How do you defeat the Apostolic Palace?

[IthacaMike]

Please tell me how? Spies can force you to switch state religion but since you have no cities with the state religion in question it wont help?

So how can an ai with spies get a religion inside your empire?

I was confusing "Spread Culture" with "Influence Religion." It looksl like between agressively spreading a non-Apostolic Palace religion and either Closed Borders or Theocracy you may be able keep the foreign religion out. When conquering you must raze cities rather than capture them which will make it hard to capture wonders.

IthacaMike

 

[Percy]

I'm just saying the tools are there to help the player prevent an AP win and it's up to us do decide when to use them or not. Iv'e never played a game were i lost against a vote and felt it was absolutly nothing i could do to prevent it.

Well...
You know, the AP _does_ need fixing. Because a strategy i've pulled off a few times is to grow big with my religion, build the AP asap, and then, when i've grown my cities a bit, i spread my religion quickly, one city per civ, and then vote me religious leader of the world. The fact that one can vote onself as a religious leader is pretty ridiculous. The voting system must be fixed, maybe giving only a vote per civ, or a vote per city with the religion, and then making it so that a leader must obtain the majority of (total votes - candidate votes) to be elected.

 

[Alsn]

The thing with the AP diplo wins is that in some cases you can win by simply spreading your "stupid religion that noone cares about" to one city from each civ and then just vote yourself leader of the entire world! How does that even make sense? Or more importantly, how does that compare to how hard the other victories are to achieve?

You dont have to worry about diplomatic relations, you dont have to tech very fast, you dont have to win alot of wars and stomp others into submission or anything like that, all you have to do is found a single religion after everyone else has gotten their own and then make sure you build a single wonder.

Just feels like a very cheap way to win to me(if you would actually win by having it spread to pretty much everyone and butter them up and actually have people voting for you, thatd be something thats actually something that in my book would be worth a win).

 

[axident]

The thing with the AP diplo wins is that in some cases you can win by simply spreading your "stupid religion that noone cares about" to one city from each civ and then just vote yourself leader of the entire world! How does that even make sense? Or more importantly, how does that compare to how hard the other victories are to achieve?

You dont have to worry about diplomatic relations, you dont have to tech very fast, you dont have to win alot of wars and stomp others into submission or anything like that, all you have to do is found a single religion after everyone else has gotten their own and then make sure you build a single wonder.

Just feels like a very cheap way to win to me(if you would actually win by having it spread to pretty much everyone and butter them up and actually have people voting for you, thatd be something thats actually something that in my book would be worth a win).

Have you ever tried this strategy several times on the higher difficulty levels? What were the results?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Shutting borders with the AP owner kills that strategy. Missionaries don't ignore closed borders, unless something has changed.

No open borders with AP owner + at least one religion in each city you own to prevent random spreading + not keeping any cities (unless you capture the AP for yourself) = immunity to religious loss. It's kind of annoying, but not gamebreaking.

I'm curious, those of you who think that feature is broken, how would you fix it? If I had a problem with the current implementation, I'd go back to Alpha Centauri's implementation of the diplomatic victory. In that game, there were 3 votes: Yes, Abstain, and No. If a vote for a diplomatic victory got sufficient yes votes to pass, there would be one last hurdle: A world war, everyone who said no vs. everyone who didn't. There were no cease fires or peace treaties with this particular war, it was a final war that could only end with the annihilation of one side. So you could defy diplomatic victories, but unless you had the muscle to back up your defiance (which the OP would have), it was a waste of time.

 

[travathian]

++ SMAC diplo victory scheme.

I can't remember the last time I played a Civ4 game with diplomatic victory enabled because of stupid crap like this. The AP only makes it worse.

 

[obliterate]

You shouldn't be able to vote for yourself.

Say you have 50 votes your opponents have 20 combined. Out of those 20 you need 15 to win.

 

[IthacaMike]

No open borders with AP owner + at least one religion in each city you own to prevent random spreading + not keeping any cities (unless you capture the AP for yourself) = immunity to religious loss. It's kind of annoying, but not gamebreaking.

I don't think you can keep the AP either, you have to burn the city. If you keep it then the original owner will still have many many votes and you will have a few and you are still subject to a sudden Religious Diplomatic Defeat.

The concept of conquest has gone right out the window. Now you must burn each captured city (with the wrong religion) along with their Wonders and Shrines up to and including the city that holds the Apostolic Palace or risk a Diplomatic Defeat. I don't think "kind of annoying" is the term I would have used.

You are right though, this closed border Theocratic kill them all strategy is what the AP has created.

IthacaMike

 

[Phrederick]

Have you ever tried this strategy several times on the higher difficulty levels? What were the results?

I've tried it once or twice. It's really really hard. And this was on Pangaea, which is the easiest one to try it on.

The concept of conquest has gone right out the window. Now you must burn each captured city (with the wrong religion) along with their Wonders and Shrines up to and including the city that holds the Apostolic Palace or risk a Diplomatic Defeat. I don't think "kind of annoying" is the term I would have used.

Yeah? I almost always win via conquest or domination. I've NEVER had a problem with the AP.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I don't think you can keep the AP either, you have to burn the city. If you keep it then the original owner will still have many many votes and you will have a few and you are still subject to a sudden Religious Diplomatic Defeat.

I'm pretty sure only the owner of the AP can win like that. So if you take, and keep, the AP city, YOU become the guy that can get a religious win. Am I wrong?

 

[alex sword]

A good solution against "apostolic palace" is bribing. Bribe AIs to start wars if possible, to stop trading and so on. Just don't neglect diplomacy and the palace won't be dangerous.

 

[axident]

I've tried it once or twice. It's really really hard. And this was on Pangaea, which is the easiest one to try it on.

Of course it is. I was being sarcastic towards the other guy who was claiming how it was so cheap to do such a strat. Frankly if it's so hard for a human player to do, how hard do you think it must be for the AI, which can't even think more than 1 turn in advance for most things? Once in a blue moon something like what happened to IthacaMike happens. Sucks to be him, but oh well, once in a while barb uprisings happen at really bad times and wipe you out, too. If you don't like stuff like that, turn barbs off, or random events off, or DiploVic off.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well I think Diplo Victory itself really needs a rehaul

 

[Alsn]

Its not about being hard to pull of or not, its about it being cheap when it does happen.

And quite frankly, its not very hard to do, heck, theres even a game in the "lonely hearts" thread where someone does exactly this on immortal.

You dont even have to have open borders with a civ for spreading with a missionary, all you have to do is found a city on the fringes of their empire, pop a missionary and just gift them the city, a 1 pop city with the religion in question will probably give them about a single vote.

Obviously, the larger the map the more hard this becomes, but on small/standard its just too easy to pull off to feel like a real victory imho.

 

[Phrederick]

Of course it is. I was being sarcastic towards the other guy who was claiming how it was so cheap to do such a strat.

Yeah, I should have been clearer; I knew you were being sarcastic, and saying that the people saying it's super easy should try it.

Its not about being hard to pull of or not, its about it being cheap when it does happen.

And quite frankly, its not very hard to do, heck, theres even a game in the "lonely hearts" thread where someone does exactly this on immortal. Obviously, the larger the map the more hard this becomes, but on small/standard its just too easy to pull off to feel like a real victory imho.

Have you tried it? It takes a lot of work. I tried it on a small pangaea, and just conquering the world would be easier. The only way I really see it being easy is if you build a strong religious bloc, gain the AP residency, and declare holy wars to wipe everyone else out until the only people left have your religioni. They should be happy enough with +religion and +military struggle to vote you in. However, if you've been able to wipe out a couple other civs, you should be able to win any way you want to win.

 

[Percy]

Have you tried it? It takes a lot of work. I tried it on a small pangaea, and just conquering the world would be easier. The only way I really see it being easy is if you build a strong religious bloc, gain the AP residency, and declare holy wars to wipe everyone else out until the only people left have your religioni. They should be happy enough with +religion and +military struggle to vote you in. However, if you've been able to wipe out a couple other civs, you should be able to win any way you want to win.

I have won a couple of Prince games by simply spreading ONE missionary to every civ, and voting myself a religious leader (that is, i only needed my own votes, even if the others didn't vote for me, my votes were enough to elect me).

Do you REALLY think this should work that way?

 

[Ankh]

I have won a couple of Prince games by simply spreading ONE missionary to every civ, and voting myself a religious leader (that is, i only needed my own votes, even if the others didn't vote for me, my votes were enough to elect me).

Do you REALLY think this should work that way?

That is on Prince now you try to do the same on emperor/immortal. On Prince you can basically do whatever you want and get away with it.

I don't complain that conquest is to easy on prince when i'm rolling over spearmen with my tanks. Or building my spaceship when the other civs are just learing to write their own language.

 

[Percy]

That is on Prince now you try to do the same on emperor/immortal. On Prince you can basically do whatever you want and get away with it.

I don't complain that conquest is to easy on prince when i'm rolling over spearmen with my tanks. Or building my spaceship when the other civs are just learing to write their own language.

I'm not even saying it's too easy, i'm saying it MAKES NO SENSE.
On a sidenote, i don't really understand why it would be so hard to do on Emperor/Immortal/Deity. And before you ask me, no, i cannot do it, because i suck. But i don't see why someone who is comfortable at Emperor (that doesn't mean winning easily, that just means being able to stay alive past 1000 AD) couldn't be able to do exactly the same using this very, very simple tactic:

Spread your religion to all your cities, spread it to one city for each of the AI, vote yourself leader. Please, do explain to me how it is so hard, and, above all, how it makes sense at all to be able to VOTE YOURSELF leader of the world.

 

[Ankh]

I'm not even saying it's too easy, i'm saying it MAKES NO SENSE.
On a sidenote, i don't really understand why it would be so hard to do on Emperor/Immortal/Deity. And before you ask me, no, i cannot do it, because i suck. But i don't see why someone who is comfortable at Emperor (that doesn't mean winning easily, that just means being able to stay alive past 1000 AD) couldn't be able to do exactly the same using this very, very simple tactic:

Spread your religion to all your cities, spread it to one city for each of the AI, vote yourself leader. Please, do explain to me how it is so hard, and, above all, how it makes sense at all to be able to VOTE YOURSELF leader of the world.

Saying it makes no sense dosn't matter, alot of things in civ4 dosnt make sense and I agree with you the AP diplomatic win dosnt make much sense. It's there for gameplay reasons so the builders can win the game diplomatic before the UN comes into play. For the people who like to use the religious part of the game more and enjoys that aspect also it's a chance to end the game earlier if you clearly are winning instead of waiting for the UN or building your spaceship or whatever you wanna do.

If you don't like it you have the option to turn it off like most thing in civ4 customise the game to you liking.

The tactic arent as simple as you make it sound, the trouble is if you tries to win with an early religion on emp+ besides that an early religion slows down your worker techs the religion just spreads so much before you can elect youself leader so you dont heve enough votes to win. If you try with a later religion (if you manage to found one) the AI hates you for being in another religious block and you get into all sorts of trouble like unwanted wars unable to trade techs while your are spending all your hammers on missionaries etc.

 

[Percy]

You misunderstand me a lot, it seems.

Saying it makes no sense dosn't matter, alot of things in civ4 dosnt make sense and I agree with you the AP diplomatic win dosnt make much sense.

I didn't say that the victories made no sense. I said it made no sense that, in a game, one can elect oneself winner. This is stupid from a gameplay standpoint, not from a pseudo-realistic one.

It's there for gameplay reasons so the builders can win the game diplomatic before the UN comes into play.

And it's great. It is not great, however, that you can elect yourself.

For the people who like to use the religious part of the game more and enjoys that aspect also it's a chance to end the game earlier if you clearly are winning instead of waiting for the UN or building your spaceship or whatever you wanna do.

And that's why it's a welcome addition. The mechanisms of which clearly need fixing, though.

If you don't like it you have the option to turn it off like most thing in civ4 customise the game to you liking.

This comment is utterly useless. People should stop talking about balance, strategies, and anything about the game, then, since "if you don't like it, just don't play it".

The tactic arent as simple as you make it sound, the trouble is if you tries to win with an early religion on emp+ besides that an early religion slows down your worker techs the religion just spreads so much before you can elect youself leader so you dont heve enough votes to win.
If you try with a later religion (if you manage to found one) the AI hates you for being in another religious block and you get into all sorts of trouble like unwanted wars unable to trade techs while your are spending all your hammers on missionaries etc.

A misisonary costs 40 hammers at normal speed. How hard is it to build a few for those cities that weren't connected to the holy city?
And regardless, how would it be more difficult than someone trying to go for a cultural victory? That's why i said it was an easy tactic for someone who is comfortable at a difficulty level: because you simply have to turtle, give in whenever someone threatens you, beelining for Theology while build/early-capturing 10 cities. Once all are converted, you send one missionary to every other civ, and proceed on electing yourself a leader. Clearly you must admit it's one of the easiest way to win the game, since you're basically doing nothing but turtling.


Once again, let me state that i like the option of a diplomatic victory, and i like the concept behind the Apostolic Palace. It's just the mechanisms that are broken at the moment, like other mechanisms are. A simple example: some believe Corporations are broken. Would you go to every thread where people discuss this and tell them they can just play with Warlords, where Corporations don't exist, if they don't like the way they work?