So it's a legit trash mechanic. I don't see AP victories getting banned from HOF...
How do you Defeat a Rampaging Multiplayer Opponent? Cheese it!
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So it's a legit trash mechanic. I don't see AP victories getting banned from HOF...
Well, the way I see it is I-am-celt won, and the rest gave up.
Tbh I would rather win like I-am-celt, than to play a dull game against "retired" AI's. As it appears this game was already won before the towel throwing AP vote, and as everyone in the game appears to acknowledge that (by ending it), I dont think it was a cheesy way of finishing.
Tbh I would rather win like I-am-celt, than to play a dull game against "retired" AI's. As it appears this game was already won before the towel throwing AP vote, and as everyone in the game appears to acknowledge that (by ending it), I dont think it was a cheesy way of finishing.
2metraninja
Defender of Nabaxica
I-am-celt is at third or something place in the League, which is something like the world Civ4 championship, so with or without Incas he most probably would have ended owning the continent and given others play would have ended winning domination or conquest.
On the other hand, AP win is totally legit - in most of the games in the League or just in the lobby I've been it is allowed. People have point saying that a good player would have been more careful and not allow to be defeated with this.
But giving the win to an AI is just the same like quitting or calling the game. If we agree that AP win is legit, although cheesy, why the heck you did not achieved it for one of yourselves? You were unable to do even this cheesy thing and decide to deprive I-am-celt from his well deserved win. None of you cannot win, and yet you dont want your hatred foe to win.
Master trolling - fuсk yeah. But that's all. No win, no glory is involved inhere on your side
On the other hand, AP win is totally legit - in most of the games in the League or just in the lobby I've been it is allowed. People have point saying that a good player would have been more careful and not allow to be defeated with this.
But giving the win to an AI is just the same like quitting or calling the game. If we agree that AP win is legit, although cheesy, why the heck you did not achieved it for one of yourselves? You were unable to do even this cheesy thing and decide to deprive I-am-celt from his well deserved win. None of you cannot win, and yet you dont want your hatred foe to win.
Master trolling - fuсk yeah. But that's all. No win, no glory is involved inhere on your side
r_rolo1
King of myself
I definitely do not agree with this. Say, what is the diference between doing this to a AI and doing this to a human ( that is, vote en masse for a player in AP to thwart a win of another player) ? Did the AI not had the AP or atleast was in the right state religion and had enough cities of that religion to be a candidate? Did not the AI in question won exactly as fair and square as a human in the exact same position ( I'm not so skilled in MP as that, but I've seen my share of diplo wins in all human games in pitboss
) ?In other words , would half of the people that is calling this trolling or similar say the same if they had voted for a human ? :/
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
Shaka was obviously the best player of this game. Long live Shaka! He deserved his win.
r_rolo1
King of myself
^^Well, objectively speaking, Shaka was the best player "He" positioned himself as one of the AP candidates to Pope, got elected , proposed a vote for "his" diplo win and "convinced" the majority of the players that voting for "his" win was the lest bad option ...
"He" positioned himself as one of the AP candidates to Pope, got elected , proposed a vote for "his" diplo win and "convinced" the majority of the players that voting for "his" win was the lest bad option ...
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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No, they just get placed in their own little category where they can't compete with anything else
.In gauntlets/challenge games, you should pay attention to the careful detail the HoF staff goes to just so that the AP isn't the obvious/only viable auto-win approach when the goal is simply to win quickly.
Voting an AI to win in MP is no different from voting a human. In both situations it's kind of a joke. The only exception is those forced vassal vote scenarios...and those aren't super common.
I just read a few of the first posts so i might not have all the details but to me i see it as legit and while the AI player won the people who voted for the AI did so to ensure i-am-celt couldn't win the game. So neither of the actual players won the game per definition but the majority vote still was that i-am-celt should not be winning.
Thus, by majority vote, all who voted for the AI won the game by majority vote.
If the game can be ended by AP vote then any player must ensure that while he is dominant in military forces he also ensures he cannot lose to an AP vote.
For that you need allies or at least a few friendly minded people.
You don't gain that by murdering one after another mindlessly and selfishly.
Thus, for i-am-celt to prevent such an ending he should have teamed up with at least one other player and promised him land and glory to the final stages of the game.
Make him his vassal if you will. This could ensure that no AP victory would become possible ever as both would be more powerful than the remaining players and would then duke it out as all others have lost or are so small that they never stand a chance of winning the game.
Of course, the player that i-am-celt lifted could back stab him at any time but that's the game for ya. It happens in real life all the time...
Plotting, scheming, stealing, spying. It's all in the game.
If you are going to abuse the games imbalances to ensure victory from the very first couple of turns then expect to get punished by the angry mob you just created.
Either way, IMHO, totally legit and the majority won more than i-am-celt did even if neither player technically won the game.
And all the arguing back and forth about how it's this and that... Childish!
Thus, by majority vote, all who voted for the AI won the game by majority vote.
If the game can be ended by AP vote then any player must ensure that while he is dominant in military forces he also ensures he cannot lose to an AP vote.
For that you need allies or at least a few friendly minded people.
You don't gain that by murdering one after another mindlessly and selfishly.
Thus, for i-am-celt to prevent such an ending he should have teamed up with at least one other player and promised him land and glory to the final stages of the game.
Make him his vassal if you will. This could ensure that no AP victory would become possible ever as both would be more powerful than the remaining players and would then duke it out as all others have lost or are so small that they never stand a chance of winning the game.
Of course, the player that i-am-celt lifted could back stab him at any time but that's the game for ya. It happens in real life all the time...
Plotting, scheming, stealing, spying. It's all in the game.
If you are going to abuse the games imbalances to ensure victory from the very first couple of turns then expect to get punished by the angry mob you just created.
Either way, IMHO, totally legit and the majority won more than i-am-celt did even if neither player technically won the game.
And all the arguing back and forth about how it's this and that... Childish!
No, they just get placed in their own little category where they can't compete with anything else
In gauntlets/challenge games, you should pay attention to the careful detail the HoF staff goes to just so that the AP isn't the obvious/only viable auto-win approach when the goal is simply to win quickly.
You mean their own little category like they also do with 2000+ BC Conquest or Domination victories - which seem to be quite common on all but large and huge map sizes?
I don't really see any totally unfair speed advantages for AP wins here...
And even if it were totally unfair - it's still a legit feature, it won't change or will be removed by "Failaxis" and you can switch it of in your games if you hate it so much...
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
What IAmCelt should have done is immediately spread the AP religion throughout his land, or at least after the first (almost succeeded) vote. Still, I think IAmCelt showed most skill in this game (besides Shaka, of course! ), otherwise this drastic measure wouldn't have been needed.
), otherwise this drastic measure wouldn't have been needed.
TheMeInTeam
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No, that's objectively false and also ridiculous. Everyone LOST the game but the AI. No sugar coating it. Players chose the AI to win over Inca, but that doesn't mean they won. The AI did.
My point is that in MP it SHOULD be off. It requires virtually no skill to win on any difficulty...if you're willing to do so you can pull up a game where I won on deity with one of the biggest joke starts ever (1 city, walled off by a peak from the rest of the continent with a super AI on the other side) simply by abusing it. Against humans, it simply allows/encourages a simple choice to overcome hours of careful planning and choices regarding other outputs...as opposed to gains having a cost and being fought for much more thoroughly. It's a broken mechanic, even if you want to call it "legit", that reality isn't going to change.
Didn't say they won. What i said was they got what they WANTED. Which is something that cannot be said for I-am-celt...
Not trying to sugar coat it, trying to get an opinion across that if it's in the victory conditions you either deal with it or face the possibility of losing to it. Because that's what I-am-celt did, he lost to it.
Calling it ridiculous only serves to prove that you don't like AP victories. So don't play with them on.
This game had the option on and as such everybody should have taken it into account as did the majority of the players except the warmonger.
Even though this particular quote wasn't directed at me I feel inclined to comment on it.
"It requires virtually no skill"
That's a terrible viewpoint considering it does take skill to convince all human players to vote for an AI. A collective suicide if you will.
And even without AI (which IMHO is by far more interesting) it would take skill to ensure you are liked enough by your competitiors to gain victory through an AP vote.
If someone doesn't like you then they are going to vote against you. Simple as that and that's where the skill lies in it. Ensure you stay ahead in military and conquest without becoming a global target.
Once again, it's clear you don't like AP votes. That doesn't make it any less a viable tactic for victory and if it's in the game then you play knowing full well that you can lose against it or use it to win with it.
I don't see how that differs from any other victory condition.
TheMeInTeam
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Maybe I misread your intention, but what I quoted seemed like it was implying that the players voting for the AI somehow won. Since in your response you're not taking that stance, it seems my interpretation of that was off.
If players could enter each game anonymously, I might be inclined to agree. Preconceived notions really ruin in-game behavior. If you don't believe me, play in such a game and see how it affects diplo, it's amazing
.I only agree about the "if it's in the game" part. Once something is within the rules, somebody attempting to win had better take full advantage of whatever they can...or if they feel they can no longer win then to maximize their finish/survival.
Oh? Let's name a few:
1. It's the easiest VC to set up. Every other victory requires either a long chain of outputs (culture, science, units produced) or a large majority of the civilizations in the game voting for you (UN). It's most similar to UN, but still different because
2. You only need 1 other civ to vote for you in order to win. That's right; build it in a minority religion, spread it heavily to 1 civ that will vote for you, then suddenly spread it (by chance or otherwise) to 1 city of each remaining competitor quickly. Insta-win, even if everybody in the world except 1 civ votes against you. That "other civ" can be anybody, even an AI...hell even a COLONY.
3. On some maps you can ninja defeat a lot of the world's players before they even get the opportunity to stop it.
Nobody would reasonably assert that the AP victory has a good impact on the in-game strategy in its current form, because you don't actually have to make people like you to win with it. In fact, this key difference (along with how early you get it) is why most people consider it cheesy in the first place while far fewer have issue with UN victories.
The same strange argument as when people claim winning NASCAR races requries no skill at all, because it's just stupid driving in circeles. Especially in MP the fact that all players have exactly the same "weapons", options and chances to use makes winning that way just as competitive as the other players are willing to go. And if everyone votes for himself then no one wins an AP victory. Simple as that. In the given situation obviously one player gave the others enough reason to hate him so much they rather voted for someone else than letting him win. Making other players (no matter whether it's human or AI) hate you so much that they acutally start to team up and try to ruin your game, and also leaving them enough options to really do so - well, not very clever strategy.
To be honest, I don't care if it's broken - or rather whether you feel it's broken or not. It's there, so I try to deal with it. If I really felt this game was broken beyond repair, I'd have moved on long ago rather than wasting huge amounts of time getting worked up about it and trying to convince others how bad and broken it is...
Nick Carpathia
Unleash the HAARP
An AP victory impresses nobody. I play to have fun, and I have fun by pulling off badass clutch moves. So team up and ruin his game by invading him across multiple fronts. That's cool and badass, as is holding off a dogpile.
And while I love Civ4, I am in no way inclined to worship the ground it stands on. There are a mix of good mechanics and flawed, broken mechanics. The correct response is not to pretend they don't exist, but to find ways to engineer them out.
And while I love Civ4, I am in no way inclined to worship the ground it stands on. There are a mix of good mechanics and flawed, broken mechanics. The correct response is not to pretend they don't exist, but to find ways to engineer them out.
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
I hope you mean a colony which broke free, otherwise I completely support you that this victory condition is broken.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Not exactly. Driving in circles is (although somewhat awkward to describe that way) the entirety of a NASCAR race. People who claim it's easy have never, ever been inside one of those vehicles. My understanding is that they don't have power steering (adds weight), they're going at tremendous speeds, and they have to make split second decisions fairly often with rather bad consequences for screwing up. However, this is a tangent anyway.
This is a canned but extremely weak argument when someone claims a feature imbalanced. "Errrrrrrrrrrrrrr everyone can use it so it must be fine/same as other things/balanced". Actually, no, those two things do not follow. Ultimately only 1 side gets to build the AP and it is extremely powerful.
If there are AI in the game, including colonies (minus points for not acknowledging this possibility after I mentioned it), they can and in the case of vassals WILL vote for their master.
I don't doubt that Inca screwed up royally in that game...however you DO realize that depending on how the AP religion was spread, the reality is that a single human civ could have instigated that loss, right? Every single person could have voted "no", but if the human + AI had most of the votes, game over. This is, again, something I already pointed out. Ignoring it won't make it go away.
Of you could go with the majority of rational MP games and simply disable diplomatic victories. I assure you, this does *not* eliminate diplomacy as a CRITICAL factor in MP. It just reduces the potential for one otherwise irrelevant civ to go screwing people over at minimal cost investment.
A colony is treated like a vassal by the game as long as vassal states are on and you can create one. It will always vote for you unless it is eligible itself (you can take steps to prevent that). That means you can found a few junker cities on an island, keep colony in FR, NSR, or a non-AP religion, and get it to vote for you, allowing you to win despite what human players say.
If players could enter each game anonymously, I might be inclined to agree. Preconceived notions really ruin in-game behavior. If you don't believe me, play in such a game and see how it affects diplo, it's amazing
Yeah, obviously if you are hated before the game even starts then there is pretty much no point in playing with diplomatic victories on. But the same can be said for conquest. If someone plays a race that has overpowered units in the earliest stages of the game and you start next to him you might as well throw in the towel unless you can come to an agreement that lets you survive the initial onslaught.
Even if you don't start next to such a person you know in the back of your head that the player will have a massive advantage over all others in the early game and if you get a power start there is no way to catch up if the same player plays perfectly from there on out.
1. That depends on your opponents. You need a state religion to build it and you need to have researched Theology. The religion you have when you build it becomes the state religion. Obviously it's a good thing to be the only person with that religion as you then get stronger voting power.
2. Yeah that is true but that really depends on how "bad" the other players are. If the other players are aware of the dangers of an AP victory they will spread the AP religion throughout their empire thus gaining more voting power. To win an AP victory the winner needs 75% or more of voting power. That isn't 75% of all players but 75% of the world population. (though full members get a 2x bonus)
3. Doing so would leave you at a disadvantage against military might and without much land to use for voting power. You also have to spread your AP religion to each and every nation. It's kinda hard to do that like a ninja without open borders with everybody.
There are a number of ways to ensure you don't lose the diplomatic war.
1. Build large cities with the AP religion in them and adopt the AP religion as your state religion. This will come at a cost of your military might but with the victory condition on you are fighting a war on more than one front. Conquest only is the easy one.
2. If you have 12.6% or more of the world population, the AP religion as your state religion and that religion spread in all your cities then you have ensured that nobody can win an AP victory without you voting for someone else besides yourself.
3. If you have an army that can roflstomp any other players army you can locate the city with the AP building in it and declare war on that nation. Raze the city and withdraw. Once again, no way to win an AP victory of there is no AP building.
4. You get to know which city, which nation and which religion was used when an AP is built. That should be warning enough that you are now facing defeat through diplomacy. Especially if you are hated by all.
Now you need to keep up with the diplomacy side while building your overpowered army. You need to keep track of where the AP religion is spreading and how fast it's spreading.
You can decide to fight your way out of a diplomatic defeat (kill the AP city or kill lots of full voting members largest cities) or you can decide to gain power by spreading the AP religion in your empire, adopting it as state religion and make all your cities enormous to maintain a > 12.5% world population.
Finally, you can decide to be the religious leader of the world. Even if you haven't built the AP yourself you can become the member that wins all elections and are able to pass resolutions that benefit you. Or even with a diplomatic victory yourself.
Once again, i don't see how that differs from any other victory condition...
FALSE!
It impresses me... so don't assume things.
You, you and you.
I play to have fun, my definition of fun isn't the same as yours. Being a warmonger isn't impressive in my eyes. Being capable of finding a balance where most players like you while still being the most powerful player in the game is oodles more impressive to me.
Short of that, being able to make the most powerful player lose the game while having no other power than your leader charisma is still quite impressive.
Whenever i observe a strategy game i always root for the underdog.
Why would you engineer them "out" of the game? They are options that can be turned on and off before starting a game. If you don't like them then play with them OFF.
Completely off topic but yes, most people have no idea of how stressful and difficult it is to race in NASCAR.
It doesn't appeal me because they are driving in circles and there is no action in the sport that would make me excited. Still i do agree it's a difficult sport, the cars are not technologically advanced in any way. have lots of horsepower och drives at speeds between 160 and 190 miles per hour constantly.
At those speeds even a small pebble on the road can make you spin out and crash into the sidewall turning your wheels into a flaming ball of death.
One side gets to build it but the other side can win with it IF they have the most voting power at the end of the day. You don't have to be the owner of the AP to win a diplomatic victory.
It is balanced because to win with it you have to focus a lot of effort on getting a majority vote (sacrifice your military might) and are making yourself a easy target for any warmonger.
If i was the aggressive one and i heard about joe shmoe building the AP palace i would be furious and call him a weak nerd in game, then i would destroy him.
That will teach anyone to build the palace...
Yeah and? They are voting members because they have the AP religion in their lands.
They became vassals to someone because that someone was deemed extremely powerful to them.
The same applies for a warmonger, make the colonies your vassal and gain their vote in a diplomatic victory. Destroy the colony and lose that bonus, though you can then settle your own city on that land and grow it, install the AP religion and of course hold the AP religion as your state religion for the 2x voting power.
To win a diplomatic victory with the AP requires the following:
1. All civilizations must be voting members. (Yes, all civilizations must have at least ONE city with the AP religion in them)
2. The winner must be a Full Member (AP religion as state religion) or AP owner.
3. Gain 75% of the votes
4. Not have more than 75% voting power when voting for himself.
For all civilizations to be voting members you have to spread the AP religion to ALL civs. This takes time and you will notice when the religion has spread to your lands. If you don't then shame on you for being unobservant.
When the AP religion spreads to your lands you SHOULD make sure it spreads to all your cities and you should adopt the AP religion as your state religion if you fear a single player is about to win a diplomatic victory. It's a pretty cheap upgrade "200% voting power for 3 turns anarchy".
Gang up with other civilizations to ensure that no diplomatic victory will be had by the AP resident or other full member of the AP. You might not like each other but you both have something to gain if you ensure a 3rd party doesn't win a diplomatic victory while you trade armies with each other every X turns.
Rational in your sense yes. While diplomacy in conquest only games or conquest/domination games is important it lacks any game mechanic to make it a do or die situation.
If you are the most powerful nation in the game and can take on all others nations waging war on you because you gained that power in the first 50 turns of a game then diplomacy doesn't matter.
And since Civ is a GAME there's no penalty of dying besides losing the game. Thus, warmongering has everything to gain and nothing to lose in such games. In the real world we still prefer to talk our way out of a nasty situation.
If world war III where to break out and we go all out nuclear war then nobody wins. Diplomacy prevented that scenario in the cold war because unlike Civ, nobody want's to die... REALLY.
Here is a good quote that describes why diplomacy beats total annihilation:
"There are no winners in war, only survivors"
I repeat then, to gain the colonies as vassals you have convince them that you are powerful enough to protect them. And a warmonger that isn't paying attention to world politics deserve to lose.
What steps can you take to prevent a vassal from being eligible btw? Short of jinxing them into adopting a state religion that isn't the AP religion which isn't possible AFAIK there is no way and you also want him to have the AP religion as his state religion to gain as much voting power from him as possible.
To prevent it from happening a warmonger can destroy all colonies that are vassals to the diplomatic player. He can also destroy the AP building itself or take over cities that have the largest populations. All to ensure that a diplomatic victory will never be gained.
The smartest thing to do is still to ensure you have a say in who wins a diplomatic victory and that includes gaining at least one other player to vote with you. If your combined world population exceeds 25% you don't even have to adopt the AP religion as the state religion.
Like i said before, you don't have to like each other but neither of you would want to lose to a (in your eyes) inferior nation.
Religion is a strong force in the world, the friggin pope himself has more power in his hands than the president of the united states. Because he has over 1.16 BILLION Catholics under his "wings". If the pope could convince all Catholics that the USA was REALLY bad then the US would cease to exist.
r_rolo1
King of myself
Actually ... no
The AI can run a religion that is not the majority one in his cities under some conditions ( due to some shortcomings of the AI coding ) ... and you don't necessarily want that your vassal has much power in the AP vote, just the enough for the magic 75% + 1 . In fact , the AP win vote is so ill conceived that you can even bypass that condition if you pass from less than 75% of the votes to more than 75% of the votes in the vote turn ( well, the UN also suffers from that, but it is easier to manipulate the AP votes you have than the UN ones ... )
Archon_Wing
Vote for me or die
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I love the AP.
*Points at sig*
But I still think it's broken, as evidenced by the game designers never even having tested the victory part. I just find enjoyment in trolling.
Oh and what happens if I spread my AP religion to all my cities? They all become ticking time bombs because if some non-member captures them, they are a voting member, and can trigger my diplo victory. They can only run straight for my AP and burn it down. Given AI tendency to spread w/e comes to them, I can effectively make certain opponents instantly lose should they do the obvious mistake of capturing a city. 
*Points at sig*
But I still think it's broken, as evidenced by the game designers never even having tested the victory part. I just find enjoyment in trolling.
Oh and what happens if I spread my AP religion to all my cities? They all become ticking time bombs because if some non-member captures them, they are a voting member, and can trigger my diplo victory. They can only run straight for my AP and burn it down.
Given AI tendency to spread w/e comes to them, I can effectively make certain opponents instantly lose should they do the obvious mistake of capturing a city. 
