I hated the AP, especially since I liked to ignore religion, and a domination victory was once spoiled by a totally lame 1650 Justinian "Religious Victory"--stupidest add-on to Civ 4 ever.
Anyhow, last game I ignored religion again (founding one is an investment I don't want--if you don't spread it early, wasting your hammers on missionaries, you risk being the blacklisted by the AI), I lucked into the dominant religious sect, with most powerful enemies buffered from me by religious-friendly buds (you tend to get your neighbors' religions if you ignore religion, obviously.) Common situation. Skirmish wars broke out between my AI sect (I was on the far east coast of a Pangaea) and the west coast heathens--I just ignored them while I consumed the weak, isolated heathen Frenchmen to the north.
But once I was elected head of the AP (friend points with religious neighbors+population dominance, I didn't even build it), I voted our whole religion to war twice--crippling every other AI civ, since I completely ignored the conflicts (under the circumstances, they'd need to march a stack through enemy territory to reach me.) Fruitless, long attrition wars destroy the AI, especially if your GNP+Power+tech are snowballing from efficient use of Total War (I had the dominant early-empire + the French lands.) On Noble, I rarely see the AI win Total Wars, but it does happen. Odds are, if you Apostolic Palace order your allies to war, they're not really ready--meaning you can count on attrition.
Under the circumstances, the backstab was next, with everybody's war-ravaged civs epochs removed from rifling (I nabbed a 24 straight turn golden age with GP + the 2 wonders), whereas I got cavalry. I steamrolled through skeleton crews defending cities. Domination victory in 1710 (I'm no expert at this game)--but my earliest ever victory, all thanks to leveraging the AP to strategically soften up the AI civs. It's actually kind of clever--rewarding you for being the Bismarck (metaphorically), not taking religion seriously!
The event log kept showing cities bouncing back and forth between the AIs. The stupidly warring AI civs had made peace, presumably since further war would be costly and pointless, but the negative emotions made the AP wars easy to trigger (I think everybody voted for them!) From my strategic position, the wars were a no brainer.
Anyhow, last game I ignored religion again (founding one is an investment I don't want--if you don't spread it early, wasting your hammers on missionaries, you risk being the blacklisted by the AI), I lucked into the dominant religious sect, with most powerful enemies buffered from me by religious-friendly buds (you tend to get your neighbors' religions if you ignore religion, obviously.) Common situation. Skirmish wars broke out between my AI sect (I was on the far east coast of a Pangaea) and the west coast heathens--I just ignored them while I consumed the weak, isolated heathen Frenchmen to the north.
But once I was elected head of the AP (friend points with religious neighbors+population dominance, I didn't even build it), I voted our whole religion to war twice--crippling every other AI civ, since I completely ignored the conflicts (under the circumstances, they'd need to march a stack through enemy territory to reach me.) Fruitless, long attrition wars destroy the AI, especially if your GNP+Power+tech are snowballing from efficient use of Total War (I had the dominant early-empire + the French lands.) On Noble, I rarely see the AI win Total Wars, but it does happen. Odds are, if you Apostolic Palace order your allies to war, they're not really ready--meaning you can count on attrition.
Under the circumstances, the backstab was next, with everybody's war-ravaged civs epochs removed from rifling (I nabbed a 24 straight turn golden age with GP + the 2 wonders), whereas I got cavalry. I steamrolled through skeleton crews defending cities. Domination victory in 1710 (I'm no expert at this game)--but my earliest ever victory, all thanks to leveraging the AP to strategically soften up the AI civs. It's actually kind of clever--rewarding you for being the Bismarck (metaphorically), not taking religion seriously!
The event log kept showing cities bouncing back and forth between the AIs. The stupidly warring AI civs had made peace, presumably since further war would be costly and pointless, but the negative emotions made the AP wars easy to trigger (I think everybody voted for them!) From my strategic position, the wars were a no brainer.
