How do I prevent this?

[MyOlde]

I was building a nice empire and had no more room to expand so decided to invade France. I took two cities from Louis and was about to move on to Paris when the Apostolic Palace voted to stop the war. (Voting "Never" seems to do nothing, that I can see.)

So there I was at peace, working on my two new cities. The AP then voted to return one of the cities to Louis. And then a few turns later, guess what: the AP voted to return the other city to Louis.

I shut down the game. I had hoped to be able to turn off the AP in the Options section but that's not an option.

Any thoughts?

[ColdPhoenix]

You can vote never and then you'll keep the cities but will get increasing unhappiness in your cities ("the world thinks we're a criminal!" or something) and you lose the AP hammer bonus until you agree to a future vote.

[Tuberski]

Turning off Diplomatic victory, turns off Apostolic Palace completely.

ACK!

[MyOlde]

Thanks to you both. I thought I had tried the "Never" and that it did nothing, but maybe I didn't.

Tuberski: thanks for that. I think that's the answer. I almost never try for a diplo victory. I figure if I put it to the vote (assuming I have the UN) that everyone will vote for someone else and I'll lose!

[rah]

I used to not mind too much the UN, but now with the AP, it's a bit much. The stopping wars and turning cities back to the defeated was the final straw and now that's the first box I uncheck when starting a game.

[Quillan]

The votes of the AP won't affect you unless you have that religion someplace. It's impossible to avoid if you capture the cities that contain the religion, since there's no way to remove a religion once it's in your cities already, but you can spread the AP religion to your entire empire. Perhaps you'll get enough votes in the AP to prevent that from happening.

[TriMiro]

Ever since there was religion in Civ, I wanted to see religious schism. Like AP says stop the war, you say Never, you get unhappiness, but then decide to declare independent church and the AP has no longer any effect on you. Or something along those lines.

The AP in the real world has influence, but only among the catholics. During the reformation, many countries declared independence from the pope and some like the Greeks have basically always been independent.

[snoopy369]

That would be a great mod You can do the religious things through python (look at the Warlords scenario that involves Protestants and Catholics for an example, I forget the name off the top of my head).

[Tattila the Hun]

It does bug me, one measly town in tundra has religion X, and someone votes to win the game... What does that have to do with me???!!! I may be the most powerfull civ in the world, but cannot spread that religion, because the city is a lousy builder...

What I'd give for Final War from Master of Orion.

(Though, them declaring war on me, because I declined their voting for me, was a bit silly...)

[MoonWolf]

I would actually prefer the AP and UN without a diplomatic victory. Like you could have the side effects of the wonders, but noone would vote for a victory. Sooo, that's why I've never tested the AP as I always play with diplo off.

[joncnunn]

Sounds to me like you hit "NO" on end the war instead of "NEVER". I've frequently seen AP requests to end a war fail due to the party in the best position voting Never.