Warmongering and the Apostolic Palace

[illram]

Hello fellow BtS'ers

I am wondering what strategies any of you warmongers have for dealing with BtS's lovely new addition- the Apostolic Palace. (Aside from building it and being the leader, which I want to avoid as I don't want to get roped into trying for it every game! I am also assuming, for the sake of this post, that one is defying the really unreasonable resolutions, such as the ones gifting cities)

Anyways, lately this wonder has been the bane of my existence. (I usually play normal/monarch FYI)

I am curious how, if at all, some of you have been dealing with the massive unhappiness you get after defying consecutive resolutions, particularly those that try and gift back AI cities you've captured. From what I can tell each defiance vote is +5 unhappy faces for 20 turns in about a third to half your cities, and they stack up on top of each other after each vote, which comes every 10 turns. Put that with WW and you are looking at some hefty unhappiness, particularly in the early game when happy faces are harder to come by. So, you are looking at a possible -10 happy modifier if the AI decides to keep trying to gift the cities (which they will do, even when you are at peace) until the AP is obsoleted by the UN. This recently happened to me two games in a row. (10 unhappiness for about half the game...Very annoying.) Towards the end of the game it isn't as bad as the modern age affords more happiness modifiers, but in the early to mid game it can be very very damaging.

So... ideas? I have a few but was wondering what you guys thought.

1) Ride it out with slavery.
Just whip the cities that have the big time unhappiness back to nothing and ride it out. Usually I have enough units by then to do just that, but my economy takes a huge hit and my science slows down to nothing.

2) Hereditary rule.
This gets expensive. 10 cheap warriors or archers in the cities that need it are still going to cost you some loot, and you don't necessarily want to build all of those while you can be building other stuff. One game I tried this successfully with chariots, which are cheap and can be built for a long time until you get guilds. Park about 20 of them somewhere central and move them around to the cities which get the unhappiness hit. Drawback is if you are doing SE, you can't run representation.

3) Raze everything.
This seems to be the only sure fire way to stop city gifting resolutions (besides being the head of the AP), which IMHO are the most damaging resolutions. However, some cities you really don't want to raze, such as capitols with wonders in them. All it takes is one or two cities which you keep, and the AI will constantly try and gift them back ad infinitum. The only respite is the election votes.

4) Turn off diplomatic victory.
This is a non starter for me. I dislike eliminating victory conditions as I like leaving my options open and playing the game with everything included.

5) Build the damn thing?
I've never built it, and haven't tried (I've played maybe 7 or 8 full games so far) and I never really play the religious route, unless its confucianism or taoism or it's just that one game where I happen to try for hinduism or something. Beelining theology also doesn't really fit with my usual way of doing things. (And changing it up would just mean getting stuck in a different rut, i.e. beelining for theology every time!)

6) Better diplomacy?
I've been "pleased" AND shared the same religion as the head of the AP and the civ to which the AP is trying to give my cities back to, and they STILL try and gift them back. It seems the AI is hardwired to try and screw you with these votes, which kind of sucks but that's the way every incarnation of Civ has seemed to work.

7) Raze it.
In only one game was the AP anywhere near me. I didn't raze it, but I still didn't have enough religion to win the vote, and I built the UN anyway and won the space race shortly thereafter. I am assuming this would eliminate the voting process?

Has anyone had the same "tear-out your hair" moments with this wonder? Have I just had some unlucky games? It's really annoying but some people on here have very unique ways of playing this game, and I'd be curious to hear if any of you have effective strats for dealing with this wonder.

 

[LikeMike]

I might be wrong, but I think the AP doesn`t affect you at all if you have free religion... of course that wouldn`t help you much in the earlier rounds. Other than that, building it seems to be the best option.

 

[illram]

It does affect you if you have free religion, insofar as the votes taking away your cities or declaring peace between you and another affect you.

 

[Sjaramei]

If you are warmongering you should be able to get most territory/population before that palace kicks in. If you are unfortunate enough not building it yourself and having a few cities with the chosen religion just spread the religion around in most of your cities and block the votes against you. Even convert and steal leader yourself after a while if you can be bothered.

I haven't had too much trouble with this thing since i've built it myself a lot or got it locked in a religion not very much used

 

[Slaughter]

If you raze it, it's possible to build another, or it's gone?

 

[AySteve]

I think the option to gift cities is only available if you do not have cultural dominance in the city. You could try building a few culture buildings/using artists/culture bomb etc. to try and gain cultural dominance over the previous owner. If you do the voting to reassign it should stop. Unfortunatly if it is an old city then the amount of culture you need could be significant and not worth the investment.

Also I think I heard that the unhappiness penalty only occurs in cities that have the AP religion present. If this is the case you could try limiting the spread of that religion by either spreading different religions to the cities that dont have it or by adopting theocracy (although this also means a detour to theology)

 

[cabert]

I would suggest one the following :
- go for fast and total conquest of your enemies (noone left to gift the city back = you're the rightful owner ). If you wait for a vote before attacking, it should give you a few turns to do so.
- start the biggest cities with the "world religion" first. Gives you more votes to reject the proposition.
- (needs testing) start by conquering cities that don't contain the "world religion"
- (needs thinking over) "sabotage" religion (does this exist?) of the Apostolic Palace builder. I'm pretty sure some espionnage actions can give you free hands.

 

[Fredricko]

I would try spreading an unpopular religion around to your largest cities and one or two of the closest/smallest cities of the leader with the AP. Then target that leader with most of your EPs and forcibly convert him to the unpopular religion. I think this would involve less religion spreading than trying to gain dominance over the current AP religion.

 

[illram]

Some good suggestions in here guys. I particularly like AySteve's observation that the religion's presence dictates whether the city gets the unhappiness modifiers. Getting theology and vassalage before the AP is built is more manageable than beelining for it early I guess and also makes building the SP even more of a priority.

I also noticed something in my last game. When you click "members" under the victory screen, it says some members are "full members" and some members are "voting members." I think this has to do with how much of the AP builder's religion you have in your civ, and I am wondering if "full members" get the same crappy treatment that "voting members" do.

Interesting discussion. The AP is certainly an interesting wonder.

 

[Sjaramei]

Some good suggestions in here guys. I particularly like AySteve's observation that the religion's presence dictates whether the city gets the unhappiness modifiers. Getting theology and vassalage before the AP is built is more manageable than beelining for it early I guess and also makes building the SP even more of a priority.

I also noticed something in my last game. When you click "members" under the victory screen, it says some members are "full members" and some members are "voting members." I think this has to do with how much of the AP builder's religion you have in your civ, and I am wondering if "full members" get the same crappy treatment that "voting members" do.

Interesting discussion. The AP is certainly an interesting wonder.

If you have the AP religion as your state religion you are "Full member"
If you have built (or captured i think) AP you are also "Full member" regardless of state religion.
If you don't but have that religion in at least one of your cities you are a "Voting member"

Only full members can be voted leaders and get diplomatic victory

 

[AySteve]

If you have the AP religion as your state religion you are "Full member"
If you have built (or captured i think) AP you are also "Full member" regardless of state religion.
If you don't but have that religion in at least one of your cities you are a "Voting member"

Only full members can be voted leaders and get diplomatic victory

Full members can also be demoted to voting members if they defy a resolution. They can regain full memeber status by voting yes on a resolution that passes.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

You only need communism to be able to ignore the votes. Once I had communism I could vote NEVER and I didn't seem to pick up any unhappy faces.

Also since I vassalized the AP owner, I didn't get any return city resolutions. Not sure if that is coincidence or not though.

I think the AP makes Theocracy a very useful civic. You can afford the unhappiness penalty if its just a couple of cities that you captured recently if the rest of your empire has its own separate religion.

The AP also makes declaring war on your religious friends a very dangerous proposition - almost game losing if the AP is built by that religious block. Best to leave them alone and fight the infidel.

 

[mice]

If you have a vassal and are in a war, the vassal will defy to resolution to make peace. This is not the same as return city, but it is very useful because you don't have to take the 5 unhappys. ( note, this is anecdotal, based on one game)

To the OP, just build it and convert all your cites as you go . AP fueled domination wins are alot of fun

 

[Plato90s]

Apostolic Palace can make it pretty weird between AI's.

Had an Emperor game where there was 3 of us on the continent - Persians (AP owner), Celts, and me. Celts were Buddhists, as was I. The Persians were Christians - holy city owner and AP owner. They were also far weaker. If the Celts and I are 10 on the power scale, the Persians were only about 3.

Persians spread Christianity to both Celts and me, but only a couple of cities. Under the weird mechanics that AI's play, even though the Celts were at war with the Persians for much of the game - they could never keep their gains. Peace kept on being declared via AP elections, and then captured cities were forced to be returned.

The Celts never seemed to defy it, although it makes no sense to keep giving back cities.

From my perspective, I'd prefer to let the Celts keep fighting since it'd weaken them for my eventual assault. But it just didn't work, since the AP votes kept on ending wars and giving back cities.

The eventual solution was for me to use the open border to spread Christianity to enough cities on both my side and the Celts that together we outweighed the AP owner Persians.

After that, the Celts/Persians got stuck in deep and I made them both vassals once I got infantry/cannon.

 

[tempuraki]

Has anyone had the same "tear-out your hair" moments with this wonder? Have I just had some unlucky games? It's really annoying but some people on here have very unique ways of playing this game, and I'd be curious to hear if any of you have effective strats for dealing with this wonder.

It's happening in my latest game that is into the modern age, very annoying. Some of the ideas here are going to help me cope with it, especially running HR, which will hurt a bit since I am runnig CE and just hate to switch out of US. And the fact that you get more vote as you convert more of your cities to the AP religion; that might tilt things in my favor.

Two other things you can try, altho they are not optimal, but they are definitely "unique" enough:

8) Declare war on a member. This can give the AI an (hopefully more prioritized) option to end the war. Altho it's not guaranteed that the AI will propose that, it's worth a shot.

9) Gift/trade Mass Media tech to the AI with the palace. I might just do that, but I have to give him Radio first, so that's two techs I have to give up, and that's pretty much my tech lead.

 

[MrFrodo]

I think I'm gonna try to win with the AP next time I play. It is a completely bizzarre mechanic to me, but it seems like a fun thing to do once to prove you can. Someone outlined the steps in another thread. They were something like:

1) Beeline to Theocracy and build the AP first.

2) On the way found at least one religion. Before you build AP make the least popular religion among other civs your state religion.

3) Spread your religion to all your cities, but only to a few small cities, prefereably ones on islands away from the main group, in each other civilization. Best to choose your religion as one not popular in other civs if you can.

4) Once all the civs have at least one city with your religion they all become members of the AP and you can be voted the Diplomatic Winner. Hopefully, you have the most votes

In my last game I was very afraid the AP owner would spread their religion to the last two remaining civs and win on me, even though I was far ahead in just about everything else. I had to declare war on them, blow up the AP city and get out of the war immediately (defying a resolution to give peace along the way). Obviosuly, this only worked for me because I'm was still playing at an easier level (Noble). I have yet to run into this gifting cities defiance causing unhappiness issue.

I have mixed feelings about the AP, but I will say it forces some complex gameplay decisions that never existed before, so that is kind of good.