Yes quite agree with that.  Interesting game.  

cjfoster1960 wrote:

Galaxy was large setting.  No worm holes on the map even after reveal wormhole tech was researched,  This needs looking into as wormholes would have made for interesting tactics. 

Right now Wormholes only spawn at the borders of constellations so if you use unique constellation there will be none.

Agree that now the influence system is the greatest problem that need to be adressed.

Sezneg wrote:

Right now, Influence is just silly in the end game and not fun.

 Yes I quite agree.  It is easy to forget that the game needs to be fun to play.  If it becomes frustrating it will just succeed in turning players away.

Right now, Influence is increasing the control area exponentially, due to increasing the radius of the control circle rather than the surface area.  This makes the surface area increase exponentially rather than in a linear fashion.  It would be much easier to control and give the "diminishing returns" impact to change what is being scaled.

Right now, Influence is just silly in the end game and not fun.

Mailanka wrote:

I really don't understand the Vodyani.  They're they only Major Religious Faction, which is all about Influence, but they've got no real need for it that I can see.  You can use it to control minor factions, which means you can leech from them, but they continue to spawn such high-powered pirates that your leech ships will be destroyed unless constantly accompanied by a fleet of extremely tough combat ships.  I find myself better off just smoking minor factions and then leeching off of beaten-down Major factions.  The next reason for high influence is to flip systems, but the Vodyani can't.  The third major reason is to manipulate your elections, but given that the Vodyani focus on Religion natively and they never assimilate minor factions with differing opinions, I've rarely seen a need to dominate elections like that.  The last is to maintain laws, which is nice, I guess.

But if you could wave a wand and make the Vodyani pacifistic, militaristic or ecological (or basically anything but religious), they'd be much stronger.

I agree. While Religious as their primary faction makes perfect sense, none of its benefits really apply to them and it's such a shame. Maybe if they could use their influence to permanently pacify individual systems (think puppet states, or cattle) or even just create non-Vodyani slave systems, it'd be better. It'd also fix the fact that they currently lose the ability to convert enemy systems for no apparent benefit, and give a use to the "capstone" law for the Religious party.

I really don't understand the Vodyani.  They're they only Major Religious Faction, which is all about Influence, but they've got no real need for it that I can see.  You can use it to control minor factions, which means you can leech from them, but they continue to spawn such high-powered pirates that your leech ships will be destroyed unless constantly accompanied by a fleet of extremely tough combat ships.  I find myself better off just smoking minor factions and then leeching off of beaten-down Major factions.  The next reason for high influence is to flip systems, but the Vodyani can't.  The third major reason is to manipulate your elections, but given that the Vodyani focus on Religion natively and they never assimilate minor factions with differing opinions, I've rarely seen a need to dominate elections like that.  The last is to maintain laws, which is nice, I guess.

But if you could wave a wand and make the Vodyani pacifistic, militaristic or ecological (or basically anything but religious), they'd be much stronger.

Foefaller wrote:

Muggins wrote:

I think buying out systems with influence is disabled for Vodyani because of how they rely on Arks to colonise and house their population. It's a shame that they don't have an alternative use for their massive influence, though, because they really do produce a lot of it.

Although, in general, all of the races do. And because there's no scaling cap and no diminishing returns, it only takes a couple of improvements. It needs a fix.

Vodyani seem to be immune to influence-flipping too, had a couple of Ark ships fully enveloped in enemy once and they never flipped on me. Or maybe the AI just never bothered?

My first game as Vodyani had one of my systems bought out by an enemy Sophons player that I was in the influence of. It wrecks the ark and gives them a free colony - although I don't know how transferring the improvements or population works, if at all, given how the Vodyani work out of their arks.

Muggins wrote:

Mailanka wrote:

MikeLemmer wrote:

I would suggest certain examples of Influence are broken ATM, mainly because it doesn't look like the Influence growth rate decreases with radius. This can lead to one system (namely, whichever one has Tor in it) influencing over a quarter of the galaxy by Turn 120. (A real example I am currently countering by conquering Tor.)

I had a game where my Vodyani influence completely covered a system, but I had no ability to take it.  I see other people complaining about Influence conquering systems, so I know it's in place, I just don't know how to trigger it.

I think buying out systems with influence is disabled for Vodyani because of how they rely on Arks to colonise and house their population. It's a shame that they don't have an alternative use for their massive influence, though, because they really do produce a lot of it.

Although, in general, all of the races do. And because there's no scaling cap and no diminishing returns, it only takes a couple of improvements. It needs a fix.

Vodyani seem to be immune to influence-flipping too, had a couple of Ark ships fully enveloped in enemy once and they never flipped on me. Or maybe the AI just never bothered?

Also, they might not have any specific mechanics, but Influence is pretty important to the Vodyani to protect against other empires entrouching on their space; Unless you've a few allied minor factions to be happily leeched for Essence (and the fleets to protect your leechers from the pirates they will keep on spawning regardless of status) you're not going to be building Arks anywhere close to the rate other factions can turn out outposts and colonies. Had a few Vodyani games where I slacked on influence I eventually threw up my arms and gave up because the AI had managed to drop outposts everywhere and, because of the poor influence of my ark ships, were able to set up new outposts only a few turns after I pushed them out, and if not them, then another faction who had eyes on the war that was going on.

Mailanka wrote:

MikeLemmer wrote:

I would suggest certain examples of Influence are broken ATM, mainly because it doesn't look like the Influence growth rate decreases with radius. This can lead to one system (namely, whichever one has Tor in it) influencing over a quarter of the galaxy by Turn 120. (A real example I am currently countering by conquering Tor.)

I had a game where my Vodyani influence completely covered a system, but I had no ability to take it.  I see other people complaining about Influence conquering systems, so I know it's in place, I just don't know how to trigger it.

I think buying out systems with influence is disabled for Vodyani because of how they rely on Arks to colonise and house their population. It's a shame that they don't have an alternative use for their massive influence, though, because they really do produce a lot of it.

Although, in general, all of the races do. And because there's no scaling cap and no diminishing returns, it only takes a couple of improvements. It needs a fix.

cjfoster1960 wrote:

Yes quite agree with that.  Interesting game.  

You seemed bemused when I said that he was winning.  If you are unaware of this, hover your mouse over the "End Turn" button, and the scores of all the factions should pop up.  You click the laurels in the upper left to see how close you are to winning.  The Sophons are doing very well (They're pretty easy to beat early game, but just monsters late game)

cjfoster1960 wrote:

I have won every fleet conflict with him.  At turn 256 should the Sophons be so powerful?  From my perspective If I stay at war my dust goes through the roof, my pops do not rebel and all seems well for me.  I have a high tech level tier 4 ready to research tier 5 techs.  More carriers and access to better weapons for ships.  The problem for me is if I accept a truce.  I shall continue with game and see if Sophons can beat me.  I don't think he can but I might be wrong.  He is exhausted through attrition.  Is he capable of winning through supremacy or conquest this I doubt.  He was for a time turning out fleets but still unable to take back those two systems. 

Stellaris allows a player to invade and hold a system for a time during peace.  My strategy is built around securing adamantium for fleet building and denying AI access to resource.  This seems effective if constant war is maintained.  I already have a good supply as a result of this.

I don't think NATO won the war, rather a dysfunctional political system lost the cold war, but I see your point with influence and economics.  In this case a paradox seems to be happening in that maintaining a war is rewarding aggression.  I took his systems and so long as I maintain war I can keep them.  Also my political system becomes much more stable.  By turn 275 I have doubled my dust, held the systems, established a republic and created a platform for expansion, all why being at war not peace.  

 

I think the key to victory here is not trying to "hold systems" but eliminating power centers.  Push for the big worlds, hammer them, and then consider evacuating them completely.  Go for scorched earth tactics deep in the heart of his empire.  Given your experience, I don't think he can win a war with you.  The problem you have, though, is that he will definitely win the peace!

I have won every fleet conflict with him.  At turn 256 should the Sophons be so powerful?  From my perspective If I stay at war my dust goes through the roof, my pops do not rebel and all seems well for me.  I have a high tech level tier 4 ready to research tier 5 techs.  More carriers and access to better weapons for ships.  The problem for me is if I accept a truce.  I shall continue with game and see if Sophons can beat me.  I don't think he can but I might be wrong.  He is exhausted through attrition.  Is he capable of winning through supremacy or conquest this I doubt.  He was for a time turning out fleets but still unable to take back those two systems. 

Stellaris allows a player to invade and hold a system for a time during peace.  My strategy is built around securing adamantium for fleet building and denying AI access to resource.  This seems effective if constant war is maintained.  I already have a good supply as a result of this.

I don't think NATO won the war, rather a dysfunctional political system lost the cold war, but I see your point with influence and economics.  In this case a paradox seems to be happening in that maintaining a war is rewarding aggression.  I took his systems and so long as I maintain war I can keep them.  Also my political system becomes much more stable.  By turn 275 I have doubled my dust, held the systems, established a republic and created a platform for expansion, all why being at war not peace.  

cjfoster1960 wrote:

I suppose I hold the view that influence alone is no defence against a determined military empire.  You have to maintain a standing army to repel any aggressor.  Otherwise NATO might as well be disbanded.   

It's funny that you say that, but stop and think about what purpose NATO served, and what purpose it serves now.  The role of NATO was to stop Russian aggression, and in the end, NATO won the cold war, but the didn't do it in a shooting war with Russia.  They did it with soft power (influence, here) and economics.

You mention Stellaris, and I've not played that, but I have played Europa Universalis, and they definitely have a similar concept here.  If you invade a country that you don't have a legitimate claim to, this causes lots of problems and will inevitably flip.  It's rather like Russia conquering France.  They can do it, but it wouldn't be surprising if, after the war ended and sufficient time had passed, if France flipped back to being French, or certainly rejoined NATO.

Everything in a game is an abstraction, of course, and we can quibble over the manner in which they abstract it, but the concept here, to me, seems perfectly valid, and is well attested in this genre (Culture in Civ, nationality in EU, etc).

Latest save file, where I initiated a truce.  I am playing Rifborn and systems in question is Remor

new test2 turn256 truce.zip

Alright, taking a look, I see why you find this frustrating.  I think I'd find it frustrating too, but not for the reasons you seem to be finding it frustrating.  I think you've lost, and that's why you can't win your wars.  Your prime enemy seems to be the Sophons, and they have about twice your score and dominance of the galactic center.  Without a doubt, the reason they have such a staggering amount of Influence is that, this late in the game, they've built a huge tech gap and are using it to overwhelm you with Influence, and they're winning.  You would need to take extreme measures to defeat them.  Military might work, but it wouldn't surprise me if your forces would be eventually overpowered as well.

I haven't managed to make a system flip in Update 3, but back in Update 2, they took time to flip, and you had to pay money if you wanted it to go faster (and this also required a tech).  The fact that they can do this is a testament to how much dust and tech they've built up.

The problem here isn't that Influence is OP, it's that the Sophons have you by the short hairs.  Yes, you need to bee-line for major population centers, crush their influence and accept that you're going to have to ignore several forced truces (It might be worth it to flip to Militarism if you can, for the extra happiness it gets you during a time of war).  But even that might not be enough, just from the sheer advantage the Sophons have built up.

I've been in a position where there was nothing I could do against my opponents.  Last time, I was the UE and they were the Riftborn, and they had such huge and powerful fleets that they could do effectively what they wanted.  ES2 is the sort of game where advantage builds on advantage until you snowball your way to victory.  You can derail that, and a strong military is a really good way to do that, but once someone comes out clearly on top, it's very difficult to knock them off that perch.

(You might be better off going around the edges and waging war on all of his enemies while building even more Influence and military power.  If you conquer everything else and he just stays still, you might beat him)

I agree with Mailanka. Seems like most of your proposals are trying to make an already powerful military faction even more powerful by ignoring the influence defense. Influence is there for peaceful players to help fight against forward settling and aggressive system takeover without spending too much Industry and Dust into a standing army. Maybe you can provide the save file so we can try see what is happening during your campaign? 

cjfoster1960 wrote:

We almost have the perfect game here.  

Simple fixes for suggestion:

Diplomatic action to transfer ownership of system and it then to be exempt from previous player influence.   Given as a force truce inducement.

Trait of influence immunity, for Cravers or tyrants.  This would make Cravers play better and be more faction specific.  It would allow for aggressive play where the players has to adapt to survive.

Make it almost impossible for a single planet to dictate galaxy influence, until late game, they have constructed a wonder where the rest of the galaxy is in awe of them.

Just some ideas to get this game not to play the same way all the time.  No need to remove influence just the constraint it has.  Even Stallaris understands this.  

Too many of these feel like "I like the idea of influence, I just don't want it to be used against me."  The Wonder you propose already exists, but it wins the game, which I think is sufficient.  What if a player focuses all of their energy and effort into Influence. Should that be a waste of time before the might of your invincible army?  Are they just chumps?  Because it sounds like you can conquer them, crush their systems, destroy their defenses, and the only thing you can't stop is the slow loss of your systems while their influence continues to creep out and convert systems.  You want to remove that too.  So what do they have left?  How does one defeat the Cravers (or other militaristic forces) peacefully, if not via Influence?

If you want to stop someone from crushing you militarily, you need an army.  If you want to stop someone from defeating you with influence, you need influence of your own.  I usually just add some SPIN stations on frontline worlds to prevent this sort of thing, or at least slow it down. It's not as though Cravers must such at Influence (in my current Craver game, Husk is producing 100+ influence a turn, mostly to fund my policies). And, as I said, you can conquer the worlds generating the influence to stop it.  So, there's a military and influence solution to the problem.  Why nerf the concept of influence further?

I think we can make the case for readjusting some values, or perhaps approaching it in a different way, but I don't like the idea of outright preventing the mechanic from working.

Also, question, what prevents you from retaking those worlds?  Just the forced truce?  Also, why do you accept a forced truce as the Cravers?