Guesses on the AP victory

[shyuhe]

Since it looks like BTS AP victories will soon be joining the HOF tables, I thought it'd be fun to guess on what the best leaders/dates will be.

Obviously pangaea style maps will post the best times. But what leader will be best? I predict that Ramses will own all of the AP slots with the combination of the obelisk (2 priest slots for a theology bulb) and industrious. I have a feeling the best AP victory dates will fall between 1000 BC and 1 AD.

Of course there's always the option of a quechua rush + stonehenge with HC for a fast AP date too. If you eliminate your non-friendly rivals, I imagine you can get a fast time with that as well. Plus, quechuas are cheaper than missionaries.

Any thoughts?

 

[Moonsinger]

I don't have BTS. Since there are still a lot to learn/explore in Warlords, I'm not planning to get BTS any time soon.

 

[Dracandross]

Well quecha rush is quite overpowerful anyway as you cant really get AP with 1 city only . Also Incas are IND which helps building AP and have mysticism for start... Any other good rusher is also good (for example axes wo copper).

Theology bulb is not essential as you can oracle it too though it takes building points and at least on larger maps getting theology first is not the thing but to get relig spread enough.

Overal anything that has good relations with others as with harder&bigger maps you cant selfvote fast enough is way to go. And for relations you need alphabet to get techs traded so bulbing theology comes less dominant.

Also consider IMP for faster settlers if you skip any rush style play.

For map pangaea seems like optimal pick but also GPlains could do well as it is small and if you start in the middle you could pull quite fast relig spread too...

But as long as self voting is doable with tricks AP win is boring to go for on combinations its doable better than friendly voting Im not going for much of those...

-Dracandross

 

[shyuhe]

I don't think self-voting will give the fastest time (standard size map on marathon) unless you turn it in to a quasi-conquest game. Oracle to theology may be a faster route to unlocking theology since you only need monotheism (and writing?). But that takes hammers away from missionaries.

To get civs to friendly, liberating cities is probably the fastest route so a settler spam may be helpful too. I will have to try experimenting to see which route is faster (conquest style or peaceful style).

Great plains may be better if you start in the middle. If you found a religion on a city on the big river, I think it'll spread to a lot of the civs naturally.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

Well I played around with a few AP victories for the beta tables (before version 3.13) and got dates before 1000BC (on Deity too).

Since you can still self vote after 3.13, it just requires more massaging, I think the fastest dates will be before 1000BC (at least for small maps).

Quecha rush on marathon is a very strong contender for every deity AP slot.

I agree with Dracandross that self vote AP speed victories are pretty boring and don't really reward various styles of gameplay.

 

[shyuhe]

I haven't tried a speed run on AP wins yet so I don't really have a good idea of what's super fast yet. I was just guessing that it takes a while to spam your religion on a standard sized map (although you can always get lucky on natural spreads).

Good point about the self-voting. Hanging Gardens and religion swapping are the two that come to mind.

Quechua rush to take out one or two civs on marathon will probably speed up the AP time (faster than building a settler).

 

[Andrei_V]

The problem with AP win is that even if you eliminate that self voting trick (e.g. by counting votes the moment the vote pops, not the moment the results are announced), the victories would still be pretty boring.

In this case you'd simply make sure you have enough pop for self-voting throughout the game, but shortly before the vote whip some extra pop so that you're short of 2 or 4 votes. Meanwhile bribe someone to vote for you with 4-6 votes to ensure the victory. Quite frankly I can't see any room for 'various styles of game play' or some exceptional diplomatic skills in here.

I think the AP victory can be made really challenging and not so cheesy by introducing certain margin between the max # of votes you need to trigger the vote, and the # of votes to actually win the vote. Something like, you'd have to have less than 2/3 votes just to trigger the vote, but you'd need 3/4 votes to win.

I wonder if it would be possible to implement e.g. in one of the future HoF mods.

 

[shyuhe]

I'm not denying that the AP victory is a little hokey. I'm just trying to guess how to put together the fastest AP time. The self-voting restriction put in by 3.13 is not very effective and doesn't really slow down the AP victory condition if you know how to work around it.

Still, that leaves the challenge of a) building the AP and b) spreading your religion to all civs in the game ASAP and c) having enough votes (this shouldn't be hard) to win the AP diplo victory. I will try to give some runs this weekend and see what I come up with.

 

[Andrei_V]

The self-voting restriction put in by 3.13 is not very effective and doesn't really slow down the AP victory condition if you know how to work around it.

That's quite true. Like I said, even if you eliminate that self-voting trick completely, it won't make the game any more challenging, you'd simply need some sheer amount of luck, not skills.

Still, that leaves the challenge of a) building the AP and b) spreading your religion to all civs in the game ASAP and c) having enough votes (this shouldn't be hard) to win the AP diplo victory. I will try to give some runs this weekend and see what I come up with.

True again, only this challenge is still there with or without self-voting.

 

[jesusin]

That's quite true. Like I said, even if you eliminate that self-voting trick completely, it won't make the game any more challenging, you'd simply need some sheer amount of luck, not skills.

I don't fully agree.
You will have to be able to bring one opponent to friendly. Even if this is not too difficult, it could easily be the neckbottle in one-landmass games.

 

[Andrei_V]

I don't fully agree.
You will have to be able to bring one opponent to friendly. Even if this is not too difficult, it could easily be the neckbottle in one-landmass games.

So what? It will all be dependent on luck, not on your skills. E.g. if you find Izzy without a religion, you're all set. The luckiest player wins, not the most skilled.

The general strategy still holds -- you'd have to spread the AP religion to the smallest cities of all but 2 AIs. You basically have nearly full control over the AI votes. So, out of those 2 remaining AIs, make sure the friendlier one gets somewhat lower amount of votes, this way you'll make sure the less friendly AI will become your opponent in the vote, while the friendlier one will vote for you.

Of course, it's not gonna be easy to implement on Deity level (just like anything else), but on Immortal and below all you need is a start with 2 gold or gems.

 

[shyuhe]

I think any HOF game has a certain element of luck to it and I don't think the AP victory is any more or less dependent on luck. Much like there is luck in the cultural victory (you don't know what religions you'll get when), I think the same will apply to the AP victory.

I don't think you even need 2 gold/gems on lower levels. With Ramses and a monotheism beeline while running 2 priests, you should be able to get Judaism and bulb theocracy fairly early.

 

[Andrei_V]

I think any HOF game has a certain element of luck to it and I don't think the AP victory is any more or less dependent on luck.

I have to disagree. While any HOF game is indeed somewhat dependent on luck, it's not all about luck, you still need a fair amount of skills to win.

The AP victory obviously is. All you have to do is to follow a very narrow and straightforward strat, and hope for some luck with opponents. Compare it to any other type of early wins, e.g. conquest or domination. The AP win is all about getting an early tech and building a wonder. The rest is sheer luck.

 

[shyuhe]

I don't think that's any less luck than an early immortal conquest or an early domination victory (both of which stop teching very early). It probably requires less luck since you may not need to wage war ever while going after the AP victory.

 

[Andrei_V]

I don't think that's any less luck than an early immortal conquest or an early domination victory (both of which stop teching very early). It probably requires less luck since you may not need to wage war ever while going after the AP victory.

With both conquest and domination you need high enough skills at wars, and there is room for a variety of tactics. It's not all about luck. AP victory is. You don't need any high skills to send enough Missionaries to the AIs rather than capture their cities.

If you take any other type of map e.g. Archipelago Tiny Islands with High Sea Level as in BTS Beta 8 Gauntlet, the things are even worse. Unlike any other type of victory, you don't even need Astronomy (consequently, no army.)

This is by far the cheesiest victory type. And all that counting of potential votes all over the map is not just boring, it's plain humiliating.

 

[Shadondriel]

The current system is really weird.


All you have to do is build an awful lot of missionaries, put one in every of your cities, wait for the vote, and to use the missionaries to spread the religion to have 90% of all votes. Join Christianity today, get a free cookie

Or you kill a lot of your population before the vote.. 'sorry my beloved people, gotta nuke half of the country to make a vote here. It's for the spirit of demoCRAZY'

Or you 'outsource' New York, Washington and Los Angeles to Tijuana

or just whip the population for the good of all of us: 'Ramesses II: "3 pyramids is not enough, we need 600" *whip* *whip* *whip* *whip* *whip* *whack* *punt* *mosh* *mosh* *bam* *whip* *whip*


I think the voting at UN/AP should be the old way again, for the sake of our people

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

The current system is really weird.


All you have to do is build an awful lot of missionaries, put one in every of your cities, wait for the vote, and to use the missionaries to spread the religion to have 90% of all votes. Join Christianity today, get a free cookie

Or you kill a lot of your population before the vote.. 'sorry my beloved people, gotta nuke half of the country to make a vote here. It's for the spirit of demoCRAZY'

Or you 'outsource' New York, Washington and Los Angeles to Tijuana

or just whip the population for the good of all of us: 'Ramesses II: "3 pyramids is not enough, we need 600" *whip* *whip* *whip* *whip* *whip* *whack* *punt* *mosh* *mosh* *bam* *whip* *whip*


I think the voting at UN/AP should be the old way again, for the sake of our people

Nice idea, but you only can have max. 3 missionaires per religion in a standard game

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

I don't think that's any less luck than an early immortal conquest or an early domination victory (both of which stop teching very early). It probably requires less luck since you may not need to wage war ever while going after the AP victory.

... and don't forget the huge boost of an early 2nd city you can have by conquering the nearest neighbor with your 1st warrior.

 

[Andrei_V]

Do you guys really think waging an early rush is all about luck? Have you ever tried a Quechua (Immortal, Praetorian, etc) rush?

From my experience, only capturing your 1st city with 1 or 2 Quechuas requires a decent element of luck (and if you're unlucky, simply regenerate, it takes only 2 minutes.) The rest requires a decent skill level, otherwise no amount of luck in the world will help you.

 

[Infantry#14]

what year would be the fastest religious victory (easiest setting)? Somewhere around 2000 to 1500 BC?