Apostolic Palace - Determines outcome of game

[trev]

I have found from experience playing on Monarch level that the sole determinant for whether I win or lose is whether I build the Apostolic Palace or not.
Every game I build it I win, every game I do not I lose.
It is wrong that a wonder should be so powerful that it determines the outcome of every game.

[Lord Avalon]

How do you know that having it is the cause of your win, and not having it is the cause of your loss? It could just be coincidental.

[Kataphraktoi]

I have almost the same problem except that i always win monarch every time with or without the Apostolic Palace

[Crossfire]

I haven't built it yet but am winning most of my Monarch games too. And I uses to usually lose on Monarch before BtS.

[Willem]

Originally posted by trev

It is wrong that a wonder should be so powerful that it determines the outcome of every game.

That's kind of the point of the Apostolic Palace. It's an early version of the UN that makes it possible to win through diplomacy. It's meant to be powerful.

[enderw]

Monarch has gotten easier in BTS. The AI does play smarter, but the decrease in Bonuses means you can keep up. What tech tree do you go up if you don't get AP? You can get ahead militarily by going for engineering or machinery/CS while the AI wastes time up the Monotheism Theology Divine right tree. You should be able to build up enough territory to ride out the AP years without wars and be big enough to out-tech the AI.

Exactly how are you losing your games? How is AP killing you?

[Jaybe]

I personally don't care for being bound by the AP decisions when I have 1/10 or even only ONE of my cities being the same religion as the AP. Particularly when I'm running a different state religion or, especially, free religion.

Yes, I know I could always defy it and not be bound....

[Robert]

Maybe you can build the AP in games that you're winning. The fact that you're a head enough to get the AP may be the reason of your win.

[Blake]

AP is pretty powerful, but only on Pangaea.
Also it's pretty easy subvert the AP, I've won an AP diplomatic victory without being the one in possession of the AP, it was a pretty easy and peaceful victory.

[Thrak]

I had a good one yesterday - the Ethiopians had built a Hindu Apostolic Palace and elected themselves leader.

Anyways I am fiddling about trying to get my economy in the positive after killing first the Dutch then the Koreans. I've got the techs and the Ivory for war elephants but am holding off building any units and making sure most of my cities have barracks and stables ready to nuke the ethiopians if needed.

Ethiopia declares war! I move my sitting stack of 8 swordsmen and various associated units (GG medic, axemen) and stop the initial advance. In the meantime I whip/chop 5 lvl 3 war elephants, and a few horse archers and move them all to the front line.

Oops! An AP vote appears proposing ending the war against the Ethiopians (hey they started it!).

Oh well one turn left, I drop into thier nearest city with my stack of swordsmen and raze a pop 6 city to the ground (too much overlap). Shock! 5 Axeman with Shock appear surround my injured swordsmen. Oh noes!

Its next turn, the vote has passed and the war is over.
Congratulations Ethiopia, what a successful war

Next objective - find the AP city and nuke the crap out of it in 2 turns

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Lord Avalon
How do you know that having it is the cause of your win, and not having it is the cause of your loss? It could just be coincidental.

It´s often very easy to tell.
For instance, I have won two games on monarch solely because of AP!
In both cases an A.I civ had become ultra-powerful and had conquered all except 2 nations (one of them beeing me) to become its vassal.
In both my games, the powerful civ togheter with its vassals armies combined outnumbered my army almost 10 to 1 ... yet every time A.I declared me war, I was able to put forth a vote that forced A.I back into peace.
I think the A.I tried to attack me 6 or 7 times during both games. And each time the war only lasted for one turn until the vote forced it to an end.
Realising the A.I would never get enough votes to turn overrule my proposal for peace (and appearantly beeing to stupid to defy it) I even stopped building any military during later game and thus was able to peacefully and handily win a cultural victory.

[trev]

I always play pangaea maps as I like a bit of interaction for interest and as Blake says it is powerful on those maps. Certainly not having the Apostolic Palace has caused several of my losses with its stop war resolutions and hand back city resolutions. Having it on the other hand has usually only prevented adverse resolutions as I rarely put any to the vote, so having it has not had a great positive benefit, just prevented the negative impacts.

[Arrian]

This explains why I'm not seeing it as a factor in my games. I don't play pangea. I play hemispheres maps, standard size, 2 continents. So typically you have 3-5 civs on a continent, and there isn't usually a hegemonic religion.

-Arrian

[dac]

I dunno, I think the AP is most imbalanced when there is NOT a hegemonic religion in the game. If you own the AP, and are the only "Full" member, and you make sure all your cities have your state religion, you have a lot of votes. If nobody else has your state religion as their state religion, yet they have one or two cities with the AP religion in them, they are members with very few votes.

So, I'm becoming far more careful about how I spread my religion after I build the AP, I want to win all the votes.

[LzPrst]

never bother with the damned thing. doesnt have much relevance I feel...