BTS first impressions.

[joncnunn]

Also if the Iron in question is within the city radius of a city you've already conquered you don't have to worry about keeping it safe from your vassal's culture. And none of the vassals resources are red. (Normally they are if the other civ only has one copy for himself or you wouldn't benefit from the resource.)

Basically whenever capitulation occurs your new vassal has his war/peace adjusted to match the master.

Note this is different than voluntary vassal, in which case the master declares war on whoever the vassal is currently at war with in addition to the new vassal declaring war on whoever the master is currently at war with.

[Cort Haus]

In the end I carried on and took all of Shaka's cities. This left myself and a small but friendly American civ on my continent. 2nd place Justinian and 3rd place Saladin shared another continent (Justinian slightly larger and significantly stronger) and backward but reasonably well-armed Napoleon on the third continent.

I took over France, and intended to then take Arabia to see if that would give me Domination without having to attack America (I prefer not to go to war with old friends). Meanwhile I was heading for Mass Media and the UN as a contingency.

Byzantine joined in the war against Arabia and took a city or two for themselves. I'd got four or five, with a couple left, when Arabia vassaled itself to Byzantine - much to my frustration at that point. By now the UN had been built and the Victory vote was near, so that looked a good bet to wrap up the game quickly.

On the turn of the UN vote, there was an AP vote too. The choice was Justinian or no-one, so I abstained.

The results cane back :

Religious Leader (Diplomatic Victory)
Leading Candidate : Justinian (195 votes, required 191 of 255)
Saladin votes for Justinian (17 total)
Justinian votes for Justinian (178 total)
Zara Yaqob abstains (53 total)
Washington abstains (2 total)

I was

It seemed that I'd 'diplomatically' lost the game to a civ that had no actual friends other than a handful of 'votes' from a vassal it had acquired largely due to the results of my war.

Then I saw at the bottom of the screen : "Zara Jaqob wins a Diplomatic Victory!"

Pressing OK on the AP message brought up the UN results:

UN Election (Diplomatic Victory)
Leading Candidate : Zara Jaqob (548 votes, required 466 out of 752)
Saladin votes for Justinian (18 total)
Justinian votes for Justinian (186 total)
Zara Jocob votes for Zara Jacob (443 total)
Washington votes for Zara Jacob (103 total)

So it looked like I'd won by virtue of the UN trumping the AP if the vote is conclusive on the same turn. A turn later and I'd have lost to a 'one-wonder wonder' civ with no genuine claim to victory at all.

Now, I've read comments from people saying that if the AP is allowed in the game, it should be dealt with by either building it yourself, destroying it, or controlling it. Neither of these are good options. The first is clearly rubbish, as the whole point of wonders in Civ 4 is that they are significantly less powerful than before, and that no single wonder should be a game-breaker. Having to choose a particular and narrow tech path reduces the strategic depth of the game and is wrong. The second is wrong for the same reasons as the first. The third is daft because you have to spread someone else's religion, to their profit, just because of one stupid wonder. Or am I wrong and when the message said 'Diplomatic Victory' it didn't actually mean that at all, just being a bug in the message text?

Having said this, I might try an AP strategy myself to see what it's like to abuse this 'exploit' before switching it off.

So my impressions on finishing my first game of BTS are basically the same as the impressions before I'd played it. The best thing about the 'big new features' is that you can switch them off because they are crap, (espionage is probably ok though) but the various little tweaks to the units, tech tree, traits, AI and game speed work well.

I though Zara's trait combo was fantastic for a REX-ing / Domination type of game.

[joncnunn]

I'm seeing a few more things you could have done differently.

1. After you built the UN just give Justinian Mass Media and all prereqs to it to expire the AP.

2. You might have run as your state religion the AP religion. That would have made you eligible for the vote and in addition double your votes.

3. You could have built Missionaries to spread the AP religion throughout your empire to increase your vote. Even if you didn't own any AP monasteries, you could still have temporarily run Organized Religion.

[Sarco]

I'm drinkin' but no civvin' tonight I'm afraid.

Anyway about the AP (good thread btw):

1. good timing

2. I like that there are several ways to win. There are so many - and quite easy - ways to counter an AP win anyway. It's not like you can't see it coming. There are perfectly decent arguments against all wins, except conquest (and to a lesser extent domination).

[Asmodeous]

2. You might have run as your state religion the AP religion. That would have made you eligible for the vote and in addition double your votes.

3. You could have built Missionaries to spread the AP religion throughout your empire to increase your vote. Even if you didn't own any AP monasteries, you could still have temporarily run Organized Religion.

And on top of it, with both of these it would have increased the number of votes the AP would have required for diplomatic victory, so his vassal's handful of votes wouldn't have been enough to push him over the edge to win.

Also, if the AP is owned by someone else's religion it isn't "daft" to spread that religion throughout your empire and try to control it.

You're giving him 1gp per city, that costs you nothing, and in exchange you get 2-6 hammers in each of those cities that will then be multiplied by any production bonuses you get.

That's a fair tradeoff, because unless something has gone dreadfully awry, hammers are more valuable than gold.

Me.

[wodan11]

Also, if the AP is owned by someone else's religion it isn't "daft" to spread that religion throughout your empire and try to control it.

You're giving him 1gp per city, that costs you nothing, and in exchange you get 2-6 hammers in each of those cities that will then be multiplied by any production bonuses you get.

That's a fair tradeoff, because unless something has gone dreadfully awry, hammers are more valuable than gold.

In general I agree but we need to point out that there is a fair hammer investment cost to make the missionaries and the religious buildings for each city. Once you've made that investment, you do get the return you describe for the rest of the game.

[Asmodeous]

In general I agree but we need to point out that there is a fair hammer investment cost to make the missionaries and the religious buildings for each city. Once you've made that investment, you do get the return you describe for the rest of the game.

That's true, obviously, but generally this happens fairly early on in the game, and you obviously would prioritize your production of the buildings in your low-hammer cities for the buildings, and you can devote a single city to the missionaries and have it done very rapidly. On games below Monarch it's a no-brainer to do, in my few field tests on getting my ass handed to me on Monarch, I've found it's something you have to ponder a bit more.

And with the religious buildings themselves, you're generally going to build at least a temple in most cities anyway as they grow to combat unhappiness, so why not pop the religion in there and gain yourself a couple hammers payout for a building you're going to need anyhow?

But I do recognize your point, especially in higher-difficulty games. (Edit: But his game was on Prince. And as PRince is where I usually play, there's not very many reasons NOT to spread the AP religion if you have the option and spam out the buildings as you can)

Me.

[joncnunn]

The same thing applies on Monarch; I pick some mediocre cities to build Missionaries under Organized Religion during peace. Basically the same ones that would be building things like Archers post-war and Catapults during pre-war.

[Cort Haus]

I'm seeing a few more things you could have done differently.

1. After you built the UN just give Justinian Mass Media and all prereqs to it to expire the AP.

2. You might have run as your state religion the AP religion. That would have made you eligible for the vote and in addition double your votes.

3. You could have built Missionaries to spread the AP religion throughout your empire to increase your vote. Even if you didn't own any AP monasteries, you could still have temporarily run Organized Religion.

Yes, I suppose if I'd taken the trouble to find out how the thing actually worked in advance, I could have acted accordingly. Nice to know that it expires

Not sure if the missionaries were a good option in this case though. I wanted to keep up the momentum of conquest, while still having unit type superiority. I'd only just got the AP religion in the old french cities too, and I was on essential builds (eg: culture and courthouses) on those.

[Sarco]

When you're conquering, it's even easier to solve the problem, isn't it

[Cort Haus]

In my next game I built the AP but lost the vote to Izzie. There have been no other elections, so does it stay with her until it expires?

[joncnunn]

There are periodic elections for AP Palace Resident.
It seems to be based on X number of years not turns so the turn frequently will decrease as the game slows down. (In addition to varying by speed)

It's extremely common for very few AP resolutions to be brought up, so AP elections appear very few compared to UN elections.

As to losing the first vote for Palace Resident that's extremely common for me. Even if you have your religion in all your cities you can be outvoted by AIs choosing to support another AI instead of you due to better diplomatic relations with that other AI.

You'll still get the +2 hammers per AP building without being the resident. But if you really want to become the resident, your best bet is take note of which of the AIs voted for you and who voted for an opponent. You can then take corrective action like spamming your friend(s) with AP missionaries and/or moving up those who voted for someone else on your hit list.

But be careful too, if you DOW on a friend of somewhat who voted for you, your relations with your friend may deteriorate.
And if you spam your friend too much, he may become eligible for the AP palace residence. In which case he'll vote for himself and it's anybody's guess who everybody else is going to vote for.

[Cort Haus]

I've peacefully vassalised the guy who voted for Izzie, and taken over another civ who has the AP religion, so I'd be in good stead for another vote. It's just that in the previous game a vote didn't come up until the same turn I won the UN diplo win election.

[Cort Haus]

But be careful too, if you DOW on a friend of somewhat who voted for you, your relations with your friend may deteriorate.
And if you spam your friend too much, he may become eligible for the AP palace residence. In which case he'll vote for himself and it's anybody's guess who everybody else is going to vote for.

I have a bit of a dilemma on my second BTS game. I'd been intending to write a bit about the whole game here, so...

My continents map rolled everyone on one continent, with some loose change-type land overseas, so it was a bit crowded to start. I got Justinian, placed in the centre of the continent with two creative civs quite close north and south. So I axed-rushed the Greek Philo guy who was very close, which seemed a waste of half of the IMP trait, as his cities were worth keeping, as were a couple of barb cities I took. So I wasn't building many settlers.

Izzie was around, so I converted and spread her Buddhism to my cities to get her onside, and built the AP, which she got initial control of. Suryavarman to the south was also Buddhist, and was getting stick from Ragnar to my SW. He offered peaceful vassalisation, which I took.

I was militarily strong, and with all civs in walking distance decided to go on a bit of a rampage. So I took all the Viking cities with Macemen and Trebs, and immediately hit Cyrus to the NW, accepting his capitulation early on after just razing one city and taking his capital, which I used a Great Artist to secure.

Next was Billy Orange to the North, and by now I had a flock of Cataphracts to play with. He had a lot of walled/castled cities in hills which took a lot of trebs to chew through, but my two vassals did their bit, and the Dutch were eliminated. Not being much a warmonger usually, I don't think I've ever conquered three civs with middle-ages units before so that was something new for me.

At some point an AP election came up, and Suryavarman's vote got me elected as leader. So now there's just me, my two vassals, and Izzie. Defeating Izzie would give a conquest win (rare for me), but attacking her might jeopardise Suryavarman's status as vassal, with the possibility that he might vote for her or even side with her in war. Izzie has quite a lot of cities, a decent economy and is more-or-less at tech parity. (She's also going a bit spy-tastic which could prove troublesome. I really hate seeing my towns getting pillaged by spies.)

She'll have rifles in a few turns, so I don't know whether to try hitting her quickly with my rifles (upgraded from macemen with some city raider promos), but I'd need to save some more money to upgrade the trebs to cannons (and build a few more). The alternative is to complete Steam Power then do Corporation and Assembly Line and go with Inf. Although then I'd want to start getting factories up everywhere, followed by the inevitable coal plants and then health builds etc etc. The other alternative is to do none of this, but spread Buddhism to all vassal cities and try for the AP win. Thing is, Cyrus is is Theocracy and I can't ask him to change it - there's no option on the trade screen. Also, I'm not sure when an AP win vote might happen, or how many I'd need for it.

This is all a bit of a ramble, but the point is to illustrate the diplomatic balance with the AP, friends and vassals.

[Cort Haus]

Correction : It's Darius, not Cyrus of the Persians.

Also I realise that I should be thinking about Military Science for Grenadiers if I want to quickly take on Izzie, rather than slog through to Assembly Line and all its distractions. I had an event which gave me some beakers for Steam Power, so I researched that next.