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.  

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.

cjfoster1960 wrote:

Did not have techs that reveal wormholes but scout ships have not found any.  Surveyed over 60% of large galaxy, thought they might see them out of the window if they are there.  Will research tech and see if they show up.

They never show up in my games until I have the tech, and when I do, you end up seeing lots of them.

Yes I have piles of ships and cultural buildings to go with them.  I am wanting to take over specific systems without destroying the empire totally.  Tactic is to control key areas of map.  I have the ships to do this.  I do not want to travel all over the galaxy to find capital planets when all I want is the nearest system that has the recourse I need.  Maybe this is something that I must accept, it just seems restrictive in demanding this of players.  Taking a system and holding it is a very valid tactic.  The AI asked for a truce as he has conceded this system to me.  I accept truce to end conflict and preserve pops.  So why should he then be able to take back what he has conceded five turns earlier when I have orbiting fleets for protection?  Not sure how else to put it.  I might not wish at this stage of the game to beat an empire with extreme influence, they could still be useful.  It could be a diplomacy issue in that there is no way to obtain a system from another player and it becoming your own no matter where it is on the map.

I don't mind that influence is there just that it rules the roost far to much in certain situations, and seems to prevent certain emergent gameplay options.

I haven't personally seen this level of problem, but I do know some players have literally covered the Galaxy with influence from a single planet, so it might need to be reigned in some.

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.)

cjfoster1960 wrote:

Ok this is a great game.  Early turns up to 220 where fantastic to play.  Then the game started to cripple itself, why you ask.  Yes that dreaded word influence again.  Testing out conquest and supremacy victory conditions resulted in being able to only play the game one way and that is by building a central core empire and slowly letting your influence take over the map.  In typical 4X fashion I wanted to acquire a system that had Adamantium, which none of my systems had access to.  I took the system and several other systems around it to secure a foothold into another empires influence area, and securing my deposit of Adamantium.  All worked fine so long as you are always at war, do not accept forced truce.  The moment you accept forced truce the AI player will wait until he can enter cold war status and wham he seizes back all the systems that he has taken.  Does not matter if you have the biggest fleets, which I did have, in fact he had no fleets left.  You are then forced to retake systems that you have already taken.  So you could just keep the war going but the cost is prohibitive and all I wanted was one of his systems, well maybe two. This is the single most frustrating side of this game.  It just goes against established 4X game play, when taking the galaxy by force of arms in order to provide a version of peace and security.  I have said this before the victor in any conflict ought to have priority over influence.  If I try to play this game the way it wants me to play it then I would have to wait another hundred turns before I could get access to Adamantium.  I must wait until my influence is taking over his systems and on a large map with scarce recourse that is very difficult, and on harder levels would probably mean losing.  Influence is actually stopping alternate ways to play a game. It's not really a 4X game is it?  

 

4X games must allow the player to play any play style otherwise we will never start thinking outside the box.  The Cravers are not interested in influence of any kind, if they can take it they will.  Maybe this is where the answer lies.  As a trait Cravers are and need to be immune to influence so they can take the galaxy by force of arms alone.

Craver quote of the day: "What is yours is mine and what is mine is mine".

You're talking about influence?  All five parts of FIDSI have their advantages, and the cultural dominance of Influence is one of its advantages (while cranking out piles of ships and kicking butt with them is one of Industries advantages).  If you want to beat someone with extreme Influence, conquer the worlds that generate the majority of it.  You can usually extrapolate where all that influence is coming from, and beeline for it.  Usually, these are the capital worlds.  The problem here isn't that influence exists, but that you need to understand how to tackle it.  I've regularly defeated people with huge influence, like the Vodyani.

Or are you discussing something else?

Foot note:  The galaxy generation was spot on for conquest, supremacy playstyle.  I used large galaxy where high end resources where scattered and rare, just the way we want it.  I did note the lack of wormholes, did not see any.

In my various latest play throughs the game plays well and most issues regarding performance have been fixed, apart from the issue with auto saves not always loading.  I save every ten turns. Visually the game is a masterpiece of artistic design and colour pallet.  

Did you have the tech that reveals wormholes?

Also hero Anex-Jink2077 portrait seem to be inconsistent.  Sometimes he is shown as another hero.  He has no animation, his portrait shows a severe close up, zoomed in look.

In all of my Craver games, I can't see any hero portraits at all.  It's just a see-through window pane