Apostolic Palace trap

[Blaupanzer]

All Heathens are doomed! Doomed, I say!

[Jaybe]

Unpredictability, along with the ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (EVEN FOR THE AI!!!) is Necessary for an exciting game.

[HoldSteady]

Yes! Yay for the AI!

[sfeldkamp]

I think the strategic error you made was not beefing up your defenses as soon as you found out that you the other continent was entirely Buddhist and had built the AP. At this point you were the logical target.

If you were to replay it, at this point you probably should have:
1) Kiss up to the AP Resident as much as possible, open borders, resource trades, gifts, anything you can think of to stay on their good side. They are the one deciding, hey maybe we should wipe you from the face of the earth.
2) Open Borders to the founder of Buddhism, the AI is great now about spreading a religion that they've founded, even to the point of shipping missionaries over on Caravel's.
3) Build up that Navy and coastal defenses!

You have an entire continent to yourself, you should be easily able to keep pace in tech with them, probably out-tech them on Prince. Infrastructure wasn't the correct priority.

If you had chosen to build the AP yourself, just make sure your State Religion at the time is something that you will have the most votes in so you are elected as the resident. In my recent game, I built it but didn't get elected. At least I was friends with the resident.

[One_more_turn]

Your best course of action is to raze the city with AP as soon as you identified your opponents.

Beeline for the Astronomy, go for Military Science, and start razing cities of the strongest AI civs. You want to cause mass casualties as quickly as possible.

[Saurus]

Originally posted by nbarclay
It seems to me that the way the Apostolic Palace can create many-against-one wars is inherently very badly unbalanced.

AP can cause many scenarios. All of witch are very unbalanced. For instance, not only does AP cause all-against-one wars - it also works the opposite way, witch is even worse.

That is, if you control the AP, then it is very often virtually impossible for anyone to go to war with YOU because you can "vote" the war to an end the very next turn witch pretty much makes you immune to any military threat for the duration of the game.

[TriMiro]

I read the posts and I was wondering, what if in a situation like this one capitulates to one of the AI states. I know it would be bad for you, but much better than being conquered and one may still be able to win the game afterwards. So what I am thinking is:
OK if you propose to capitulate to the AI, would the AI accept that and if so, would that end the war with all the enemies or would it make the enemies fight each other.

[Blake]

"Hi guys, what are you doing out here today?"
"Ah, just some trapping, ya know?"
"Oh... trapping. Trapping what? Squirrels?"
"Apostolic Palaces"
"..."

That surrealism was brought to you by my BRAIN. It's weird.

[Indalecio]

Originally posted by Blake


That surrealism was brought to you by my BRAIN. It's weird.

Gee Brain, what we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night! Try and take over the world!

[Blake]

Omg how do you know my brain?!

[HoldSteady]

Easy. Every male brain left to it's own devices will allways return to it's natural state: one of war mongering and world conquering. That is, if stimuli resulting from empty stomach, pretty females or low blood-alcohol are absent, because their conditions have been succesfully met or their excistence simply temporarily forgotten.
There is one exception to this rule. A small fraction of human male brains actually have a natural state that can be regarded as PHI (philosophical). Those brains will, in a non-stimuli enviroment, try to devise theories on the nature of female brains. It is widely regarded as being a fluke in evolution (like a useless limb), since it's efforts are ultimately and invariably fruitless.