a few turns of spreading it to the rest of my cities. Now China is a sitting duck heathen. I would be abusing that fact obscenely.
A tech trade:
Aforementioned swap of religions:
Beelining Liberalism, using tech trades to stay up otherwise:
Finally, I catch a break, as some wars break out:
Unfortunately, the AP actually forced me into war with Justinian, along with Korea for a super dogpile on him. That's ok. More distractions the better.
And I'm ready for China:
SAME TURN:
China stages a counter offensive of a joke sort on my northern border. Nothing spiritual + slavery can't handle:
To end the first war after taking 2 cities:
Chinese lands. Basically my strategy in taking out china was to control the AP completely again. If I can bump him out of christianity or kill him then I am the only member eligible for a diplo win. Now that I'm in Confucianism, I have friends to vote for me also. China's lands:
More trades:
Deficit research off of capture money let me to win liberalism:
I catch a bad break off the AP. Unfortunately this game is more a walkthrough on how the AP can screw you.
More Trades:
The city the AP gave back, along with the other southern city, is cut off. We prepare to do even more damage to the chinese:
To appease the masses:
We find that the Byzantines are in theocracy:
The war on China continued for a while then I took peace for money to regroup. They try to AP me out of a city, yeah right Qin. I have your pop now. Resolution...FAILS
I decide to put up a distraction for China while I heal and build more troops:
And here we go again, 3rd war with China:
Something kind of cool happens. The Koreans/Incans both go free religion, AND STAY FRIENDLY. I'd captured a Hindu city, so guess what? I go hindu. I will have only 1 enemy after the war with china: the weak byzantines!
China would capitulate but I didn't want to deal with nonsense just to have a 1 city vassal:
And finally, the winning moves:
I made sure virtually every korean city had the religion. Everyone else but HC (who was clearly spreading religions massively, so I delayed) and Justinian had Christianity already. The final moves:
Xian had the religion. Convenient.
OK GUYS. This is the cutoff point for this part. After I killed China, a chair vote came up for the Apostolic Palace. I voted for myself, the only eligible person for chair. I then switched to Hindu that turn, not thinking anything of it. That was around 1480 AD. 115 years later, there's still no chair winner?
So if you're interested in AP wins, I already won, but the game glitched. I've played through to nearly 1800 AD. It's not a matter of having the votes, THE ELECTION FOR CHAIR NEVER OCCURS. I OWN THE AP. I DO NOT HAVE MASS MEDIA. NO MATTER WHAT ELSE HAPPENS, THAT VOTE SHOULD COME UP MORE THAN ONCE IN 300 YEARS/ 100+ turns!
If it had, I win. So enjoy that win, even though the game wants to pretend I didn't...
Sorry guys, it looks like the first game in the series will tank. I don't think I can get get an AP win, and I didn't save before I caused the problem. I'll write the update. See what you guys think:
When we left off I was massing on the Incan border, preparing to take them out before they became a problem. However, a turn of events caused me to rethink my strategy!
I swapped into confuc after a few turns of spreading it to the rest of my cities. Now China is a sitting duck heathen. I would be abusing that fact obscenely.
A tech trade:
Aforementioned swap of religions:
Beelining Liberalism, using tech trades to stay up otherwise:
Finally, I catch a break, as some wars break out:
Unfortunately, the AP actually forced me into war with Justinian, along with Korea for a super dogpile on him. That's ok. More distractions the better.
And I'm ready for China:
SAME TURN:
China stages a counter offensive of a joke sort on my northern border. Nothing spiritual + slavery can't handle:
To end the first war after taking 2 cities:
Chinese lands. Basically my strategy in taking out china was to control the AP completely again. If I can bump him out of christianity or kill him then I am the only member eligible for a diplo win. Now that I'm in Confucianism, I have friends to vote for me also. China's lands:
More trades:
Deficit research off of capture money let me to win liberalism:
I catch a bad break off the AP. Unfortunately this game is more a walkthrough on how the AP can screw you
.More Trades:
The city the AP gave back, along with the other southern city, is cut off. We prepare to do even more damage to the chinese:
To appease the masses:
We find that the Byzantines are in theocracy:
The war on China continued for a while then I took peace for money to regroup. They try to AP me out of a city, yeah right Qin. I have your pop now. Resolution...FAILS
I decide to put up a distraction for China while I heal and build more troops:
And here we go again, 3rd war with China:
Something kind of cool happens. The Koreans/Incans both go free religion, AND STAY FRIENDLY. I'd captured a Hindu city, so guess what? I go hindu. I will have only 1 enemy after the war with china: the weak byzantines!
China would capitulate but I didn't want to deal with nonsense just to have a 1 city vassal:
And finally, the winning moves:
I made sure virtually every korean city had the religion. Everyone else but HC (who was clearly spreading religions massively, so I delayed) and Justinian had Christianity already. The final moves:
Xian had the religion. Convenient.
OK GUYS. This is the cutoff point for this part. After I killed China, a chair vote came up for the Apostolic Palace. I voted for myself, the only eligible person for chair. I then switched to Hindu that turn, not thinking anything of it. That was around 1480 AD. 115 years later, there's still no chair winner?
So if you're interested in AP wins, I already won, but the game glitched. I've played through to nearly 1800 AD. It's not a matter of having the votes, THE ELECTION FOR CHAIR NEVER OCCURS. I OWN THE AP. I DO NOT HAVE MASS MEDIA. NO MATTER WHAT ELSE HAPPENS, THAT VOTE SHOULD COME UP MORE THAN ONCE IN 300 YEARS/ 100+ turns!
If it had, I win. So enjoy that win, even though the game wants to pretend I didn't...
TheMeInTeam
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Round 3: Fighting, Glitches, Wrath!
So, one of my arguments is that the AP victories aren't actually BS. This is because usually putting yourself in an AP victory position means you can win the other victory types too. So, Izzy presses on, hoping to prove something via her religious ways. Warring and running all those low beakers you saw set me back, but crushing china obviously left me with the most pop/land on the map, not to mention everyone but Justinian at friendly or enough that they can't declare. Speaking of byzantine:
I get declared on. That's ok because I'm massing troops. If the Byzantine empire desires being wiped off the map, I will oblige.
I fight him back and take peace, building up my economy and troops:
I take the war to HIM. I leave the Christian city just in case the AP ever feels like...you know...not cheating me out of an AP win. Maybe not? OK.
I'm actually a little past this point. The Byzantines are not liked by anyone. They're the only ones with enough negative diplo to declare on me, and they're reeling as my conquistadors finally match their knight UUs, I pick up rifles/cavalry, and start pushing them back.
I think the game is in the late 1700's. There's still been zero votes for an AP chair. Not to mention, the results from the one several hundred years ago have yet to be announced.
IMO, that situation constituted a reload, but sadly I lacked a save or autosave before the problem occurred...so I might as well just blast the crap out of some of these civs and push for domination. You guys already saw how to win AP if the game doesn't cheat/bug to hell, so I guess I'll just finish with domination in round 4 and move on to APG II.
So, one of my arguments is that the AP victories aren't actually BS. This is because usually putting yourself in an AP victory position means you can win the other victory types too. So, Izzy presses on, hoping to prove something via her religious ways. Warring and running all those low beakers you saw set me back, but crushing china obviously left me with the most pop/land on the map, not to mention everyone but Justinian at friendly or enough that they can't declare. Speaking of byzantine:
I get declared on. That's ok because I'm massing troops. If the Byzantine empire desires being wiped off the map, I will oblige.
I fight him back and take peace, building up my economy and troops:
I take the war to HIM. I leave the Christian city just in case the AP ever feels like...you know...not cheating me out of an AP win. Maybe not? OK.
I'm actually a little past this point. The Byzantines are not liked by anyone. They're the only ones with enough negative diplo to declare on me, and they're reeling as my conquistadors finally match their knight UUs, I pick up rifles/cavalry, and start pushing them back.
I think the game is in the late 1700's. There's still been zero votes for an AP chair. Not to mention, the results from the one several hundred years ago have yet to be announced
.IMO, that situation constituted a reload, but sadly I lacked a save or autosave before the problem occurred...so I might as well just blast the crap out of some of these civs and push for domination. You guys already saw how to win AP if the game doesn't cheat/bug to hell, so I guess I'll just finish with domination in round 4 and move on to APG II.
TheMeInTeam
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Round IV: AP Returns after a half-millennia hiatus, Izzy Takes it to the Heathens
Well, for future reference, apparently reloading the game is what is actually needed. I'd closed Civ 4 to do the reports above, then when I reopened it following my 1760 AD save:
That's right! TWO turns after loading my save, I got the chair vote. The AP victory vote came afterwards...but the world had changed. Justinian and Wang Kon vassaled to Charlemagne, HC used his free religion and 4 religions to press for culture, while Cyrus jumped between being HC's vassal or not.
Speaking of HC, he's the obvious problem with the above vote. Wang and Cyrus are both borderline friendly and at this point I decided to gift them resources for the cute +1 "we appreciated the years you have supplied us with resources". A handy diplo bonus when close to enough votes!
It won't work on HC, who is cautious. So, instead of invading him around 300 AD or so, we FINALLY are planning an attack on him for REAL.
Here's my prep for him. Took a golden age and some hardcore teching to get this army, but land is power x3, right? I grinned when holding alt and clicking on him though, and here's why:
Rifles SUCK against infantry and artillery. Especially when the infantry outnumber the former. 7 years later:
He was ready to capitulate. I LEARNED NOT TO ACCEPT CAPITULATION WHEN DEPENDING ON A POWERFUL WARMONGER FOR PEACE. In other words, I wasn't going to accept capitulation for fear of the HRE DoWing me at friendly thanks to averaging his diplo with HC. I just pressed on.
Whoops. Looks like I managed an AP win after all. It took a bit longer than it should have, but I managed despite a 500 year hiatus for the stupid AP. I smiled when I got my resolutions back though. When I control the AP, I know I can win with it, even if there needs to be some bloodshed 
Score:
I'll say this now: unless you win very, very early or are close to domination when triggering it, the AP wins won't get you spectacular scores. We're not showcasing scores here, we're showcasing the AP.
Recap:
- We built stonehenge while REXing, in order to bulb Theology to get the AP.
- We got some back luck, having the AP religion spread to another AI who adopted it, a rare occurrence indeed.
- Just before we felt we were trapped in the AP religion or other bad ones, we had a useful one spread to us, allowing for a backstabbing dogpile on the AI who had the AP religion, ultimately resulting in its elimination.
- We switched religions to keep diplo high, eventually taking advantage of the situation for further warfare expansion until despite numerous problems, we had enough votes to win via the AP.
IMO, the easiest AP maps come from continents, hemispheres, or archipelago. The hardest is probably isolation, with pangaea a close second. It's doable on all maps however!
Any suggestions for the next leader?
Well, for future reference, apparently reloading the game is what is actually needed
. I'd closed Civ 4 to do the reports above, then when I reopened it following my 1760 AD save:That's right! TWO turns after loading my save, I got the chair vote. The AP victory vote came afterwards...but the world had changed. Justinian and Wang Kon vassaled to Charlemagne, HC used his free religion and 4 religions to press for culture, while Cyrus jumped between being HC's vassal or not.
Speaking of HC, he's the obvious problem with the above vote. Wang and Cyrus are both borderline friendly and at this point I decided to gift them resources for the cute +1 "we appreciated the years you have supplied us with resources". A handy diplo bonus when close to enough votes!
It won't work on HC, who is cautious. So, instead of invading him around 300 AD or so, we FINALLY are planning an attack on him for REAL.
Here's my prep for him. Took a golden age and some hardcore teching to get this army, but land is power x3, right? I grinned when holding alt and clicking on him though, and here's why:
Rifles SUCK against infantry and artillery. Especially when the infantry outnumber the former. 7 years later:
He was ready to capitulate. I LEARNED NOT TO ACCEPT CAPITULATION WHEN DEPENDING ON A POWERFUL WARMONGER FOR PEACE. In other words, I wasn't going to accept capitulation for fear of the HRE DoWing me at friendly thanks to averaging his diplo with HC. I just pressed on.
Whoops
. Looks like I managed an AP win after all. It took a bit longer than it should have, but I managed despite a 500 year hiatus for the stupid AP. I smiled when I got my resolutions back though. When I control the AP, I know I can win with it, even if there needs to be some bloodshed Score:
I'll say this now: unless you win very, very early or are close to domination when triggering it, the AP wins won't get you spectacular scores. We're not showcasing scores here, we're showcasing the AP
.Recap:
- We built stonehenge while REXing, in order to bulb Theology to get the AP.
- We got some back luck, having the AP religion spread to another AI who adopted it, a rare occurrence indeed.
- Just before we felt we were trapped in the AP religion or other bad ones, we had a useful one spread to us, allowing for a backstabbing dogpile on the AI who had the AP religion, ultimately resulting in its elimination.
- We switched religions to keep diplo high, eventually taking advantage of the situation for further warfare expansion until despite numerous problems, we had enough votes to win via the AP.
IMO, the easiest AP maps come from continents, hemispheres, or archipelago. The hardest is probably isolation, with pangaea a close second. It's doable on all maps however!
Any suggestions for the next leader?
TheMeInTeam,
Thank you for that write-up. While the Diplomacy tactics of the game don't confuse me, the Diplomatic Win does. This was a nice game for me to follow. I can often only keep people off my back, not bribe them into friendship, unless they have my own religion from the start. I had forgotten about many of the diplomatic bonuses you listed (the resources one, for example!) and usually just bribe the AI with techs and gold, which will NOT net me the "we appreciate the years you've supplied us with resources" bonus. Oops!
I can say, showcasing your trades is a big help for me! Only recently did I learn the fine art of trading with the AI. Before I valued beakers as equal, and gold as fluff, or I saw each happiness resource as X gold per turn, and health resources an X/2 per turn. Oh no no no. I learned it's far more complicated than that, and that picture showing you trading technologies, a DoW, AND a world map emphasizes the complexity of trading with the AI beautifully. I do have a few questions for you:
I notice you basically bee-lined for Liberalism after a while, only taking Nationhood from it. If I remember correctly, Nationhood is the same number of Beakers as Liberalism. Was you so close that you couldn't have teched something else while "holding off" the Liberalism to pop a higher beaker technology?
In my mind Priting Press have been the superior choice for a Cottage Economy, however you may recall me saying that I don't understand Cottage Economies, so perhaps you can chalk that blunder up to me not understanding the CE's! Regadless, why did you choose Nationhood over Printing Press?
Of course the bee-line ended up working out very well for your empire, as it gained some noteworthy technologies out of the trads you made from your "advanced techs." However how did you keep the AI from spreading these all around? Are you running no tech brokering by chance? Or do you check the AI to see what they will trade periodically? If periodically, how many turns do you wait between checking for the availability of new techs?
Thanks again for the fun write-up. And I appreciate all the extra screen-shots. They make things easier to understand.
Thank you for that write-up. While the Diplomacy tactics of the game don't confuse me, the Diplomatic Win does. This was a nice game for me to follow. I can often only keep people off my back, not bribe them into friendship, unless they have my own religion from the start. I had forgotten about many of the diplomatic bonuses you listed (the resources one, for example!) and usually just bribe the AI with techs and gold, which will NOT net me the "we appreciate the years you've supplied us with resources" bonus. Oops!
I can say, showcasing your trades is a big help for me! Only recently did I learn the fine art of trading with the AI. Before I valued beakers as equal, and gold as fluff, or I saw each happiness resource as X gold per turn, and health resources an X/2 per turn. Oh no no no. I learned it's far more complicated than that, and that picture showing you trading technologies, a DoW, AND a world map emphasizes the complexity of trading with the AI beautifully. I do have a few questions for you:
I notice you basically bee-lined for Liberalism after a while, only taking Nationhood from it. If I remember correctly, Nationhood is the same number of Beakers as Liberalism. Was you so close that you couldn't have teched something else while "holding off" the Liberalism to pop a higher beaker technology?
In my mind Priting Press have been the superior choice for a Cottage Economy, however you may recall me saying that I don't understand Cottage Economies, so perhaps you can chalk that blunder up to me not understanding the CE's!
Regadless, why did you choose Nationhood over Printing Press?Of course the bee-line ended up working out very well for your empire, as it gained some noteworthy technologies out of the trads you made from your "advanced techs." However how did you keep the AI from spreading these all around? Are you running no tech brokering by chance? Or do you check the AI to see what they will trade periodically? If periodically, how many turns do you wait between checking for the availability of new techs?
Thanks again for the fun write-up. And I appreciate all the extra screen-shots. They make things easier to understand.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
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- 27,989
First off, on taking liberalism early:
You guessed it. While trading around education and such to get military techs to invade China, I was keeping up in tech at the expense of nudging the AIs closer to liberalism. I deliberately held off on philosophy for the AIs that had education, but towards the end I had to use deficit research to go for lib, and I wasn't the only person who could research it
. This made me nervous so I just took it to be on the safe side.
Edit: Don't shun trades of weaker techs for good sums of gold. Gold can fund deficit research, and that can often be the difference in tight research races, or get you to that key military/tradeable tech sooner. Gold can = beakers, and if you have strong beaker multipliers like libraries/universities its impact can be significant.
Now, why nationalism? Well, it's the most beaker heavy tech available then, but more importantly, ZERO AIs had it (kind of surprising, sometimes they beeline it). One of the AIs had PP already. I wanted a beaker-heavy tech because essentially this let me trade for almost EVERYTHING I didn't have at the time. Further pushing the favor towards nationalism is that while I was building cottages and working them, probably more than half of my research through most of the pre-lib tech race was coming off (not-rep!) scientists and bulbing. The BPT was actually quite weak, pretty much trading was the only thing that kept "effective BPT" viable. At the time I could have taken PP, I only had a handful of villages/towns that would have seen benefit, and was not planning on running bureaucracy regardless. Any remaining doubt I had was squelched by the fact that Izzy is spiritual and nationalism opens up drafting.
So was this a CE or SE? Later on in the game, clearly a CE. Early on? I'd say a NE (aka "no economy".
I click on the diplo info screen every couple of turns and just look in the general area of the "will trade" column. It takes about 1-2 seconds to see if there's something new there. If there is, I'll look more carefully see what it actually is and whether I can/want to get it.
How do I keep the AI's from brokering techs around? AI tendencies. I was using standard settings - tech brokering was allowed (and I took advantage of it for my own benefit actually)
For example: AIs only trade to AIs with something to give them. That means a sufficiently backward AI that lacks anything of value to give won't get any techs...it has to tech them the hard way. The other consideration is a bit more touch and go because it depends on knowledge of leader personalities (which I'm not 100% with yet). Basically, AIs also require a threshold of diplo with another AI to trade. Note that I made tons of trades, but after I decided to attack China, I shunned them badly. They were also religious heathens (A side effect of what was otherwise an early mistake by me). What this amounted to is that while I was repeatedly warring with them, most of the rest of the world (with the exception of Justinian, who was also getting slapped around a bit in war) was teching past me. HOWEVER, China lacked gunpowder for almost the entire time I fought them, only getting it with about 2 cities left. This is because the AIs did not want to trade with the heathen, allowing me to pick off the backwards guy!
Later on the land advantage let me catch up to an extent, though admittedly it'd have taken me longer to get a military tech lead if the Incans didn't decide to fall into idiocy and go for a culture win (then again, if they didn't do that they'd have not spread christianity all over, and then I'd have won diplo without needing to attack them).
Even from just the screen shots, you can see that my game is still full of micro errors and mistakes. My strategy can often overcome them, but I try to make fewer every game also!
You guessed it. While trading around education and such to get military techs to invade China, I was keeping up in tech at the expense of nudging the AIs closer to liberalism. I deliberately held off on philosophy for the AIs that had education, but towards the end I had to use deficit research to go for lib, and I wasn't the only person who could research it
. This made me nervous so I just took it to be on the safe side.Edit: Don't shun trades of weaker techs for good sums of gold. Gold can fund deficit research, and that can often be the difference in tight research races, or get you to that key military/tradeable tech sooner. Gold can = beakers, and if you have strong beaker multipliers like libraries/universities its impact can be significant.
Now, why nationalism? Well, it's the most beaker heavy tech available then, but more importantly, ZERO AIs had it (kind of surprising, sometimes they beeline it). One of the AIs had PP already. I wanted a beaker-heavy tech because essentially this let me trade for almost EVERYTHING I didn't have at the time. Further pushing the favor towards nationalism is that while I was building cottages and working them, probably more than half of my research through most of the pre-lib tech race was coming off (not-rep!) scientists and bulbing. The BPT was actually quite weak, pretty much trading was the only thing that kept "effective BPT" viable. At the time I could have taken PP, I only had a handful of villages/towns that would have seen benefit, and was not planning on running bureaucracy regardless. Any remaining doubt I had was squelched by the fact that Izzy is spiritual and nationalism opens up drafting
.So was this a CE or SE? Later on in the game, clearly a CE. Early on? I'd say a NE (aka "no economy"
.I click on the diplo info screen every couple of turns and just look in the general area of the "will trade" column. It takes about 1-2 seconds to see if there's something new there. If there is, I'll look more carefully see what it actually is and whether I can/want to get it.
How do I keep the AI's from brokering techs around? AI tendencies. I was using standard settings - tech brokering was allowed (and I took advantage of it for my own benefit actually)
For example: AIs only trade to AIs with something to give them. That means a sufficiently backward AI that lacks anything of value to give won't get any techs...it has to tech them the hard way. The other consideration is a bit more touch and go because it depends on knowledge of leader personalities (which I'm not 100% with yet). Basically, AIs also require a threshold of diplo with another AI to trade. Note that I made tons of trades, but after I decided to attack China, I shunned them badly. They were also religious heathens (A side effect of what was otherwise an early mistake by me
). What this amounted to is that while I was repeatedly warring with them, most of the rest of the world (with the exception of Justinian, who was also getting slapped around a bit in war) was teching past me. HOWEVER, China lacked gunpowder for almost the entire time I fought them, only getting it with about 2 cities left. This is because the AIs did not want to trade with the heathen, allowing me to pick off the backwards guy!Later on the land advantage let me catch up to an extent, though admittedly it'd have taken me longer to get a military tech lead if the Incans didn't decide to fall into idiocy and go for a culture win (then again, if they didn't do that they'd have not spread christianity all over, and then I'd have won diplo without needing to attack them).
Even from just the screen shots, you can see that my game is still full of micro errors and mistakes. My strategy can often overcome them, but I try to make fewer every game also!
Hi TMIT,
Perhaps I'm confused, but from the screenshots above it appears you would have won the game anyway?
I kind of expected a showcase AP win to be a win from a situation that normally would have been a long hard slog with a great failure chance... I believe Sisiutil won like that with Isabella once. But perhaps your intentions for this game was different?
Your win is certainly impressive, but after my quick readthrough I was amazed at your military ability, not whatever it was you did to get the AP win.
Thanks for the write-up!
Perhaps I'm confused, but from the screenshots above it appears you would have won the game anyway?
I kind of expected a showcase AP win to be a win from a situation that normally would have been a long hard slog with a great failure chance... I believe Sisiutil won like that with Isabella once. But perhaps your intentions for this game was different?
Your win is certainly impressive, but after my quick readthrough I was amazed at your military ability, not whatever it was you did to get the AP win.
Thanks for the write-up!
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,989
Hi TMIT,
Perhaps I'm confused, but from the screenshots above it appears you would have won the game anyway?
I kind of expected a showcase AP win to be a win from a situation that normally would have been a long hard slog with a great failure chance... I believe Sisiutil won like that with Isabella once. But perhaps your intentions for this game was different?
Your win is certainly impressive, but after my quick readthrough I was amazed at your military ability, not whatever it was you did to get the AP win.
Thanks for the write-up!
The first thing I learned in the game was military, including stack composition, promotions, and of course attack routes/strategy in general. I had no economy at all so when I'd go for peaceful victories it was like I was 2 levels weaker than when I didn't for a while
.You're right, this was NOT a clean AP game. For a game 1 I'd have liked it a bit smoother, although that can be difficult with the pangaea draw.
If, for example, I'd gotten confucianism a little earlier, and China did NOT have christianity spread to them arbitrarily (or just got another religion first), this game would have looked very very different and perhaps easier. Then I'd have had the AP religion all to myself. I'd have just picked the strongest AI block religion, attacked a heathen (in such a scenario either China again or Justinian would have done the trick), and as soon as I had an AI at friendly spread my religion there and won sooner. These particular AIs were all willing to open borders at cautious which is nice because you can't spread missionaries otherwise (only justinian was a problem, and only because he got to theology and ran the civic to block them, so I just gifted him a city). If I'd gotten lucky it'd have been possible to win before 1500 AD, easily.
Hopefully, that's one of the things that will make this series a bit interesting. People shadowing it will have WILDLY different games if they all try AP, and of course mine will look different from anyone who doesn't
. Some maps/ways the unfold are much more conducive to an easy AP win than others...this was probably a high-medium difficulty AP map. Sometimes religion must depend on the sword!Similar threads
