Apostolic Palace broken?

[Eiba]

I'm not quite sure I get the people who are defending the Apostolic Palace...
Did you read the OP's scenario? He lost because he took the enemy's capitol, and thus gained a city of the AP's religion... That's not a brilliant tactic, that's not good AI, that's a single wonder that makes all of the AI's cities completely untouchable! On pain of instant, arbitrary, absolute loss, no less!

Here's the most manipulative game plan: You make sure to found a late religion after your continent is already saturated, Christianity works well for obvious reasons. You don't spread this religion, but briefly switch to it to build the AP. You then work on spreading this religion to the most crappy city of each AI- it's even better if you can found a terrible tundra city, or a one tile island city, convert it, and then gift it to the AI (though they'll only accept geographically close cities). If you've got a Tokugawa or a Theocracy lover it's a bit harder- if you can't found a city they'll accept, then start a war with a massive sneak attack to take their worst boarder/coastal city- in the invasion force include a missionary or two. Quickly sue for peace and liberate the captured city. If there are multiple continents and your continent is technologically backwards, it might get a bit hard, but with enough military build up and a surprise attack you should be able to take at least one crappy coastal city from your technologically superior overseas rivals (keep in mind that you only have to do this for the isolationists and theocracies).

Of course it should go without saying that you should convert/gift/liberate any crappy cities until the very last moment possible to prevent the spread of your religion...

There may be bumps, but honestly it's a lot easier than wining an honest game... And what the heck would that victory even mean? Civ's a game, but it's supposed to reflect reality to some extent... Giving away tiny bits of your differently-religioned colonial empire to all the civilizations of the world represents "victory" how?


The solution that makes most sense to me would for the AP resolutions to only apply to people withe the AP religion as their state religion. After all, did Rome have any influence on China's foreign policy after the Portuguese converted a few of them?
This would make the religious victory almost impossible, I know, but really it should be, and converting every nation in the world (and remaining popular) to your state religion is a feat worthy of victory, and probably could facilitate a "diplomatic victory," at least as much as the UN could.

I do think it's kind of cool and sensible that a city of the AP's religion in a nation that opposes the AP's religious block would be rebellious- perhaps new resolutions calling for minority followers of the AP faith to rebel against their government could be included... only more balance somehow...


So in conclusion: The Apostolic Palace is seriously messed up. The AP resolutions should only affect and be voted on by nations with the AP religion as their state religion. This would solve all of the AP's issues while keeping most of what makes the AP so neat.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Spearthrower]

So let me summarise.... if you abuse the game mechanics, then its not very realistic or challenging.

I agree....

However, I don't see why a potential abuse (which also fails to take into account that you'd need good diplomatic relations with all those civs) immediately indicates that it's broken. There are plenty of mechanic abuses that players subscribe to here.... if they wanted to "cheat" like your example (pretty long winded cheat really, you could have spent all that time conquering your neighbours) then all they're doing is cheating themselves..... that doesn't validate your perspective on the AP being broken.

 

[Mergle]

I'm not quite sure I get the people who are defending the Apostolic Palace...
Did you read the OP's scenario? He lost because he took the enemy's capitol, and thus gained a city of the AP's religion... That's not a brilliant tactic, that's not good AI, that's a single wonder that makes all of the AI's cities completely untouchable! On pain of instant, arbitrary, absolute loss, no less!

As others have said, run theocracy and raze them. There's a counter. But the AP means it's not as simple as "build a big stack and kill them".

Honestly, I've played tons of games and never lost (or won) by AP. But because it was there, my strategy was influenced. that's a good game mechanic.

Also, playing on tiny maps is always going to increase the likelihood of small causes having big effects. The game in general isn't well balanced for such maps, it's true - luck plays to big a part. But that's not the AP's fault.

 

[Kark]

The solution that makes most sense to me would for the AP resolutions to only apply to people withe the AP religion as their state religion.

Or there might be a percentage chance for your people to accept the AP resolution, depending on how strong the religion is in your empire.

 

[Stilgar08]

I'm not quite sure I get the people who are defending the Apostolic Palace...
Did you read the OP's scenario? He lost because he took the enemy's capitol, and thus gained a city of the AP's religion...

He wouldn't have lost if he would have taken the city with the AP which you could see as capital of the religious world. He wouldn't have lost if he had built the AP in the first place. He wouldn't have lost if he would have been faster in achieving his own goals - He wouldn't have lost by researching mass-media and gift it (wouldn't have been a problem...), he wouldn't have lost if he would have spread the AP-religion in his cities thereby raising his votes...

That's not a brilliant tactic, that's not good AI, that's a single wonder that makes all of the AI's cities completely untouchable! On pain of instant, arbitrary, absolute loss, no less!

This is simply untrue! You can touch the AI-cities, you just have to PLAN what you're doing in a more complex way which couldn't be THAT bad for a STRATEGY-game.

Here's the most manipulative game plan:.....

I'm sorry, I don't get your plan, but by founding a late religion very likely you'll have the problem, that the AP already is built by the AI (happened to me more than once ) and serving another religion.
So you would need to capture the AP-city, convert your cities to the religion you disregarded beforehand and THAN win by diplo - doesn't sound that easy to me. If in a later phase of the game you or the AI haven't built the AP you should go up a level...

There may be bumps, but honestly it's a lot easier than wining an honest game... And what the heck would that victory even mean?

Did you read "spearthrowers" post about that? It reflects the might and power that the catholic church had in Europe through the whole medieval era. Kings lost their countries/civs by defying the Pope, other lands were vanished from the maps or at least their defence was weakened considerably by "holy crusades" appointed by the pope...
I remember Warlords and civ vanilla when the complaints were that the AI isn't trying to win, Now it's doing it and its lame. It's not, you just have to think ahead more...

The solution that makes most sense to me would for the AP resolutions to only apply to people withe the AP religion as their state religion.

You know what people would say then, right? That's lame, it's undoable.

only more balance somehow...

agreed! - more balance is always good. OTOH I had many games (personally like larger maps more than tiny ones) where I was "disappointed" at how little influence and choices I got by having the AP on my side... So maybe that's a question of scale not of balance

So in conclusion: The Apostolic Palace is seriously messed up. The AP resolutions should only affect and be voted on by nations with the AP religion as their state religion. This would solve all of the AP's issues while keeping most of what makes the AP so neat.

I disagree since it just wouldn't keep what makes the AP so neat. You would get nearly no effect from resolutions! Only civs with AP-state-religion have to do it would in most of my games mean, that me and another civ would do the resolution - lame! (talking about 12-18 civs total in the game)

How about making Religious victory more difficult by the premise that in addition to the total no. of votesat least 33% of the leaders in the game have to agree with your victory, not only the total no. of votes in your favour? so if you play with 10 opponents you need a "yes" on the victory resolution from at least 4 leaders, playing with 5 leaders you need 2 to vote in your favour in order to win!?? Would that solve it?

 

[Colee]

I think the basic idea for the AP is very good, but also that the implementation could use a few tweaks. For example introducing an additional condition for a religious diplomatic victory: a certain percentage of world population would have to belong to the AP religion. In fact, this condition could replace the 'each civ has at least one city with the AP religion' condition.

 

[mnf]

Hmmm. I had a game where all of us but two were squeezed on one continental shelf. I managed to settle most of the jungles and had highest population. Izzy got religious and converted all of us to her religion and she built the AP. Sadly she was in low food land so I actually voted myself resident.

I got my tech lead, after some scouting, sent out two caravels each with one missionary, and that was the earliest diplo victory I ever had. I wasn't even aiming for it.

The two poor souls weren't really that bad in score, either. I think one of them was first in AI, the other was third or fourth in AI ranking. Obviously, both had the same religion. It would have developed into a nice inter-continental religious war, I think.

The loophole, I think, comes from the fact that late comers to the AP religion is open to this kind of attack. This will work against the player as well, though I don't know if the AI is programmed to use this trick.

To "fix" this, we need to relate the victory condition to each leader's influence. The UN bases influence (number of votes) on raw population, which is quite reasonable. The AP, however, ignores those non-religious population.

Say the AP religion must exist in cities that sum to over 75% of the world's population. That would mean we cannot ignore a world power.

Or say we simply give each leader one vote only. Something like that.

 

[Vynd]

I agree with the sentiment that the Apostolic Palace should be powerful enough to influence the player's behavior. We shouldn't be able to just ignore it. I like that if the AI has it, you need to give some thought to how they can use it against you, and what you should do about it. This adds greater depth and strategy to the game.

However I also think that the current AP diplomatic victory system goes too far. It distorts the game such that you pretty much always have to do one of two things: build the AP yourself in a religion where you have a large population, or never allow the AP religion into any of your cities. Those are the only two courses you can take that don't leave you open to a cheap loss. This is more than making the AP a factor that the player has to consider. It turns it into the central aspect of the game.

As it stands, the AP and manipulation of the AP religion is more important than the tech race, than military, than development of cities and resources, etc. That's just out of whack. "I am the undisputed leader of the world's fourth largest religion. And I have a cool palace. Everyone must do as I say!" How does that make any sense?

So count me among the group of people who feel the AP would benefit from a significant adjustment. I don't go so far as to argue that AP dipomatic victories shouldn't be allowed. But they need to be adjusted so that you can have the AP's religion in your empire without it being a kiss of death.

Giving each civ with the religion a single vote instead of basing it on religious population, like mnf has suggeted, ought to work pretty well. The AI could still win this way, and so could the human player, but now there'd be more too it than just getting a teeny bit of a religion into each empire. People would have to actually like you. If that seems like it is taking things too far away from the religious orientation of the AP towards pure diplomacy, then perhaps there could be bonus votes for having the AP, the Shrine of the AP religion, or even Cathedrals of the AP religion.

I also like the suggestion--either in addition to the above or instead of it--that AP Diplomatic Victory be disallowed unless the AP religion meets some sort of worldwide population threshold. But 75% seems much too high to me. That would make it all but impossible to win with the AP. You'd have to spread your religion like crazy and convince several other civs to vote for you afterward, since they'd all be saturated with the religion. Personally I think it would be fine to go with something along the lines of allowing AP diplomatic victory if the AP religion is accepted by at least 25% of the world's population and it is the single largest religion in the world. That should more or less eliminate the cheesy AP diplo win where only one civ has a significant amount of the religion, without setting the conditions so far out of reach that no one would ever seriously pursue them.

 

[Stilgar08]

very good post, Vynd! Agree to quite a lot of what you proposed.
I see a problem in two things: one vote each doesn't take power or pop into account at all. So if you have 2 miniature-civs they have the same vote as the 2 leaders...
Secondly the bonus-votes would further encourage building religious AP-buildings. They are already favoured by the hammer-bonus... To add to this additional votes for religious victory seems too overpowered to me...

 

[MRM]

Well, but he is right to some extend - I already won some games this way

Its can be easy if you found 2 ( or more ) religions - spread the first, and make the second ( or third ) to your AP religion. Sometimes it is really easy to win the game this way, but sometimes the AI counter this strategy by spamming the AI religion in their own civ ( I still don't know if the AI really counter the AP or if this happend accidently, because they where after a cultural victory )

So I am not sure whether this is really an abuse, if the AI is able to counter the strategy ...

(keep in mind that you only have to do this for the isolationists and theocracies).

Or use a spy to change their civic

But in generall I agree that it is somehow strange, that you only have to convert one crappy city to your AP religion to win the game - thats like saying Iraq or China is a christian country, because they have a tiny christian minority there - IMHO at least 20 % ( or more % ) of a civ should follow the AP religion in order to vote ( and enable an AP victory ) - but it don't think state religion should be nessasary , otherwise it would be almost impossible to win an AP victory.

 

[Naismith]

Vynd, in general I agree with you. In addition to the suggestions you made, I would like to add this: Spreading the AP religion outside your own Civ should enhance your chances of winning the AP victory, not diminish it.

So to me, a religious victory should depend upon:
1) Having the religion as your state religion.
2) Spreading the religion far and wide.
3) Focusing on building religious buildings and wonders.
4) Having good diplo relations with other Civs (getting their vote).

I personally do not like diplo victories (UN and AP) that give votes solely based on population percentage. Winning a diplo victory should actually require using diplomacy to get other Civs to like you, not taking over most of the world and voting yourself in.

 

[FrancisMarion]

In it's current form, the AP is broken. It's overpowered on top of annoying on top of useless.

That doesn't mean it can't be good after it's tweaked after a patch, but for now I can't see anybody actually enjoying the thing unless they just love abusing the broken aspects of it.

 

[lankypeter]

I don't see the problem of the AP, I don't think it is under- or over-powered and I only propose one tweak (that in a minute will come).

It seems that domination players don't like it because they can still lose when conquering the world. Good. If you leave the diplomatic victory condition on, you should have to actually pay attention to it. So, if you don't like it, turn it off. But if you leave it on, you have to make sure that you don't kill all the civs that can prevent the Diplo vote going against you; at least not before you have the AP or have the AP's religion in all of your cities. Just like most victory conditions in the game, it only plays a huge part in the game if you don't understand it or ignore it. If you pay attention to it, you can counter it or take advantage of it. I mean, you wouldn't ever play the game and expect to have a chance to win if you decided to ignore military and never build any military units, would you? It's the same with religion and the AP. You have to pay attention to it both inside and outside of your borders.

The only real tweak that I would like to see is that once the UN is founded by a CIV, then the diplo victory through the AP is turned off, but everything else for the AP still works until all other Civs can join the UN. This would represent 1st- and 3rd-world countries pretty nicely. But still, even as it is, I don't see it being a problem either way; just something that a player has to pay attention to and not ignore.

 

[Lord_Zath]

I don't mind AP myself. I actually enjoy it since I usually build it first. Last night, Shaka declared war on me out of nowhere. An hour later, I'm given the option to declare war on the infadels. So I vote yes (AI votes yes, my fiancee freaks out and votes no). Vote carries, and suddenly Shaka has 6 more enemies to worry about. That war declared sound is hilarious when it's 6 times in a row.

 

[Zophos]

(As a side note, the notion of defy-able resolutions but binding victory votes is what annoys me.... why can't I just defy the victory claim and suffer the penalty? It seems like all votes have gameboard effects except one vote that teleports you off the gameboard and ends the game, so weirdly mixed in power.)

This strikes me as the most sensible solution. It should be possible for one or more players to defy the diplomatic victory resolution (AP or UN), in which case, there should be some fairly major penalties - bigger than for any of the other resolutions.

For the AP victory, defying the resolution should give a massive diplomatic hit against the faithful (and bonus with any other defiers), a massive happiness hit in the affected cities, and open up one more AP resolution for an automatic vote next turn - to call a jihad/crusade/holy war/whatever to put the offender at war with the rest of the faithful, and put the One True Church back in the driver's seat. If it passes, nobody can declare peace until the offender is destroyed or capitulates to someone (in which case the original diplomatic victory WINS for the guy elected), the winner of the diplo vote is destroyed or capitulates to someone (in which case the diplo victory loses, of course), or the AP is obsoleted.

For the UN victory, I'm not quite as sure. Same huge diplo & happy hits, and, what, a trade embargo from everyone else?

 

[50_dollar_bag]

It's been suggested around the forums before about the addition of an Inquistor unit, available under Theocracy. Then you can just kill the heathens in your cities. You'd have to lose some population and suffer some unhappiness but that should prevent the aboove scenarios from happening.

 

[hoopsnerd]

I'm not quite sure I get the people who are defending the Apostolic Palace...
Did you read the OP's scenario? He lost because he took the enemy's capitol, and thus gained a city of the AP's religion... That's not a brilliant tactic, that's not good AI, that's a single wonder that makes all of the AI's cities completely untouchable! On pain of instant, arbitrary, absolute loss, no less!

Here's the most manipulative game plan: You make sure to found a late religion after your continent is already saturated, Christianity works well for obvious reasons. You don't spread this religion, but briefly switch to it to build the AP. You then work on spreading this religion to the most crappy city of each AI- it's even better if you can found a terrible tundra city, or a one tile island city, convert it, and then gift it to the AI (though they'll only accept geographically close cities). If you've got a Tokugawa or a Theocracy lover it's a bit harder- if you can't found a city they'll accept, then start a war with a massive sneak attack to take their worst boarder/coastal city- in the invasion force include a missionary or two. Quickly sue for peace and liberate the captured city. If there are multiple continents and your continent is technologically backwards, it might get a bit hard, but with enough military build up and a surprise attack you should be able to take at least one crappy coastal city from your technologically superior overseas rivals (keep in mind that you only have to do this for the isolationists and theocracies).

Of course it should go without saying that you should convert/gift/liberate any crappy cities until the very last moment possible to prevent the spread of your religion...

There may be bumps, but honestly it's a lot easier than wining an honest game... And what the heck would that victory even mean? Civ's a game, but it's supposed to reflect reality to some extent... Giving away tiny bits of your differently-religioned colonial empire to all the civilizations of the world represents "victory" how?


The solution that makes most sense to me would for the AP resolutions to only apply to people withe the AP religion as their state religion. After all, did Rome have any influence on China's foreign policy after the Portuguese converted a few of them?
This would make the religious victory almost impossible, I know, but really it should be, and converting every nation in the world (and remaining popular) to your state religion is a feat worthy of victory, and probably could facilitate a "diplomatic victory," at least as much as the UN could.

I do think it's kind of cool and sensible that a city of the AP's religion in a nation that opposes the AP's religious block would be rebellious- perhaps new resolutions calling for minority followers of the AP faith to rebel against their government could be included... only more balance somehow...


So in conclusion: The Apostolic Palace is seriously messed up. The AP resolutions should only affect and be voted on by nations with the AP religion as their state religion. This would solve all of the AP's issues while keeping most of what makes the AP so neat.

Thank you for your time.

Have you actually tried this? I did.. it's a lot harder than you think it is. I posted something in another thread, let me get it.

Here it is:

Being a religious iconoclast can win you the game early, assuming you can protect yourself. I LOVE the AP, and im sick of posts saying that it's broken. You know that isolated start on an island to yourself, where despite not having to build military you are still behind in the tech race from a lack of trading partners? Well the AP makes it possible to win that game if you can pull off your strategy correctly.

I play Mon\Emp 15 civs, huge hemispheres map... so perhaps my level of difficulty in achieving an early diplomatic victory is differnet than others...

Anyways, I will outline the theoretical strategy for winning as a religious iconoclast. Remember, this is going to be MUCH more difficult if you are not isolated...

The first thing you need to do is scout your entire island, you have to be sure it's an island. Secondly, set up a good b-line to Theology. Since you're on an island, get Fishing, The Wheel, and Pottery first. Then get Mining and Bronze Working (and any techs you need to improve tiles). Build the Oracle while you get the prerequisite techs for Theology, and chop/whip it out at the right time. Now that you were the first to Theology, you founded Christianity and have a head start on the AP. Your next mission is to reseach the tech tree up to Optics, spread your religion amongst your own cities, adopt Organized Religion, build the AP, and emphasize growth. Right before you get Optics, build missionaries. Once you get optics, you have to build a huge fleet of caravels. Send the first 2 caravels in opposite directions, and prove that the world is round. You might want to load them with spies, as you may need them later... You'll find some other civs while doing this, so load the next caravels with missionaries and head overseas. Try to find "island cities" that the AI has settled, and plop your missionaries there if applicable. Otherwise, find a city with bad terrain or that is cut-off from the other cities. This serves 4 purposes.

1. Your religion is less likely to spread, giving the AI less votes against you.
2. The island city is less likey to already have a religion (your missionary could fail if it does)
3. If the AI decides to thwart your religios victory by spawning a colony, that colony is likely to be on an island, and thus more likely to already have your religion.
4. Island and isolated tundra cities are less likely to grow to a large or medium size, giving the AI less votes against you.

Keep pumping out missionaries the second you spread the religion. And keep transporting them to the smallest AI city you can find, one per AI team. The goal is to get 1 tiny city in each AI civ, because all AIs must have your religion to trigger the Diplomatic Victory option. You need it to be a small city, because you need 3/4 of population of the cities of the world with your religion in it (unless you get some AIs to vote for you, which is not likely if they dont share your state religion)-- so this also requires you to build large cities... If all goes well, you can win an early diplomatic victory... but unless you're playing on a really small map, playing against way too few AI, or really really lucky, it won't be nearly as easy as you thought it might be.

Here are the problems I've run into:

AI spawns a colony to prevent you from winning. It actually will do it a few turns before the AP vote, and then Diplomatic Victory won't be an option (yeah, its cheap but effective).

AI won't give you open borders to get your missionary in it's city. For this I either bought them off by giving them a bunch of free stuff... Monty hated me though, so I was forced to wait for Astronomy to build a Galleon to conquer his crappiest city, drop a missionary, and abandon it.

AI adopts Theocracy to block you from getting your missionary in. To fix this, you'll need enough espionage points against the AI to make him change his civics. Change his religion civic, drop the missionary, you got him.

An AI captures the one small city of another AI that has your religion, and you must re-spread the religion to that civ.

I HAVE NOT seen the AI spread my religion to block me, but I would like to see that. The AP should be a good strategy to force the other Human/AI players to "pay my shrine or concede early diplomatic victory." The AI should start spreading your religion once it realizes what you're up to. If something is wrong with the AP, it is this.


The point is, winning with the AP is a lot tougher than you think it is.

 

[hoopsnerd]

PS: Despite it being more difficult than you think to win a religious victory, I still think that in order to win your religion should have to make up at least 25% or 33% of the world's population. That would make it possible to elect yourself religious leader only if you had a massive empire.

 

[hoopsnerd]

However I also think that the current AP diplomatic victory system goes too far. It distorts the game such that you pretty much always have to do one of two things: build the AP yourself in a religion where you have a large population, or never allow the AP religion into any of your cities. Those are the only two courses you can take that don't leave you open to a cheap loss. This is more than making the AP a factor that the player has to consider. It turns it into the central aspect of the game.

Those aren't your only two options. If the religion gets into your civ, spread it around so you get enough votes to block the resolution. Find out what civs don't like the AP owner and most populous civ (with AP state religion) and spread the religion to their largest cities. Use espionage... you have to be a little creative sometimes, you cant just always play the same game... thats whats great about civ.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well the problems seem to be that the AI doesn't understand it and is unwilling to defy it even when it makes sense

Plus the whole Diplo Victory should be reworked
1 giving civs the option of defying a diplo victory which puts them at war with all who don't (if the diplo victory passes)*

2 if you vote for the winner of a diplo victory, you win too!! (gives humans, and 'winning AIs' a reason to vote for it)

*If 'diplovictory' passes then the elected 'supreme leader' becomes the only one with a vote in the AP/UN, and those who didn't defy 'diplovictory' can no longer defy its resolutions. True 'diplovictory' is achieved only when the defiers are eliminated (or vassalized)


Also an 'Inquisitor' would be good (each use of it against a religion would give all cities you had with that religion -2 unhappy with you for X turns and a -X diplo with all civs with that official religion) It should have a strong chance of failure though(I like the -1 pop, perhaps a -1 unhappiness in the city it was used in as well) Perhaps enable it with Divine Right (to give that tech some use once the wonders are gone.)