Influence understanding

Military influence?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Alright, I have Civ 4, played it. Got pretty good at it. Understood the mechanics and how culture was utilized. No problem.

Now, with this game, I put a lot of researching into Influence techs / Diplomacy research. Yet, it seems sheer population on planets seem to have more control on influence then influence techs/starbases themselves. Which really irks me.

In some ways its understandable. But while I have reached the max research on influence and diplomatic. The Computer always goes the military route. and yet, about 200 turns into the game, it feels like no matter how many starbases I put up, with influence upgrades. I feel like I am just not able to push back their "aura"

So the question is, does the military techs actually help with influence? The fact that you have a bunch of ships flying around (attack ships) also affect your influence aura?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i don't think military affects influence. Try colonizing more and builing starbases as that spreads you borders.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i am running into the same problems...the enemy "territory" is always solid, while my territorys are always splotchy and spread thin. this isnt late in the game either, this is in the very early stages against intelligent ai, where if they colonize anywhere near my planets, my influence is immediately pushed back. i dont get it, they just colonized the fricken 6 worth planet and my 12 is sucking against their influence...what is the deal with that?
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Try building Influence structures such as Embassy's on your worlds. Influence Starbases really only affect things in their radius. They have very little affect outside of it. Planetary Influence is much stronger. You can build multiple structyures on a World to multiply the influence affect.

Make sure if you do use influence starbase you add the modules. They do nothing without them. They are extremely good a t flipping planets when at full strength; or in keeping your planets from flipping. That is their main use.

The Biggest thing you can do is try an get Influence resources and put a mining starbase on them. They are very very very potent when you upgrade the mining base modules. The fact that the aI is so strong in influence probably means they are mining influence resources. The Ai will also build multiple influence structures on planets.

Note: The following is just my observation, and I don't know if this is really the case!!!! I have no numbers or knowledge of the mechanism to back it up; it is just my intuition of how things seem to work!!!

Everyone's Influence seems to affect every square on the map within a long range - not like in Civ4 where only the nearest civs affected it. That is why you may get the splotchyness - even if there is no planet or base of that particular Ai nearby. Range to a planet does strenghten or weaken it, but there is always some there. it. It seems the influence rating of each square is the result of this 'stew'. Areas of no influence seem to mean that no one has a dominant influence value.

You can see this if you destroy a strong influence starbase of the enemies - or take over a planet where they have built a lot of influence structures and you destroy them. Everyone's influence borders will fluctuate madly. Again, this part is all speculation.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
A couple of things you might want to try: Spend credits on diplomacy, and check out some of the computer's planets. I've noticed that they like to put multiple embassies on planets, which will definitely make it harder to influence them to your side.

They might even be purchasing embassies on planets near your border, and moving colonists in to them, all of which are counted toward influence.

On some 'easy' games, I've managed to colonize the planet next to the home planet of the enemy, and of course the influence border changed drastically around there.

Don't leave planets uncolonized for too long, since the AI will generally figure out that there's a good planet around to colonize, and take it (and the influence it generates).

If your population isn't happy with you, your influence will be lower per person.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For me, I always try to get advanced Esp. on the computer players.

Another thing, is that on a new game, and the end of the first year. When it comes time to vote, another thing I have noticed is that, no matter how well I try to push for more colonies early game, and get at least 1 farm on each planet. It seems that I never have much much influence points to spend towards the voting polls.

Since populations can only grow so much, per turn. picked Univeralists as my senate, which has a +10 population mod for me. Still doesn't help.

I guess one thing I would like to see is exponential growth on planets, rather then a set number. 3 billion people are going to produce more then just 1 billion people.