How are vote totals determined for Apostolic Palace?

[paulhager]

I'm a 6 turns away from being able to declare war against my last adversary and winning a sure Conquest Victory. However, I may also be able to a Diplomatic Victory with the Apostolic Palace. My problem is that I'm 26 votes shy of the requirement.

There are six AI's - five are my vassals. For some bizarre reason, my weakest vassal is ranked #2 in votes (behind me) and so I find myself competing with this vassal. All of my other vassals vote for me but the one remaining free AI votes for my vassal.

I can't figure out how votes are computed or what I might be able to do to shift things. Is it some combination of population and holy buildings? Do number of priest specialists figure into the equation?

 

[enKage]

conditions for religious victory:
1) religion must be present in any city of each civ
2) u have to be either owner of AP (running any religion) or the civ with the highest number of votes (running AP religion) - these 2 civs are rivals in election. If a civ has different state religion than AP one, it cannot be a candidate for AP winner
3) one civ cannot controll morethen 75% votes

How are votes calculated?
Number of votes is a sum of population in all cities a civ has with AP religion
but
if a civ runs AP religion as a state religion, votes are multiplied by 2

how to win in this situation?
Spread AP religion to your vassals, they have to vote for you (except that one, who built AP) - but beware not to give them more votes, then u have!


EDIT:
OK, I found it: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319452 - everything about Apostolic Palace

 

[Kesshi]

If your state religion is NOT the AP religion:

A city size 1 with the religion present counts for 1 vote.
A city size 2 with the religion present counts for 2 votes. etc.

If your state religion is the AP religion:

A city size 1 with the religion present counts for 2 votes.
A city size 2 with the religion present counts for 4 votes. etc.

Cities without the AP religion present do not count for votes.

 

[paulhager]

Since I posted the question, I won a Diplomatic Victory using the AP. The option to vote for a winner only appears when ALL of the existing players have the same state religion. Also, vote totals appear to be based on population in cities that have the state religion. A nation with 10 cities, only one of which has the state religion, will compute its vote total based upon only that one city.

In order to win the Diplomatic victory, I had to make every adversary a vassal save one. That one I chopped down to a small size, since it will vote for the number two. The process was simply one of making sure that the vote totals produced the correct result.

 

[The Oz-Man]

The option to vote for a winner only appears when ALL of the existing players have the same state religion.

That's not true--Diplomatic Victory option appears when every civ has the AP religion in at least one city. That's why Diplomacy by AP is considered cheesy--if you can get to Theology first (and found Christianity/the associated religion), then build the AP as a Christian civ, then it's fairly straightforward to control the flow of the AP religion into other countries and manipulate your way to victory via either diplomacy or skullduggery.

It's a really good game, and I'm not saying this to make fun of the guy, but if you want to see AP cheese at its finest, check out Neal's Julius Caesar KotW game. Notice how the endgame comes when

1. Neal spreads Buddhism to a city Montezuma is about to conquer in order to bypass Monty running Theocracy,
2. he sends a monk to Cuzco to get the religion in Huayna's borders, and
3. he returns a captured city from the capitulated Asoka, who didn't have Buddhism within his borders after Neal vassalirated him.

It's a great game, it's great writing, and it was fun, but it's so cheesy that he might as well be named Velveeta.