How do you defeat the Apostolic Palace?

[IthacaMike]

Yes, I'd like some cheese with this whine.

In my last game of BtS I'd managed a blow-out. I'd conquered my contenent, was way ahead in techs, founed three corporations, and was building the space ship. I did not have quite enough votes to win the UN (but by spreading sushi and building farms I think I could have grown large enough).

I and my vasal were runing a state religion, Darius and his two vassels were running free religion. And then it happened, one of Darius' cities flipped over to me.

Game over, I lose.

So how do you avoid losing to the Apostolic Palace if it is built on the other side of the world? Remember spies can spread religion.

IthacaMike

 

[madscientist]

Yes, I'd like some cheese with this whine.

In my last game of BtS I'd managed a blow-out. I'd conquered my contenent, was way ahead in techs, founed three corporations, and was building the space ship. I did not have quite enough votes to win the UN (but by spreading sushi and building farms I think I could have grown large enough).

I and my vasal were runing a state religion, Darius and his two vassels were running free religion. And then it happened, one of Darius' cities flipped over to me.

Game over, I lose.

So how do you avoid losing to the Apostolic Palace if it is built on the other side of the world? Remember spies can spread religion.

IthacaMike

I am not sure follow all this. A city flipped, culturally???

I thought that the Apolstalic Palace became obsolete with Mass Media???

I guess one way to defeat it is to get that religion in one of your cities and spam it to others. That would increase the weight of you votes through the Apolstalic Palace.

 

[LlamaCat]

how and by what victory type did you lose the game if one of his cities flipped to your side? that doesn't make sense to me either.

otherwise my advice on the AP is the old adage: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Build the wonder yourself and make sure you understand what religion works best for your plan when you do.

 

[IthacaMike]

I am not sure follow all this. A city flipped, culturally???

Yes. That is the power of Sushi -- it and the mining corp can generate an insane amount of culture. I built a city to aquire spice and it acted like a culture bomb and eventually flipped a city to me. In addition to the culture Sushi gave the city ~25 extra food, Mining gave the city ~15 extra hammers. It grew like a tumor.

I thought that the Apolstalic Palace became obsolete with Mass Media???

I had Mass Media, Darius did not. The Apolstolic Palace still worked for him even though I had Mass Media, even though the UN had been built, even though he was not running a state religion.

I guess one way to defeat it is to get that religion in one of your cities and spam it to others. That would increase the weight of you votes through the Apolstalic Palace.

Actually that is a losing strategy. As soon as just one of your city aquires the Apostolic Palace's religion the game is potentially over. At that point the religion has spread to all civilizations and a religious Diplomatic Victory is possible. Without monastaries you will need to a civic change to spread the religion and you may not have time to do it.

You can gift the owner up to Mass Media to turn the Apostolic Palace off.

You can go to war and raze the Apostolic Palace's city.

IthacaMike

 

[madscientist]

Yes. That is the power of Sushi -- it and the mining corp can generate an insane amount of culture. I built a city to aquire spice and it acted like a culture bomb and eventually flipped a city to me. In addition to the culture Sushi gave the city ~25 extra food, Mining gave the city ~15 extra hammers. It grew like a tumor.



I had Mass Media, Darius did not. The Apolstolic Palace still worked for him even though I had Mass Media, even though the UN had been built, even though he was not running a state religion.



Actually that is a losing strategy. As soon as just one of your city aquires the Apostolic Palace's religion the game is potentially over. At that point the religion has spread to all civilizations and a religious Diplomatic Victory is possible. Without monastaries you will need to a civic change to spread the religion and you may not have time to do it.

You can gift the owner up to Mass Media to turn the Apostolic Palace off.

You can go to war and raze the Apostolic Palace's city.

IthacaMike

I guess becuase I play huge maps with 11 AIs the apostalic palace is always a non-issue.

Good points. Some comments

Mass Media seams like it's broken. If I build the UN and all nations go to vote, then all should have the Palace Killed.

If possibel you should get the religion earlier' or invade and destroy it. Otherwise you could build it yourself.

I gotta admit, the AP is one of my least favorite things about BTS. Just seams broken for numerous reasons.

 

[axident]

Yes, I'd like some cheese with this whine.

In my last game of BtS I'd managed a blow-out. I'd conquered my contenent, was way ahead in techs, founed three corporations, and was building the space ship. I did not have quite enough votes to win the UN (but by spreading sushi and building farms I think I could have grown large enough).

I and my vasal were runing a state religion, Darius and his two vassels were running free religion. And then it happened, one of Darius' cities flipped over to me.

Game over, I lose.

So how do you avoid losing to the Apostolic Palace if it is built on the other side of the world? Remember spies can spread religion.

IthacaMike

Huh? I like AP's hammer bonus and switch to whatever the AP religion is, if it's economical.

I'm not sure how one city flipping cost you the entire game, unless it was a very key city like your Space Ele city or something. Are you saying you now had a city of the AP's religion? So what? Did everyone diplo victory to someone else or something? You can gift that city back to the original owner, by the way.

 

[madscientist]

You can gift that city back to the original owner, by the way.

This is true. You can also disband the city.

 

[IthacaMike]

how and by what victory type did you lose the game if one of his cities flipped to your side? that doesn't make sense to me either.

Darius won a Diplomatic Victory. When his city flipped to me it carried the Apostolic Palace's religion into my empire. When that happened all civilizations had the religion and a Religious Diplomatic Victory was possible. Darius and his vassles controled many votes while I controlled one city's worth. Game over.

The situation is worse than it seems. How do you keep a foriegn religion out? Initially I thought that either closed borders or running Theocracy coupled with agressively spreading my own religion would do the trick. But even that may not work. Spies can spread religion and you can't keep them out. I think one of the quests may spread reliugion.

otherwise my advice on the AP is the old adage: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Build the wonder yourself and make sure you understand what religion works best for your plan when you do.

So far there are three solutions. (1) Build the Apostolic Palace; (2) Capture it (and perhaps burn it down to aviod defeat); or (3) give Mass Media and any pre-reqs to the owner (aka tech extortion).

IthacaMike

 

[MrFrodo]

Seems you answered your own question, gifting Mass Media would probably have been the thing to do.

But ya, it adds a whole new twist to the game that you have to watch out for. Good or Bad? I haven't decided yet. I had to go out of my way to raze the capital of a Civ I had planned to stay on good terms with in my last game, because I was afraid they would get an AP win. Luckily I was in a position to do that, get out, make friends again and not incurr any additional wars.

I think some of these extreme cases where a civ is way ahead, but gets the religion spread to them via conquering or cultural flip need to be looked at. There should be some way to warn about it before it happens at least, which could be straight forward for conquering, but might be tricky to implement for a cultural flip. "City X joining your civ would give you religion X, making you a member of the AP. This could lead to a vote for Diplomatic Victory"...

 

[IthacaMike]

Huh? I like AP's hammer bonus and switch to whatever the AP religion is, if it's economical.

If the religion spreads to one of your cities early enough this will work. I tend to run Organized Religion and use missionaries to spread my state religion for the production bonus. If a religion is present in a city then another will not spread there without a missionary or a spy.

The kick in the teeth is when the Apostolic Palace is built on the other side of the ocean and the religion will not spread to you at all. At that point you face sudden death if the Apostolic Palace's religion does spread to you.

I'm not sure how one city flipping cost you the entire game, unless it was a very key city like your Space Ele city or something. Are you saying you now had a city of the AP's religion? So what? Did everyone diplo victory to someone else or something? You can gift that city back to the original owner, by the way.

So what? So What? SO WHAT? {head explodes}

At that point Darious controlled several hundred votes in the Apostolic Palace and I controled a city's worth. My Mass Media did me no good. My UN did me no good. I used bad language. Darius won.

IthacaMike

 

[axident]

If the religion spreads to one of your cities early enough this will work. I tend to run Organized Religion and use missionaries to spread my state religion for the production bonus. If a religion is present in a city then another will not spread there without a missionary or a spy.

The kick in the teeth is when the Apostolic Palace is built on the other side of the ocean and the religion will not spread to you at all. At that point you face sudden death if the Apostolic Palace's religion does spread to you.



So what? So What? SO WHAT? {head explodes}

At that point Darious controlled several hundred votes in the Apostolic Palace and I controled a city's worth. My Mass Media did me no good. My UN did me no good. I used bad language. Darius won.

IthacaMike

Gift the city back, then, no problem.

 

[madscientist]

Gift the city back, then, no problem.

To repeat myself (ourselves), disband it.

 

[IthacaMike]

I think some of these extreme cases where a civ is way ahead, but gets the religion spread to them via conquering or cultural flip need to be looked at. There should be some way to warn about it before it happens at least, which could be straight forward for conquering, but might be tricky to implement for a cultural flip. "City X joining your civ would give you religion X, making you a member of the AP. This could lead to a vote for Diplomatic Victory"...

Yep, this was the extreme case. I dominated one continent and Darius dominated the other and I had a massive tech lead.

I'd make the Apostolic Palace obsolete with Liberalism. How can a Civilization that is running Free Religion win a Religious Diplomatic Victory?

More cheese!

IthacaMike

 

[Ankh]

Yep, this was the extreme case. I dominated one continent and Darius dominated the other and I had a massive tech lead.

I'd make the Apostolic Palace obsolete with Liberalism. How can a Civilization that is running Free Religion win a Religious Diplomatic Victory?

More cheese!

IthacaMike

To repeat what others already said:

* Disband the city instead of accepting it into you empire
* Gift mass media to make palace obsolete
* Gift the city back to get the religion out
* Run theocracy if you want to be safe

Not to be harsh or anything but you have just yourself to blame for losing. AP is fine as it is.

 

[FrancisMarion]

To repeat what others already said:

* Disband the city instead of accepting it into you empire
* Gift mass media to make palace obsolete
* Gift the city back to get the religion out
* Run theocracy if you want to be safe

Not to be harsh or anything but you have just yourself to blame for losing. AP is fine as it is.

Just because it can be worked around doesn't make it "fine".

Other than the 2 hammers, I've yet to see the AP add anything of value to the game.

 

[Ankh]

Just because it can be worked around doesn't make it "fine".

Other than the 2 hammers, I've yet to see the AP add anything of value to the game.

If you could not work around the AP THEN it whould be broken now you can so I see nothing wrong with it, maybe you can clarify what you mean by saying its not "fine"?.

AP adds alot to the game, religious war against infidels, a different way to win the game for builders, one more element to keep watch for so you dont get your game snagged away from you just to name a few things. Now thats may be nothing of value for you but i think most ppl find the AP pretty fun to play around with.

 

[Florian]

I like the AP for the most part, but it's purely ridiculous that IthacaMike could have lost this game the way he did. If that religion exists in only one of his cities, it's completely irrelevant to his empire. Why should he care if 1000 of his 100 million citizens have joined a cult? And why should it make a game-deciding difference to the rest of the world? "Hey, the Greeks have converted! Well, .001% of them have anyway. Quick, let's elect a Holy Persian Emperor! He HAS to participate in our election NOW!"

Heck, in actual history that didn't work even within the bounds of Western Europe, when all the civics were purely medieval and 95% of the population was Roman Catholic. How could it ever work worldwide for a religion that accounts for only 20% of the population? Why would all the Confucians, Muslims, Christians and Jews in the world give a rip if the Hindus suddenly voted to give the Indian Prime Minister the title "Universal Sovereign"?

As for fixes, yeah, he could refuse to take the city when it revolted. Or he could return it to sender. But what if the religion in question suddenly spreads to one of his core cities? He has to DISBAND it? Suddenly missionaries are more destructive than nukes.

 

[CivScientist]

You can disband a city in Civ 4 now?

 

[Percy]

You can disband a city in Civ 4 now?

When a city is flipping, you have the choice to accept it in your empire or to disband it.

 

[Florian]

Right, good point. If that religion spreads to one of your core cities, you don't even have the option of disbanding it. Nor will foreign leaders accept it as a gift, when it's been saturated with your culture for the past 3000 years. You're just screwed. You have no choice but to participate in an election you have no prayer of winning, because if you boycotted it, you might offend the sensibilities of that .001% of your population that have recently converted. Or something.