AP strategy recommendation

[viktorn]

I have read various posts about AP here, but none of them really covers the situation I experienced in my last game, which was rather curious (I played as English):

Buddhism was a dominant religion on my continent - founded by Koreans, adopted by 6 civs as a state religion (including me). Because of this situation I had very positive relations with most of my neigbours, happily traded with them and experienced peaceful development...

I happened to found Christianity and managed to spread it in all my cities plus couple of other cities (very few) accross the border. AP in my capital was about to finish. My question is:

What would be a better strategy - shall I build a buddhist AP (religion founded by someone else and widespread accross the continent including me) or christian AP (religion founded by me, spread in all my cities but almost nowhere else, means also swirtching state religion)?


Actually, in this particular game, I made my decision and now I am almost about to finish it by winning the space race. Nevertheless, the middle game was not easy at all. In my case, I decided to to build christian AP. The result was that I was easily elected as a head of AP and had almost monopoly over the resolutions. But everyone else hated me for being christian. I started lagging in the tech race as nobody wanted to trade anything with me. When Celts came with the request to convert back to Buddhism, I accepted. And it turned out to be a key point in the game. It was an interesting situation - did I become a voting member (I am not sure, but from having like 80% of votes, suddenly I had about 15%)? Anyway, from this point and for the rest of the game, the AP politics didn't play any role at all. Nevertheless, my international standing substantially improved. Thanks to a combination of warfare and diplomacy I now have one friendly vassal, one war vasal and a colony.

I am still interested whether you have an opinion on the question I posted. Should I have built a buddhist AP at the first place?

 

[Tatran]

No, I don't think so.
It should be possible to win by the AP if you spread Christianity only
to your cities. All other nations (including vassals) only need 1 city with Christianity.
With Buddhism widely spread your chances are low to get voted and win diplomatic.

 

[oedali]

I would still go ahead with the Christian AP but NOT convert to Christianity. I don't think converting is a good idea if the majority of your continent and trading partners are a different religion. Next I would build Christian monasteries & missionaries to spread it to the other civs and try for diplomatic victory. Once I had the religion in every other civ I would then convert to Christianity to boost my votes. If diplomatic victory fails and seems unlikely to happen (e.g. someone was going for cultural victory and spread it to all their cities), I would convert back to Buddhism.

 

[Cvntpumeler]

I have read various posts about AP here, but none of them really covers the situation I experienced in my last game, which was rather curious (I played as English):

Buddhism was a dominant religion on my continent - founded by Koreans, adopted by 6 civs as a state religion (including me). Because of this situation I had very positive relations with most of my neigbours, happily traded with them and experienced peaceful development...

I happened to found Christianity and managed to spread it in all my cities plus couple of other cities (very few) accross the border. AP in my capital was about to finish. My question is:

What would be a better strategy - shall I build a buddhist AP (religion founded by someone else and widespread accross the continent including me) or christian AP (religion founded by me, spread in all my cities but almost nowhere else, means also swirtching state religion)?


Actually, in this particular game, I made my decision and now I am almost about to finish it by winning the space race. Nevertheless, the middle game was not easy at all. In my case, I decided to to build christian AP. The result was that I was easily elected as a head of AP and had almost monopoly over the resolutions. But everyone else hated me for being christian. I started lagging in the tech race as nobody wanted to trade anything with me. When Celts came with the request to convert back to Buddhism, I accepted. And it turned out to be a key point in the game. It was an interesting situation - did I become a voting member (I am not sure, but from having like 80% of votes, suddenly I had about 15%)? Anyway, from this point and for the rest of the game, the AP politics didn't play any role at all. Nevertheless, my international standing substantially improved. Thanks to a combination of warfare and diplomacy I now have one friendly vassal, one war vasal and a colony.

I am still interested whether you have an opinion on the question I posted. Should I have built a buddhist AP at the first place?

If you built the Buddhist AP then you would have had to give all your continental buddies a +2 Hammer per turn bonus on all of their Hindu buildings, where with the Christian one you enjoyed that bonus yourself.

I have a similar problem in my current game... but its on Prince because Im playing a MP game with my girl and shes sort of new... so I think I'll found the Confuscian AP and annihilate Brennus, Gilgamesh, and their lame Hindu butt-buddy Saladin.

 

[DomA]

It would probably have been better to build it as buddhist - it depends on the game. Diplo victory aside, the AP's advantages play mostly when there is a religious block you're part of. If you have good relations with a few civs sharing a religion, it could have been very useful. If it's built with a minor or late religion, it can play a small part in the game (or even, as in yours, hurt your diplomacy badly) The only thing you might have had to worry about is that the other civs in the block would prefer your rival in the elections and perhaps hand him a diplo victory, but if you had a big civ and spread buddhism widely - and kept a civ or two on friendly, that may not have been a problem or have been quite manageable. As resident, you can get a lot of influence over the diplomacy in the game - such as opting for not proposing to stop a war against a friendly civ because it suits you to weaken it, etc.

It could have been more profitable to keep christianity as cash cow with a shrine and spamming it around instead of trying to use it for diplomacy. But I don't think there's one strategy with the AP, it depends on the game.

 

[Cvntpumeler]

I would still go ahead with the Christian AP but NOT convert to Christianity. I don't think converting is a good idea if the majority of your continent and trading partners are a different religion. Next I would build Christian monasteries & missionaries to spread it to the other civs and try for diplomatic victory. Once I had the religion in every other civ I would then convert to Christianity to boost my votes. If diplomatic victory fails and seems unlikely to happen (e.g. someone was going for cultural victory and spread it to all their cities), I would convert back to Buddhism.

He has to convert to Christianity or he can't build a Christian AP.

 

[oedali]

He has to convert to Christianity or he can't build a Christian AP.

How about convert, build it and convert back?

I think you can convert just a turn before it's completed, so you don't even have to stay Christian the whole time it's being built so you minimize the diplomatic penalties.

 

[Cvntpumeler]

How about convert, build it and convert back?

Yeah, probably a good idea depending on the strength of his military and difficulty level. Do you still get the 2-hammer bonus if AP isn't your state religion? I like building a Temple/Monastary and having the production equivelent of 2 GEs in each city.

 

[Lord_Zath]

It all depends on # of cities. If you have a huge advantage in # of cities, and each are Buddhist, then keep the AP buddhist so you have controlling interests in all votes.

If you have an equal, small #, or even somewhat larger # of cities, then I'd say go Christianity and spread it to others.

Either way, the crucial part of the AP is CONTROL. Hammers are just a nice bonus.

 

[eewallace]

Depending on how many civs are on other continents, I would be tempted in that situation to go with buddhist AP and try for an early diplomatic victory. Sounds like you are already popular with everyone on your continent--if you can just get a few missionaries over to the other civs, you could have an early victory. Possible drawbacks to this approach: Do you know where all the other civs are? Are any of them running the religion civic that will keep your missionaries out (theocracy I think)?

 

[Tatran]

Once I had the religion in every other civ I would then convert to Christianity to boost my votes.

Probably every nation who converts to the AP religion will get their votes doubled. It also looks like you need 75% of the votes. Good info.

 

[Cvntpumeler]

It all depends on # of cities. If you have a huge advantage in # of cities, and each are Buddhist, then keep the AP buddhist so you have controlling interests in all votes.

If you have an equal, small #, or even somewhat larger # of cities, then I'd say go Christianity and spread it to others.

Either way, the crucial part of the AP is CONTROL. Hammers are just a nice bonus.

I disagree, the AP gives you very little control. The only advantage I can think of to having the AP is if you plan to play really really peaceful and want the opportunity to stop a war against yourself.

 

[Lord_Zath]

I disagree, the AP gives you very little control. The only advantage I can think of to having the AP is if you plan to play really really peaceful and want the opportunity to stop a war against yourself.

So you've never used the AP to assign a city to your territory?

Or gotten everyone to stop trading with whoever's being a jerk and causing you pain?

How bout declaring a holy war against your enemy and watch as everyone DoW's them?

If not, give it a try. Fun times.

 

[Cvntpumeler]

So you've never used the AP to assign a city to your territory?

Or gotten everyone to stop trading with whoever's being a jerk and causing you pain?

How bout declaring a holy war against your enemy and watch as everyone DoW's them?

If not, give it a try. Fun times.

I've never been able to use the AP to assign a city to my territory, but I've had them taken away and had to Defy... The problem with this is that I'm usually the one capturing cities and not having cities taken from me which need to be reassigned back to me by the AP, which is as far as I know the only way the AP ever annexes you a city. Have you ever had the AP give you a city that isn't and never was yours? That I have never seen.

It seems like noone is trading with the heathen jerks anyways because the inter-religion people have their own little trading club, so this one hasn't been useful to me. I play on immortal usually so the religions spread really fast so that it usually ends up that there are as many state religions as continents and no more.

I've never been able to get the AP to declare a holy war, unfortunately. I've seen the AIs do it each other... What conditions must be present to make this an option? I have never seen it but have been AP leader many times... and I have to admit this would be cool and useful if I was sure I could do it. The problem with it is that all civs on my continent are always the same religion, so I can't use the AP to make those civs war anyways.... Especially with colonial maintenence these days, I want to own my entire continent before I start messing with other AIs of different religions that are far away from my palace and on another continent. I'll save that for the modern/late industrial age.

 

[KMadCandy]

I've never been able to use the AP to assign a city to my territory, but I've had them taken away and had to Defy... The problem with this is that I'm usually the one capturing cities and not having cities taken from me which need to be reassigned back to me by the AP, which is as far as I know the only way the AP ever annexes you a city. Have you ever had the AP give you a city that isn't and never was yours? That I have never seen.

yes. i was the AP resident. cities can only be voted on in this way if it currently belongs to a voting member, and a full member has more culture there. in my case, the current owner (i forget who, somebody with a blue color) was a full member, and he had 1000 troops in there. the city had less than 30% his culture, but no chance at all to revolt because of all the troops. i used a spy to change him to free religion (i was spiritual which made that process easier). he defied the resolution twice. then i guess he decided he couldn't live with the whining any more, the third time the vote passed. same game but my other neighbor, i held votes to assign two of willem's cities to me, he was already running free religion, and altho he voted no he didn't abstain [edit: oops i meant to use the word...] defy for either city. in all three cases they'd built the cities and they'd always owned them. i was being peaceful, but pushy with culture *giggle*.

so, you can protect yourself from the AP having that vote as an option at all if you're a full member. whether it's worth it to convert to a religion you might only have in the cities you recently conquered is situational. protect yourself comes with the disclaimer that they could use spies like i did to change your member status, of course. there's no way to guarantee anything any more.

I've never been able to get the AP to declare a holy war, unfortunately. I've seen the AIs do it each other... What conditions must be present to make this an option? I have never seen it but have been AP leader many times... and I have to admit this would be cool and useful if I was sure I could do it. The problem with it is that all civs on my continent are always the same religion, so I can't use the AP to make those civs war anyways....

a full member has to be at war already with either a voting member or a non-member for the holy war to be an option. two full members bickering doesn't let you hold the vote, so yeah, that's been your problem. try using a spy to change one's religion . the options you get when there's a combo of full, voting, and non members is so much more fun! CR is priceless for that (since you can only change them to something you're currently using yourself), and spiritual has always been my favorite trait, it helps a ton with stuff like that before radio.

 

[Cvntpumeler]

a full member has to be at war already with either a voting member or a non-member for the holy war to be an option. two full members bickering doesn't let you hold the vote, so yeah, that's been your problem. try using a spy to change one's religion .

Word! I just needed to be a bit more creative... Good ideas, I'm going to spy-change Gilgamesh to Christian and watch Saladin and Brennus get really pissed at him. Ohhh, better yet, I'll change one of them to Confuscian and use my Confuscian AP to declare holy war on one of the others, muahaha.

I think I'd still rather prevent my rivals from getting +4 Hammers per city than have control of their AP, unless I was way behind in the power graph or playing as peacefully as possible. I don't wana be friends with my close neighbors, they're just helping me develop the land claimed by my civ's scout/warrior before i can conquer it .

 

[Naismith]

Depending on how many civs are on other continents, I would be tempted in that situation to go with buddhist AP and try for an early diplomatic victory. Sounds like you are already popular with everyone on your continent--if you can just get a few missionaries over to the other civs, you could have an early victory. Possible drawbacks to this approach: Do you know where all the other civs are? Are any of them running the religion civic that will keep your missionaries out (theocracy I think)?

There is no guarantee you will get their votes, even if they are friendly with you. If your competition for the AP Resident or AP Victory is on even better terms, then they will get the votes. Since so many Civs are sharing Buddhism, this is a distinct possibility. In fact, if your competition ends up being the founder (which is likely) that Civ will almost certainly have better relations with other Buddhist Civs - since it has shared Buddhism with all other Buddhist Civs for a longer period of time, accumulating more positive diplo points for sharing the same religion.

In my current game that is exactly what happened to me.

 

[Cvntpumeler]

There is no guarantee you will get their votes, even if they are friendly with you. If your competition for the AP Resident or AP Victory is on even better terms, then they will get the votes. Since so many Civs are sharing Buddhism, this is a distinct possibility. In fact, if your competition ends up being the founder (which is likely) that Civ will almost certainly have better relations with other Buddhist Civs - since it has shared Buddhism with all other Buddhist Civs for a longer period of time, accumulating more positive diplo points for sharing the same religion.

In my current game that is exactly what happened to me.

Yup, plus the AI seems to get a diplo-modifier "bonus" with each other to make them vote for the other AI instead of you, even when you completely suck their balls the whole game by giving them whatever they ask. Shaka and Kublai even had huge war once and afterwords Shaka would still vote for Kublai instead of me even though I had nothing but a huge list of + diplo modifieres for Shaka.

 

[Inky]

I've done it both ways, and generally think that selecting your isolated religion, rather than the one already dominating the world, gives you more leverage.

If you build it as Christian, you definitely will control the votes in it for a while. If you can spread the religion to every civ, you have a shot at diplomatic victory. Even if you can't, spreading it to your friendly civs will give you more options to control the alliance.

You can change back to Buddhism. If you own the AP, you are still a full member and can still be elected. If you don't have the AP state religion, your votes are no longer doubled, and you don't get the hammer bonus. But you still control the thing, and can build missionaries (if in organized religion) and spread them around.

If you get everyone converted, you can always try for the diplomatic win.

 

[ezwip]

I've never been able to use the AP to assign a city to my territory, but I've had them taken away and had to Defy...

If you lose a city, load a save, and continue from a point before your city was captured then you will never get that opportunity.