Cassadore wrote:

Let me share my own silly influence story (against AI):

I was once playing as the sophons, a planet of mine was enveloped by the riftborn influence zone and as soon as they unlocked the technology that allows you to buy systems with influence they bought it. Well, I thought, then I will just declare war on them and capture it back through force. I did, after the truce ended however they instantly bought back the system. 

So I declared war again, this time with the goal to capture all riftborn systems that are close to my borders before the forced truce sets in. I capture 1 system, zero effect on his borders. I captured 3 systems, his borders don't even move by an inch. I capture almost every single system in the constellation even those that are far away from my borders, the riftborn laugh at my puny attempt to remove his influence. After the forced truce ended He bought back every single system I had captured.

So I was trapped in a vicious cycle of the riftborn buying my systems as soon as the truce ends and me capturing back the systems with force but unable to protect them from the riftborn influence. Luckily I won a science victory shortly after.

Eyugh. Sounds like the AI had a high-Influence planet far away. I can see the issue; I estimate I would have enough Influence to cover half the galaxy by Turn 200. I wonder if I could actually cover the WHOLE galaxy with a single planet's Influence...

After having a lot of trouble getting cravers off the ground,  I got a godly start and had some things click in my recent game (1 of every race, spiral 8, serious difficulty, scarce resources, hard minors, etc).

First off, the "catch the craver ship" quest is stupid good compared to destroying it.  It can be done instantly just using your scouts and nets you a tier 2 ship that with 1 or 2 more scouts can solo invade any minor's you find right there and then.  This compared to the combat quest seems nuts.

HOWEVER, that's not the point.  The point is that the luxuries generated in such a way that I had basically unlimited access to both influence generating resources, and of course as a craver player was expanding like a nightmare. We quickly became the "aggressively pacifist craver empire" as my colony upgrades were the flat bonus, and then the next two  were the flat bonuses with the +10 per pop (and some manpower thing on the 3rd).

This meant that every single system was giving me a flat +150 per turn and +20 per pop in the system. I  had literally 0 other influence buildings and was between 165-500 influence per turn on every system I had (and quickly added more thanks to the push and 7k influence per turn I was making by turn 125 when i won through "conquest").

Now to be fair, I should've won this game.  I got an uncontested godly craver start, and had it not been influence it probably wolud've been a disgusting number of fleets or an insane amount of dust (Which..i do also have since trade made sure i had enough luxuries), or some other victory condition, but it is a little concerning to me just how absurdly powerful the colony upgrades are.  They're literally game defining and may need some looking at.

MikeLemmer wrote:

Just encountered a situation that highlighted some... absurdities with the current Influence system. Take a look.

I'm trying to destroy a scoutship besieging my outpost in Bellatrix. The problem, however, is that Bellatrix now resides in Horatio's influence zone. I can't attack any enemy ships within Horatio's influence zone, even when they're a mutual enemy besieging one of my outposts. The cherry on top is that Horatio scolded me for trespassing in his space while I'm orbiting my own outpost.

God help me if he decided to close his borders. I might not be able to travel to my own colony anymore.

As a sidenote, notice the giant influence sphere around my colony on Oiad? It took just 25 turns to make it that large. The only things powering it is a Culture Center, Level 3 Modernization, and an Ecstatic population of 4.

(Also, I think I stalled out the red/blue war for Perseus just by having my influence zone swallow it. Can anyone confirm/deny that?)

I have real issues with the current Influence system, but NOT with this.  You are at cold-war with them, this is their territory.  You have no claim to an outpost as your territory until it becomes a colony, which is why others can siege you there while in cold war.  You are attempting to colonize "their" space, so they have a right to take out the outpost.  If you don't like that, your option is to declare war.

I really wish influence had a cap on maximum distance (could be increased with tech possibly, or system improvement, or both) and that it could shrink as well if the system has it's influence generation decreased. It would make the border projection much more interesting.

Cassadore wrote:

Let me share my own silly influence story (against AI):

I was once playing as the sophons, a planet of mine was enveloped by the riftborn influence zone and as soon as they unlocked the technology that allows you to buy systems with influence they bought it. Well, I thought, then I will just declare war on them and capture it back through force. I did, after the truce ended however they instantly bought back the system. 

So I declared war again, this time with the goal to capture all riftborn systems that are close to my borders before the forced truce sets in. I capture 1 system, zero effect on his borders. I captured 3 systems, his borders don't even move by an inch. I capture almost every single system in the constellation even those that are far away from my borders, the riftborn laugh at my puny attempt to remove his influence. After the forced truce ended He bought back every single system I had captured.

So I was trapped in a vicious cycle of the riftborn buying my systems as soon as the truce ends and me capturing back the systems with force but unable to protect them from the riftborn influence. Luckily I won a science victory shortly after.

I do not like the current extent the influence spreads, but you could have solved your problem by refocusing your assault on the actual systems that were producing the influence.  Strike further into their territory.  You can "island hop", if you are familiar with WW2 in the Pacific.

Sezneg wrote:

MikeLemmer wrote:

Just encountered a situation that highlighted some... absurdities with the current Influence system. Take a look.

I'm trying to destroy a scoutship besieging my outpost in Bellatrix. The problem, however, is that Bellatrix now resides in Horatio's influence zone. I can't attack any enemy ships within Horatio's influence zone, even when they're a mutual enemy besieging one of my outposts. The cherry on top is that Horatio scolded me for trespassing in his space while I'm orbiting my own outpost.

God help me if he decided to close his borders. I might not be able to travel to my own colony anymore.

As a sidenote, notice the giant influence sphere around my colony on Oiad? It took just 25 turns to make it that large. The only things powering it is a Culture Center, Level 3 Modernization, and an Ecstatic population of 4.

(Also, I think I stalled out the red/blue war for Perseus just by having my influence zone swallow it. Can anyone confirm/deny that?)

I have real issues with the current Influence system, but NOT with this.  You are at cold-war with them, this is their territory.  You have no claim to an outpost as your territory until it becomes a colony, which is why others can siege you there while in cold war.  You are attempting to colonize "their" space, so they have a right to take out the outpost.  If you don't like that, your option is to declare war.

Except the "other" besieging me there is ALSO at war with Red, as seen by the cluster of Red/Blue ships surrounding Perseus. Red ships haven't even ventured anywhere near that system, and I can't do anything about a single scout ship besieging my Outpost except A)declare war against a third party who isn't involved in all except for the Influence zone or B)rushing Peace tech and bribing him into Peace so I can kill that lone scout ship. It feels utterly stupid I can't do anything about a lone scout ship without massive political treaties because of an Influence generator a galactic arm away.

Eji1700 wrote:

After having a lot of trouble getting cravers off the ground,  I got a godly start and had some things click in my recent game (1 of every race, spiral 8, serious difficulty, scarce resources, hard minors, etc).

First off, the "catch the craver ship" quest is stupid good compared to destroying it.  It can be done instantly just using your scouts and nets you a tier 2 ship that with 1 or 2 more scouts can solo invade any minor's you find right there and then.  This compared to the combat quest seems nuts.

HOWEVER, that's not the point.  The point is that the luxuries generated in such a way that I had basically unlimited access to both influence generating resources, and of course as a craver player was expanding like a nightmare. We quickly became the "aggressively pacifist craver empire" as my colony upgrades were the flat bonus, and then the next two  were the flat bonuses with the +10 per pop (and some manpower thing on the 3rd).

This meant that every single system was giving me a flat +150 per turn and +20 per pop in the system. I  had literally 0 other influence buildings and was between 165-500 influence per turn on every system I had (and quickly added more thanks to the push and 7k influence per turn I was making by turn 125 when i won through "conquest").

Now to be fair, I should've won this game.  I got an uncontested godly craver start, and had it not been influence it probably wolud've been a disgusting number of fleets or an insane amount of dust (Which..i do also have since trade made sure i had enough luxuries), or some other victory condition, but it is a little concerning to me just how absurdly powerful the colony upgrades are.  They're literally game defining and may need some looking at.

My current issue with Influence upgrades/buildings is that it all either feels like a trickle or a flood. Either your systems are only generating Influence in the single/low-double digits (if any), or they're generating 100+. There's no middle ground, at least in the early game.

Ridiculi wrote:

I really wish influence had a cap on maximum distance (could be increased with tech possibly, or system improvement, or both) and that it could shrink as well if the system has it's influence generation decreased. It would make the border projection much more interesting.

I wish it scaled off of area instead of radius. That would lead to a natural drop-off over distance. Of course, I also wish Influence followed starlanes instead of just being straight circles so it was harder for neighboring galactic arms to influence each other, but that's probably a bit too complex to code just before Release.

idlih10 wrote:

It's not just outposts. I once captured a system and part of it was covered by a third faction. The enemy faction's ship was still orbiting the system but because the game designed it to always appear at a specific spot when in orbit, it happened to fall within the third faction's influence and I could not attack it! I think influence effects should not extend to national security. As long as one side has de facto ownership of the system, it should be allowed to deal with any trespassers, even though one could argue that fleets of the faction with overwhelming influence may be immune to this when in their own zone of influence even in cold war (though of course not at war).

Ouch. If that's the case, that aspect of Influence could really be abused, forcing everyone into either Peace or War with the influencing faction just to protect their territory and fight their own wars.

Influence can easely be abused. I was with horacio in a final end game on endless lenght. Sophon had more power per ship as Horacios ships sucks.

They also in the end turn which i won have 3 to 5 time more ship than i (couldn t see all so this is a guess 3 X being certain) and a class higher ship tham me.

Seeing the end come and having 70K influence i started growing it madling installing influence builders even where i didnt need it. In a turn i switched 10 systems under my influence and made alliance wit 6 of the AI.

Following turn Sophon declared war but it had lost more than half its planets the previous turn, this plus the kick in of the alliances made me win the game, which in any other way i would probably have lost.

About @Cassadore issue, I proposed some ideas to balance this known problem here. This can be solved IMO only by slowing the growth rate of influence bubble.

About @MikeLemmer issue, this is inherited from ES1, but there was not this bigger, cause inf grew slowly. My idea here is that you should be allowed to fight neutral fleets in enemy territory, but no the fleets from territory owner.