Slaunyeh wrote:

Mailanka wrote:

Slaunyeh wrote:

stl0369 wrote:

Just to mention it, happiness currently has a great effect on influence.  I believe it is happy=+25% and ecstatic=+50%.  If you want to stop another faction from invading yours through influence, you have to match that influence and part of that equation is having happy systems.

I've only been playing on normal, but I feel like the influence is fine there.  The UE definitely has a great advantage over everyone else, but that is their playstyle.

I beg to disaggree.

It doesn t work, at leadt not as intended if your description is right.

If it work it doesn t it work well enought.

I m a kind of player that when left alone maximize my happiness then look in other sectors of interest and even having the ecstatic pop Actual system is really a pain. 

Thinking of it:

Maybe the mistake is   Nº of pop * Hapiness status.

Nº of pop should not influence the influence zone as a small system happy here wouldn t be affected by a big system happy there.

That could be what kept pushing my small world influence as his population was way bigger than mine.

And even so it doesn t make sense to conquered worlds.

+50% of zero is zero. A population will generate X food, industry, dust and science based on what the world offers.  If the world's profile is 3 food, 1 industry, 2 dust and 2 science and you have four pops, you'll get 12 food, 4 industry, 8 dust and 8 science, but 0 influence, because influence doesn't come from worlds.  It comes from population bonuses (UE has +1 influence per pop, +1 per pop on temperate), improvements (like the SPIN project) and heroes.  You need to have these first, then happiness can help you buff your influence.

Basicly what you saying is: to win a game just build spin and procreate like bunny.

Maybe even worse than i tought it could be.

You just need to be targeted about it. As influence starts to creep up on border systems, you build influence-focused systems to counter them.

I usually play 4-arm galaxies, and once I take the center, I usually make a point of building a major influence center there (and not, as many seem to, on my capital).  The result is that I have an expanding bubble of influence that claims most of the systems in the center, and keeps others from sliding in to take the center out from under me.  Once you have the center, then every empire is within your grasp.  I'm sure a similar strategy is possible with other maps.

This sounds like the sort of thing that might be worth reporting on the bug forum, with screenshots and your save.  I also know researched Wormholes, none showed up on my galactic map, but my ships suddenly "jump" much faster as though moving through wormholes, so this might be a graphical bug where influence borders aren't visibly updating, but on the other hand, you're reporting worlds being flipped when there's nobody there to flip them, so that sounds like an entirely different sort of bug.

stl0369 wrote:

Just to mention it, happiness currently has a great effect on influence.  I believe it is happy=+25% and ecstatic=+50%.  If you want to stop another faction from invading yours through influence, you have to match that influence and part of that equation is having happy systems.

I've only been playing on normal, but I feel like the influence is fine there.  The UE definitely has a great advantage over everyone else, but that is their playstyle.

I beg to disaggree.

It doesn t work, at leadt not as intended if your description is right.

If it work it doesn t it work well enought.

I m a kind of player that when left alone maximize my happiness then look in other sectors of interest and even having the ecstatic pop Actual system is really a pain. 

Thinking of it:

Maybe the mistake is   Nº of pop * Hapiness status.

Nº of pop should not influence the influence zone as a small system happy here wouldn t be affected by a big system happy there.

That could be what kept pushing my small world influence as his population was way bigger than mine.

And even so it doesn t make sense to conquered worlds.

Eji1700 wrote:

Don't have time to read everything right now, so forgive any repeats of ideas.

Discussing in my other topic about somewhat tangential stuff to this, I felt that influence feels a little shallow. It does have a win condition in planet flipping (which could use some depth even if I personally don't feel it's quite as bad if you're proactive about controlling it).

The big problem though is that influence feels very binary right now.  Either you have too little to do much outside the occasional minor race/law or you're literally swimming in it.  Dust scales well throughout the game, and you've got the entire marketplace and trade system as a huge dust sink.  Influence lacks this same mechanic.  Laws are maybe this, but the fact that the generic laws are good enough, and the influence heavy laws don't seem to be crazy enough to makeup for not going some other route leaves it wanting (but that is mostly just a numbers issue).  I will say that given how much work it takes to get the highest tier laws they could all probably use a huge buff (and I don't know how good the minor race ones are, but they better be pretty damn impressive given I've literally never gotten 50 of a minor pop).

With that said my ideas:

0. Rethink costs.  A lot of things could be fixed with just some numbers tweaking.  Diplomatic actions may need to cost more, especially war.

1. Expand diplomacy.  I think to some extent this will happen anyways, but there really should be more options.

2. Expand politics.  I don't care enough about what my people think.  It's too easy to just do what they want with no downside, or do what I want with minimal downside. The dictatorship spirals in the last patch were a bit much, but it also actually felt like I cared about the politics system, as opposed to now where I just choose whatever is easiest because it's both simple to do that, and very hard to figure out what I should be doing instead.  I'd really like to feel like my population is limiting me sometimes so I spend resources or effort rigging an election or something (the hero senate leader abilities ranging from bonkers to pointless doesn't help that much).

3. More hostile diplomacy options.  Ironically the starting craver hero gets the "half off hostile diplomacy actions if leader" ability in his tree, which given the only one I can think of is war (and even not focusing on influence i've almost never cared that I can't go to war RIGHT NOW), which for them is free, it feels a little silly.  Having things like threaten, embargo, denounce, and the like could help give influence players more ways to interact.

4. Subterfuge/espionage.  Related to the hostile diplomacy, maybe let players spend influence to screw with your opponents politics.  

Don't want their militarists in power, spend influence to boost pacificsts in their next election?  

Are they garbing too many systems?  Spend influence to try and flip some of their population away from ecologist and see if it spreads?  

Spend influence for vision of one of their systems or to try to steal tech/resources.  

Influence to siphon off their trade routes or make them less efficient.

Influence to inhibit their fleet movement or vision

Etc.

There's a lot of direct ways to screw with other players right now (blow them up, blockade their trade, throw them in a time bubble, eat their population), but I think influence builds should be the masters or more indirect manipulation vs their enemies.

I will have to audacity to comment.

0. Rethink cost....

Ok 

War should cost more.... 

I always wonder why declare war should be payd.... It doesn t make any sense.

Unless influence is split in 2 internal influence (call it happiness and external influence)

And now declaring war cost happiness depending on your senate constitution. And Keeping on it is the real problem as population may revolt....so maybe keeping in war should cost hapiness per turn (mitigated per sucess/failure in battle)... But then hapiness must be further divided because actually there s too few steps in that ladder for it to sustain this idea.

1. Agree. Diplomacy is a bit weak.

Especially on inds of mutual agreement.

2. Exactly my point population is the win/loose factor to solve all the issues i think. Dictatorship should be able to do ewhatever it want at the cost of hapiness and extreme lawkeeping (fleet and manpower) in owned sector which should cost dust and food. 

But it also should be a political mode that have high tendency to snap into internal revolt. It could be interesting if with a "major" revolt you could pick a side, rebelling or main power. (nah it would bring much complexity to dev to solve.)

3. Totally agree

4. Wait for DLC maybe (i would say due to the Endless legend factor) sabotage....Assassination... (political dreams... nighmare)

5.  

Mailanka wrote:

Eji1700 wrote:

The big problem though is that influence feels very binary right now.  Either you have too little to do much outside the occasional minor race/law or you're literally swimming in it.  Dust scales well throughout the game, and you've got the entire marketplace and trade system as a huge dust sink.  Influence lacks this same mechanic.  Laws are maybe this, but the fact that the generic laws are good enough, and the influence heavy laws don't seem to be crazy enough to makeup for not going some other route leaves it wanting (but that is mostly just a numbers issue).  I will say that given how much work it takes to get the highest tier laws they could all probably use a huge buff (and I don't know how good the minor race ones are, but they better be pretty damn impressive given I've literally never gotten 50 of a minor pop).

That's my biggest problem with it, though Update 3 moved in a good direction by making laws require an upkeep cost, which sometimes means large empire running expensive laws need a lot of influence to use it.

For the rest of the thread, I want to note that I'm fine with influence flipping worlds, and that in my experience, if you kill the influence-generating-worlds, you kill the influence dead.  The only time it's been a problem is that you can have several influential worlds side by side, in which case to destroy the border, you need to kill all influential worlds.  It's been like that from the start.  So much so that I wonder why people are complaining about it now.  Are they new?  Or did something change that literally hasn't come up in my games by sheer chance?  Because I've not had any odd problems with Influence in any game I've played.

Not really, i tought the same. Cravers were picking on my new sectors with inflluence... so i blietzkrieged the world around. As the capital system was near and influencing a lot, i took it too, but this was tolling my fleet and he was much stronger so i intended to stop there.

Fact is: Craven capital world switched nearby without any toll in its influence, so it was a useless move, another one. I had hoped/believed loosing your capital world would bring influence down as leadership would be clearly questioned especially among a warfarer specie. But the result was null.

Slaunyeh wrote:

stl0369 wrote:

Just to mention it, happiness currently has a great effect on influence.  I believe it is happy=+25% and ecstatic=+50%.  If you want to stop another faction from invading yours through influence, you have to match that influence and part of that equation is having happy systems.

I've only been playing on normal, but I feel like the influence is fine there.  The UE definitely has a great advantage over everyone else, but that is their playstyle.

I beg to disaggree.

It doesn t work, at leadt not as intended if your description is right.

If it work it doesn t it work well enought.

I m a kind of player that when left alone maximize my happiness then look in other sectors of interest and even having the ecstatic pop Actual system is really a pain. 

Thinking of it:

Maybe the mistake is   Nº of pop * Hapiness status.

Nº of pop should not influence the influence zone as a small system happy here wouldn t be affected by a big system happy there.

That could be what kept pushing my small world influence as his population was way bigger than mine.

And even so it doesn t make sense to conquered worlds.

+50% of zero is zero. A population will generate X food, industry, dust and science based on what the world offers.  If the world's profile is 3 food, 1 industry, 2 dust and 2 science and you have four pops, you'll get 12 food, 4 industry, 8 dust and 8 science, but 0 influence, because influence doesn't come from worlds.  It comes from population bonuses (UE has +1 influence per pop, +1 per pop on temperate), improvements (like the SPIN project) and heroes.  You need to have these first, then happiness can help you buff your influence.

VARRAKK wrote:

You need ways to suppress a foreign influence.

Right now, the instant the sphere covers one of your worlds, it is lost.

The Influence Zone needs two stats. Range & Strength.

And you need ways to suppress hostile influence. The logical choices are:

• Happiness, If your people are happy they shouldn't be forced to flip sides.
• Propaganda, Money or Influence can be spent to counter it. A short term expensive option.
• Military, Raw military power should keep it at bay.

As long as you have ships active in space inside your own borders, they should project towards your Influence Strength.

As for a single solar system, you should be able to prevent it from being consumed by hostile influence if you have adequate military force guarding it.

Ships in orbits, its how nations controls their territory today.

It also generates the necessity of having your borders guarded.

Another very important factor is Standings.

Truce and Peace should not be able to make planets flip sides.
Should only be possible through Cold War and War.

I like it the range and strenght, Strenght should decrease by range unless you swamp the other world with governamental propaganda. Which the other gov. would do too to defend itself.

First DOT: totally agree if you are happy you are less inclined to change your ways.

Second DOT: Comunication satellite array counter espionage or espionage/sabotage if attacking.

Third DOT: Agree too unless you are on a loosing war and people start to wonder if the local presence is enought. But then happiness has already decreased from happy to worried...

Agree for the last 3 lines.

Unless you get intelligence and counter intelligence actions, mercenaries ect.

Mailanka wrote:

cjfoster1960 wrote:

Mailanka wrote:

For the rest of the thread, I want to note that I'm fine with influence flipping worlds, and that in my experience, if you kill the influence-generating-worlds, you kill the influence dead.  The only time it's been a problem is that you can have several influential worlds side by side, in which case to destroy the border, you need to kill all influential worlds.  It's been like that from the start.  So much so that I wonder why people are complaining about it now.  Are they new?  Or did something change that literally hasn't come up in my games by sheer chance?  Because I've not had any odd problems with Influence in any game I've played.

I think something must have changed because I have tried taking capital and influence worlds and still his influence border does not change.  After war is over he just flips systems back even if he only has one or two systems left to him.  Other players are reporting same problems.  On my maps I can still see his border influence after I have knocked out most of his systems.  Maybe playing as a different faction has different results but I can not see why this would be.  

A fallen empire, one that has been reduced, can not expect to flip systems that were once his but no longer his.

In previous versions, if we had three worlds, say a relatively young world, an influential world and another influential world, if I take out the two influential worlds, then the only "border" that remains is the small one around the non-influential world.  If the two influential worlds are side-by-side and I took out one and not the other, then it might appear that the border hadn't changed.  But in your playthrough, the Sophons had a very long empire, and if literally none of that changed despite destroying all the worlds except two, unless two of those worlds were really influential (and basically all the border came from them) and they were some how hemmed in to form that long border, I'm surprised that killing worlds didn't change the border.  That seems like a bug to me.  If you conquer a world, it's influence should vanish, or at least it did vanish.

So, those are my questions, I suppose: Is the influence of conquered worlds vanishing (which seems a difficult question to answer), and if not, is that a bug?

In my most recent craver game, I took out three worlds and watched their influence vanish, so it seems that it does do what it's supposed to.  And if that's so, what's going on in your games that's so different?  For example, I play on relatively small maps, so I might not have multiple highly influential worlds sitting side by side.  Or, perhaps, there's a bug that in some games, or after influence has reached a certain size, that it doesn't go away.  The problem seems to be that most people reporting this are reporting on what amounts to several overlapping influence layers, and it's hard to me to pick out what exactly is going on.

It is very possible it could be a bug as I re loaded my save and eliminated all Sophon systems that I could see.  I expected the empire eliminated message to come up, but it did not.  Also two of his systems displayed planets as mine but the colour bar on system ownership was still Sophon.  I had fleets in them and I could control them.  Even so with only two systems his border should have shrunk to almost nothing.  Looking at the map his border was flashing, blinking around edge but this did not resolve into anything.  I played on large map.  All other aspects of game were ok.

Slaunyeh wrote:

VARRAKK wrote:

You need ways to suppress a foreign influence.

Right now, the instant the sphere covers one of your worlds, it is lost.

The Influence Zone needs two stats. Range & Strength.

And you need ways to suppress hostile influence. The logical choices are:

• Happiness, If your people are happy they shouldn't be forced to flip sides.
• Propaganda, Money or Influence can be spent to counter it. A short term expensive option.
• Military, Raw military power should keep it at bay.

As long as you have ships active in space inside your own borders, they should project towards your Influence Strength.

As for a single solar system, you should be able to prevent it from being consumed by hostile influence if you have adequate military force guarding it.

Ships in orbits, its how nations controls their territory today.

It also generates the necessity of having your borders guarded.

Another very important factor is Standings.

Truce and Peace should not be able to make planets flip sides.
Should only be possible through Cold War and War.

I like it the range and strenght, Strenght should decrease by range unless you swamp the other world with governamental propaganda. Which the other gov. would do too to defend itself.

First DOT: totally agree if you are happy you are less inclined to change your ways.

Second DOT: Comunication satellite array counter espionage or espionage/sabotage if attacking.

Third DOT: Agree too unless you are on a loosing war and people start to wonder if the local presence is enought. But then happiness has already decreased from happy to worried...

Agree for the last 3 lines.

Unless you get intelligence and counter intelligence actions, mercenaries ect.

Sins of a Solar Empire had this nailed down very nicely, it was called culture.

In sins it is only Strength based, and it loses power over distance. So you couldn't have one "system" influence a ginormous area.

You could counter hostile culture by building your own Communication/Propaganda arrays.

A idea I have is that instead of instantly buying a system within your border you instead spend influence to add a happiness malus to the system (Foreign Propaganda). Everytime you spend influence (The price gets more and more expensive everytime you use it) the malus gets bigger and bigger till the pops start to revolt and join your empire.

Some Rules:

- The happier the pops are the more influence you have to spend because it takes longer to incite a revolt.

- In reverse it's cheaper to get unhappy pops to revolt.

- The victim can build happiness buildings to counter the malus.

- The victim can spend his own influence on propaganda to counter the foreign influence.

First comment on this forum, so please bear with me.

I just think that the influence in the game is not representative of the real world. You'd never get a situation where borders between sovereign states are continuously decided by influence (whether that's cultural or propoganda) and where borders are fluid and can move regularly depending on the influence power of nearby cities or the nation as a whole. On the contrary, borders once determined are fixed and can only be changed by warfare, rebellion / cessation, or economics such as the Louisiana or Alaska purchases. Even taking China's actions in the South China Sea where maritime rights are being contested, I don't think it can be counted as an act of influence but rather military flexing.

I'd therefore like to see the following changes though I accept that this would radically change the influence side of the game and, therefore, probably won't see the light of day.

Influence and Borders

Borders should grow and be established organically, not as a tool for aggressive states.

• Borders should grow but then be fixed once they hit the border of a rival state
• Rivals can attempt to capture black holes, nebulae, and other non-systems by establishing outposts on these items. This area of the border would then show as contested but would be considered a hostile act by the owner, though it doesn't necessarily constitute a state of war. Permament resolution of the contested space would then require both states to come to a conclusion, ie, military resolution, financial compensation, etc...
• Planet flipping as it is currently should no longer be the case

Influence and skulduggery

Think the CIA or KGB during the Cold War. Rather than flipping systems just by extending your borders over their area, states should instead spend influence to,

• Rig elections of rival states. For example, rigging an election to produce a militarist government when the target system is pacifist dominated, could cause unhappiness leading to discontent which eventually leads to rebellion
• Perform directly or sponsor acts of terror or sabotage. Like the above, spending influence directly on target systems to destroy items such as happiness generating buildings can lead to unhappiness leading to discontent which eventually leads to rebellion
• Support / initiate separatist movements. Similar to the above, these movements can destabilize the target system

It's important to note that the above actions would not necessarily lead to you taking direct ownership of target system. Just like today or historically, the clandestine actions of rival governments or organisations do not always achieve the intended results. If the above actions work, then the system should do one or many of the following,

• Fall into rebellion. If not countered by the rival, then the following should occur
• Declare independence from the rival state. It would then become a minor state, along with its own border integrity, which could be courted. It would automatically be at war with the rival state and could be subject to recapture but could conversely reach a peace agreement
• Independent state. The newly acquired independent minor state could eventually grow into a larger state due to its war with its parent. Also, due to the monsters you've unleashed with your actions, the independent state could lash out unpredictably, even against you.

Influence and law making

I know it's been mentioned by others before but certain laws should be very influence expensive but the gains from said laws should be very beneficial too. I haven't thought too much about this aspect so I'll defer to those who've commented well previously.

blackstar wrote:

First comment on this forum, so please bear with me.

I just think that the influence in the game is not representative of the real world. You'd never get a situation where borders between sovereign states are continuously decided by influence (whether that's cultural or propoganda) and where borders are fluid and can move regularly depending on the influence power of nearby cities or the nation as a whole. On the contrary, borders once determined are fixed and can only be changed by warfare, rebellion / cessation, or economics such as the Louisiana or Alaska purchases. Even taking China's actions in the South China Sea where maritime rights are being contested, I don't think it can be counted as an act of influence but rather military flexing.

I'd therefore like to see the following changes though I accept that this would radically change the influence side of the game and, therefore, probably won't see the light of day.

Influence and Borders

Borders should grow and be established organically, not as a tool for aggressive states.

• Borders should grow but then be fixed once they hit the border of a rival state
• Rivals can attempt to capture black holes, nebulae, and other non-systems by establishing outposts on these items. This area of the border would then show as contested but would be considered a hostile act by the owner, though it doesn't necessarily constitute a state of war. Permament resolution of the contested space would then require both states to come to a conclusion, ie, military resolution, financial compensation, etc...
• Planet flipping as it is currently should no longer be the case

Influence and skulduggery

Think the CIA or KGB during the Cold War. Rather than flipping systems just by extending your borders over their area, states should instead spend influence to,

• Rig elections of rival states. For example, rigging an election to produce a militarist government when the target system is pacifist dominated, could cause unhappiness leading to discontent which eventually leads to rebellion
• Perform directly or sponsor acts of terror or sabotage. Like the above, spending influence directly on target systems to destroy items such as happiness generating buildings can lead to unhappiness leading to discontent which eventually leads to rebellion
• Support / initiate separatist movements. Similar to the above, these movements can destabilize the target system

It's important to note that the above actions would not necessarily lead to you taking direct ownership of target system. Just like today or historically, the clandestine actions of rival governments or organisations do not always achieve the intended results. If the above actions work, then the system should do one or many of the following,

• Fall into rebellion. If not countered by the rival, then the following should occur
• Declare independence from the rival state. It would then become a minor state, along with its own border integrity, which could be courted. It would automatically be at war with the rival state and could be subject to recapture but could conversely reach a peace agreement
• Independent state. The newly acquired independent minor state could eventually grow into a larger state due to its war with its parent. Also, due to the monsters you've unleashed with your actions, the independent state could lash out unpredictably, even against you.

Influence and law making

I know it's been mentioned by others before but certain laws should be very influence expensive but the gains from said laws should be very beneficial too. I haven't thought too much about this aspect so I'll defer to those who've commented well previously.

I want it noted that I'm super interested in the idea of adding an espionage system to Endless Space 2, but I expect it's the sort of thing that will have to wait for an expansion :(

blackstar wrote:

First comment on this forum, so please bear with me.

I just think that the influence in the game is not representative of the real world. You'd never get a situation where borders between sovereign states are continuously decided by influence (whether that's cultural or propoganda) and where borders are fluid and can move regularly depending on the influence power of nearby cities or the nation as a whole. On the contrary, borders once determined are fixed and can only be changed by warfare, rebellion / cessation, or economics such as the Louisiana or Alaska purchases. Even taking China's actions in the South China Sea where maritime rights are being contested, I don't think it can be counted as an act of influence but rather military flexing.

I'd therefore like to see the following changes though I accept that this would radically change the influence side of the game and, therefore, probably won't see the light of day.

Influence and Borders

Borders should grow and be established organically, not as a tool for aggressive states.

• Borders should grow but then be fixed once they hit the border of a rival state
• Rivals can attempt to capture black holes, nebulae, and other non-systems by establishing outposts on these items. This area of the border would then show as contested but would be considered a hostile act by the owner, though it doesn't necessarily constitute a state of war. Permament resolution of the contested space would then require both states to come to a conclusion, ie, military resolution, financial compensation, etc...
• Planet flipping as it is currently should no longer be the case

Influence and skulduggery

Think the CIA or KGB during the Cold War. Rather than flipping systems just by extending your borders over their area, states should instead spend influence to,

• Rig elections of rival states. For example, rigging an election to produce a militarist government when the target system is pacifist dominated, could cause unhappiness leading to discontent which eventually leads to rebellion
• Perform directly or sponsor acts of terror or sabotage. Like the above, spending influence directly on target systems to destroy items such as happiness generating buildings can lead to unhappiness leading to discontent which eventually leads to rebellion
• Support / initiate separatist movements. Similar to the above, these movements can destabilize the target system

It's important to note that the above actions would not necessarily lead to you taking direct ownership of target system. Just like today or historically, the clandestine actions of rival governments or organisations do not always achieve the intended results. If the above actions work, then the system should do one or many of the following,

• Fall into rebellion. If not countered by the rival, then the following should occur
• Declare independence from the rival state. It would then become a minor state, along with its own border integrity, which could be courted. It would automatically be at war with the rival state and could be subject to recapture but could conversely reach a peace agreement
• Independent state. The newly acquired independent minor state could eventually grow into a larger state due to its war with its parent. Also, due to the monsters you've unleashed with your actions, the independent state could lash out unpredictably, even against you.

Influence and law making

I know it's been mentioned by others before but certain laws should be very influence expensive but the gains from said laws should be very beneficial too. I haven't thought too much about this aspect so I'll defer to those who've commented well previously.

I deeply agree with all that is there. 

I just didn t want in my initial post scrap the influence as it is now, even thinking it doean t make much sense as it is, althought after my late gameplay i would say it would be a boon for the game especially with your approach.

I think it should be easier to maintain a stable influence bubble around decent systems, while inside another players influence bubble. Strong capotols should never turn because of propaganda, but the outlying systems can be easily convinced. 

There should be some sort of (bigger) threshold required before your bubble consumes the origin of my bubble. And if you don't have enough, the system stays my colour. 

d0pl wrote:

I think it should be easier to maintain a stable influence bubble around decent systems, while inside another players influence bubble. Strong capotols should never turn because of propaganda, but the outlying systems can be easily convinced. 

There should be some sort of (bigger) threshold required before your bubble consumes the origin of my bubble. And if you don't have enough, the system stays my colour. 

I still think its all about happiness. 

If you are happy and someone unhappy comes and try to tell you to be like him, would you change your way of life ?

I agree that Happiness should have a larger influence on Influence; it makes sense that an Empire with a happy population is more tempting to outsiders than an unhappy population. Granted, an unhappy Empire should still be able to generate decent Influence (imagine the old Soviet Union sweeping its citizens' discontent under the rug while propagandizing itself as a worker's paradise), but it should require work and effort.

I also think the Influence radius should be able to shrink as well, if the population becomes unhappy or the Empire suffers some losses. Being on the losing end of a war, for instance, should start shrinking their Influence (no one wants to migrate to an Empire that might be conquered). Here's a rough idea of how I'd make it work:

• Each populated system has a certain Influence radius it stabilizes at, based on happiness and per-turn Influence output.
• The actual Influence radius slowly grows/shrinks to reach that radius.
• (It would be helpful if there was a dotted outline showing where your Influence stabilizes at.)

I would also like influence to follow the spacelanes (it seems weird Influence reaches separate constellations as easily as connected neighbors), but I suspect reprogramming that system would be too much work.

The easiest law to change Influence I can think of is a "-X Dust per population, +Y Influence per population" one, signifying the government spending lots of money on a massive propaganda push.