On my most recent game, I played to win by cultural conquest. It greatly helped that there were 3 class 26 planets near my home world. One of the main things I want to bring up is whether the number of starbases per sector should be limited. Unless I was doing something wrong, it seems like it is a race to build as many constructors as possible and scatter the starbases in every sector with alien planets. Is it realistic to build two to five starbases in one sector? An alien race can be influenced by the Terran culture with a starbase, but wouldn't having five in one sector be overkill? They would be competing against each other!

I typically had two or three starbases will all the cultural upgrades (and defense upgrades in case I was at war) in every sector with two or more planets. I slowly managed to get planets to defect because of my cultural superiority. Only once did an alien (the Torians) declare war on me, and that was after getting all but their last planet to defect. I think that the AI should start getting increasingly pissed as they start losing more worlds. Even if a race is militarily superior, there should come a point where the AI decides that if something is not done soon, the empire will be wiped out.

I like the fact that influence can be used as a weapon, but if one starbase per sector can not influence the other races to join your culture, then maybe a different strategy should be used. My point is that different strategies should be required to win the game. For example, some sectors can be obtained through influence, others through diplomacy, and still others through military action. Thoughts/comments welcome.