Confused about capturing AP

[OldDude]

Greetings experts. This has happened to me twice in two separate games so I'm left wondering … why?

I've captured an enemy city that had built the AP. That would mean that I now own it and should be able to decide what should be voted on, correct? Well, two times now, after capturing said city, some other AI gets to decide what to vote on and in both cases they put out a diplomatic victory vote and end up winning a diplomatic victory! Of course I didn't vote for them.

It's frustrating because in both cases I was well ahead of the field. So does anybody know why the civ that owns the AP through taking a city doesn't get to decide what to vote on?

This was Noble level with normal settings. Thanks!

 

[lymond]

Hey OD - You don't become AP Resident until you win the election vote, which happens every 4 votes. Make sure you use the AP screen to see the vote timers ( a tab under the settings button - red fist/top right). You can also see how votes are dispersed among all civs, if they have the religion at all.

So owning the AP - capturing in your case - ensures that you are always one of the two leaders (the other being the leader with highest AP pop) voted on for AP Resident - regardless of whether you adopted the religion or not. Otherwise, it's the two leaders with the highest AP population.

If AP is built your game, always be cognizant of how that AP religion is spread, how many have adopted the AP religion, and who likes whom.

A leader who adopts the AP religion, including the human player, receives double the number of votes based on AP population. These leaders are "full members". Any leader that has at least one city with the AP religion is deemed a "member", with normal votes based on AP population. Again, you can see this on the AP screen.

So the point is that the possibility of a leader having the votes to win AP DV should not be a surprise, The info is there for you, you just need to make sure it does not happen.

Spreading AP religion in my own empire is something I often prioritize if not just for the additional hammers, but to make sure I increase my votes. Of course, war is the best way to prevent losing to the AP, either by capturing it or otherwise reducing the impact the big AP leaders may have.

Losing to AP DV is not something that should really happen on difficulties lower than Deity: that is, it should not be out of your control.

 

[ArchGhost]

I tend to just raze the AP more often than not (usually because I just don't like the constant meddling by the AI called votes), but in a situation where you can't easily control it -- such as you are much smaller than the other voters even with it spread everywhere, you only have a minority of the AP religion because they built it in Christianity immediately, etc -- it can prevent the AI from using it for anything else from that point forward. Preventing a diplo win or eliminating constant "stop war" votes right in the middle of your offensive is worth far more to me than AP hammers (all told I forget about AP hammers a lot too) if they are likely to be relevant issues in that game.

Old Dude, are you playing with BUG mod? With it you can check on the Victory Conditions screen on the "members" tab and learn a lot about the AP situation -- who controls it, how many votes everybody has, and whether a diplomatic win vote will go through -- these things can help make a determination about whether you even want to keep the AP in the game. If Huayna is sitting in a corner Missionary spamming Buddhism to everybody builds AP, and a 18 city civ everybody likes gets voted in, you better believe I'm razing that sucker.

 

[OldDude]

Hey OD - You don't become AP Resident until you win the election vote, which happens every 4 votes. Make sure you use the AP screen to see the vote timers ( a tab under the settings button - red fist/top right). You can also see how votes are dispersed among all civs, if they have the religion at all.

So owning the AP - capturing in your case - ensures that you are always one of the two leaders (the other being the leader with highest AP pop) voted on for AP Resident - regardless of whether you adopted the religion or not. Otherwise, it's the two leaders with the highest AP population.

If AP is built your game, always be cognizant of how that AP religion is spread, how many have adopted the AP religion, and who likes whom.

A leader who adopts the AP religion, including the human player, receives double the number of votes based on AP population. These leaders are "full members". Any leader that has at least one city with the AP religion is deemed a "member", with normal votes based on AP population. Again, you can see this on the AP screen.

So the point is that the possibility of a leader having the votes to win AP DV should not be a surprise, The info is there for you, you just need to make sure it does not happen.

Spreading AP religion in my own empire is something I often prioritize if not just for the additional hammers, but to make sure I increase my votes. Of course, war is the best way to prevent losing to the AP, either by capturing it or otherwise reducing the impact the big AP leaders may have.

Losing to AP DV is not something that should really happen on difficulties lower than Deity: that is, it should not be out of your control.

@lymond thanks very much for the great explanation (again!)

That all makes sense. I've never prioritized building the AP. Would you say it's better to adopt the AP religion once it's known? Or is that simply situational?

Thanks also for the info on being able to keep tabs on all of the AP info as that always seemed to be a big black hole to me. I think I'm going to reload that game to a few turns before the DV and take a look at that screen.

 

[OldDude]

I tend to just raze the AP more often than not (usually because I just don't like the constant meddling by the AI called votes), but in a situation where you can't easily control it -- such as you are much smaller than the other voters even with it spread everywhere, you only have a minority of the AP religion because they built it in Christianity immediately, etc -- it can prevent the AI from using it for anything else from that point forward. Preventing a diplo win or eliminating constant "stop war" votes right in the middle of your offensive is worth far more to me than AP hammers (all told I forget about AP hammers a lot too) if they are likely to be relevant issues in that game.

Old Dude, are you playing with BUG mod? With it you can check on the Victory Conditions screen on the "members" tab and learn a lot about the AP situation -- who controls it, how many votes everybody has, and whether a diplomatic win vote will go through -- these things can help make a determination about whether you even want to keep the AP in the game. If Huayna is sitting in a corner Missionary spamming Buddhism to everybody builds AP, and a 18 city civ everybody likes gets voted in, you better believe I'm razing that sucker.

@ArchGhost, thanks for your reply. When you say raze, do you mean just the building or the whole city? Can you raze just a building? In this case it was the AI's capital and I definitely wanted to capture the city. Good tips on strategies and things to keep an eye on as well. Man, this game is deep!

Yes I am playing with the BUG mod and I will definitely check out that screen.

 

[lymond]

You’d have to raze the city, OD. It is an option, but I’m unlikely to raze a good city and the AP unless absolutely necessary.

Adopting AP religion or any religion is situational.

Just to be clear, I was not in any way recommending building AP yourself, or even teching Theology ( I often go whole games without that particular tech)

 

[OldDude]

You’d have to raze the city, OD. It is an option, but I’m unlikely to raze a good city and the AP unless absolutely necessary.

Adopting AP religion or any religion is situational.

Just to be clear, I was not in any way recommending building AP yourself, or even teching Theology ( I often go whole games without that particular tech)

Yeah I didn't think you could just raze a building. I didn't get that you were recommending building the AP so no worries there.

I did go back and look at that screen. It does have all of that info in it, as mentioned. In this case the religion is Judaism and it hasn't spread to any of my cities so I couldn't convert to it even if I wanted to!

Thanks again!

 

[AcaMetis]

Be careful if you don't have the AP religion in any of your cities. As a non-member you don't get to see what gets voted on (although you can infer based on what happens, of course), so you could get embargo'd or even holy war declared on you without getting a chance to defy.

 

[krikav]

Best situation is if you have the AP religion only in one lone iceball city, so you can defy all nonsense and only get the unhappines debuff "The world considers you a villain" in that city.

 

[lymond]

I think you would have to be in a non-AP religion for embargoes or holy wars.

Ice ball city would be nice, but religion spread is random and/or often pressed by zealots sending mishes. I'm generally inclined to leverage AP than avoid it.

 

[elmurcis]

If running no religion but running Theocracy civic - does it prevents any religion to spread to human cities (including cities that don't have any at all - like new ones)? (if that works - as long as 0 human cities have AP religion, AI can't win it even if every other AI would give enough votes, right?)

 

[AcaMetis]

I think you would have to be in a non-AP religion for embargoes or holy wars.

Possibly, I'm not 100% on how the AP works. I've always worked under the assumption that you could get an embargo or holy war declared if you weren't at least a partial member of the AP, meaning having the AP religion in at least one city. IIRC if you defy a resolution you'll lose Full Member status, if you had it, but you won't drop to non-member.

If running no religion but running Theocracy civic - does it prevents any religion to spread to human cities (including cities that don't have any at all - like new ones)? (if that works - as long as 0 human cities have AP religion, AI can't win it even if every other AI would give enough votes, right?)

I don't think Theo works that way, but if it does, yes. Diplo victories can't be called unless all players on the board are at least a partial member of the AP, IIRC.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah you can't get a holy war against you have the AP religion. Been a while since I have tried to use this.

Capturing AP will only really work if you have enough cities with that religion to win votes .Sometimes better to raze it if you don't have the votes to control it.

You can always create a colony to stop losing game by AP votes. That or war successfully to take over cities with that religion. Forced AP peace can be annoying.

 

[rah]

so you can defy all nonsense

What is the upside to defying attacking the heretic, when it's you? Do you not get the unhappiness penalty.

 

[lymond]

What is the upside to defying attacking the heretic, when it's you? Do you not get the unhappiness penalty.

Well, krikav is saying you have AP religion only in one iceball city with no pop anyway, so the impact of defy is basically non-existent. Again, a rare occurrence unless one works hard to make it happen.

Theo blocks spreading of religion from external sources. AP DV is not available if all leaders do not have at least one city with the AP religion.

If you do not have the AP religion present in any city, and are not in another religion, you are immune to AP votes. You don't even see them other than in the log. I think you may be even immune to forced peace - either way. (edit: in fact, I'm pretty certain on this as you need to be a member to be subject to a verdict by vote)

Regardless, most suggestions I see here related to the impacts of AP and avoiding somehow losing the game to AP DV, seem counter-intuitive to optimal play. Granted, sometimes you may just have to do what you need to especially on Deity. But the AP being such a factor on difficulties lower than Deity is suspect. A player playing well and aggressively should be able to avoid such nonsense.

The main annoyance of AP, as Gumbo mentioned, is forced peace. Can be very annoying. You even get cases in which you are running the AP religion, and your brother or sister AP Resident thinks they are doing you a favor bringing up a peace vote - for you. These things you always need to be aware of when going to war with AP members, or at war and you are in AP religion or a member, but not the Resident.

My way around those shenanigans is to work around the vote timers, and, if needed, take ceasefires before votes. Obviously if you are in the AP religion, or have significant spread you are not going to defy votes.

 

[OldDude]

Wow, a lot of great info on this topic. Thanks all!