Taking over the world, one soul at a time

BtS Apostolic Palace Pros: The AP spices up religion and makes the international diplomacy scene more interesting. Resolutions are more than mere fluff and can have a major effect.

BtS Apostolic Palace Cons: Sometimes, you'll only be able to vote for the Resident and not any other resolutions.

BtS Apostolic Palace Tips: Remember that you can still become the Resident even if you don't build the AP. If there is a large and powerful AP block, try not to tick it off.

Yet another major feature of Beyond the Sword is the Apostolic Palace. Now you, too, can be the world’s religious leader, waging war on infidels. That is done through the Apostolic Palace, a new Wonder in BtS. The Apostolic Palace is enabled by Theology and can only be built in cities that have the state religion.

When the AP is built, it gets tied to the religion of the player who built it. There are two types of membership. Voting members are civilizations that have at least one city of the AP’s religion, but who don’t have it as the state religion. Full members are civilizations whose state religions is the AP’s religion. In addition, full members receive hammer bonuses from religious buildings of the AP’s religion. The civ which builds the AP always retains full member status.

The first thing that the AP does is hold elections for its Resident. Only full members are eligible, and a situation is possible when there’s only one candidate at the vote. The Resident can then propose AP resolutions for voting at certain intervals. Resolutions include declaring war or stopping trade with a civilization. War can’t be declared on full members through voting. In case there is a war against a full member, a resolution to stop it will be available.

Resolutions to sign Open Borders and Defensive Pacts among all AP members are also available, as is the resolution to return a city to its rightful owner (the player who has the majority of culture in that city), which can be both a blessing or a curse – depending on who’s that rightful owner.

The Apostolic Palace can play little role in some games and be absolutely instrumental in others. On multi-continent maps, it’s possible that one continent doesn’t even get the AP’s religion and all civs on that continent remain AP non-members. So it’s entirely possible that you won’t get to participate in an AP vote at all. On the other hand, in games where one religion clearly dominates, the AP can be a very powerful tool for the one who controls it. In one of my most memorable BtS games, I had spent much of the early game trying to ensure worldwide dominance of my religion and control of the AP for myself. I succeeded, which allowed me to, at one point, pass a resolution to get four other civs to declare war on my enemy, making that war a complete cakewalk for me.

It’s not something you can hope to pull off every game, but I believe that influencing the world in a major way through the AP is one of the most satisfying things you can do in BtS. On the other hand, being on the receiving end of negative AP resolutions is not good. If you ever get yourself in a situation where you’re a non-member or voting member in the AP, the full members of which hate you with a passion, well, good luck.

War isn’t all the AP is good for. Signing Open Borders with all members can be an economic boost – particularly if some members are isolationist civs. AP might just be your best chance of getting Open Borders with Tokugawa. Defensive Pact between all members isn’t a resolution that will pass often, but when it does, this religious military alliance will become something that only an extremely powerful army can take on.

A less-advertised ability of the AP is actually a new victory condition – the Religious Victory. I haven’t been able to pull one off so far, though I’ve come near. Winning a Religious Victory requires that every civ in the world be an AP member (full or voting), then a Religious Victory resolution can be proposed. With an absolute majority of votes, it grants victory, just like the UN Diplomatic Victory resolution. While it might sound simple, it’s not, particularly on larger maps. Some civs will adopt Theocracy, making your religion impossible to spread to them, and even if you do get everyone to be an AP member, you still need good enough relations to get that majority of votes.

My favorite AP-related situations have to be when you struggle against another civ for control of it.It can easily happen if you have a neighbor approximately your size and you have the same religion, with one of you having built the AP. In these situations, you would want the rival’s cities not to have your religion – which is something that you would never want before BtS.

You can also defy AP resolutions, which is a much-needed option. Essentially, the option to defy acts as a veto – if one of the members defies a resolution, it will not pass, even if it otherwise gains the required amount of votes. There is a considerable penalty to go with it, however – the civilization defying a resolution will suffer unhappiness in all cities of the AP’s religion and, if it’s a full member, it will be demoted to a voting member. Therefore, defying resolutions is not to be used lightly – you should only defy if you really think that the resolution can hurt you considerably.

In some situations, the AP can be less interesting, such as when no circumstances exist for any of the resolutions, and so the only resolution that gets proposed is for elections of the Resident. It should not be a common situation, but it is a tad disappointing when it happens. Sometimes you may also find that the AP resolutions repeat themselves a bit too much. That may be the case because of the length of the game and the relatively low number of resolutions – while usually enough to keep things spiced up, you will notice some repetition.

The United Nations also received some of the AP improvements. AP becomes obsolete with Mass Media, right as the UN kicks in. The embargo, peace, war and city assignment resolutions are now also in the UN, and so is the ability to defy resolutions. Overall, the AP is a fine addition to international diplomacy, even if the presentation is somewhat underwhelming – message boxes that pop up aren’t quite as cool as the Council screen from SMAC.