A little while ago it came up in another thread that the Religious party has this weird split focus on Influence and Heroes; I think it would be great to see Influence put to use as the currency of Heroes, possibly as either a currency with which to buy new ones through the Academy Embassy, a cost for directly purchasing XP, and other things. That would make the Religious party the party of the Hero mechanic, and give room for Heroes to become much more interesting as a METHOD of progression instead of just a little side thing that kinda helps you along sometimes but is mostly not that useful except situationally.

Admittedly Heroes would need to become MUCH more complex and deep for this to work, to the point of looking like miniature technology wheels with their bonuses being on par with a developing System and all of its buildings. But in my opinion that would be so awesome to have my empire stand on the shoulders of god-aristocrats and legendary hero-saints. At the very least it would bridge the weird mechanical gap between Influence and Heroes, since they are for some reason linked thematically and lore wise by Religious politics and the Academy but otherwise have nothing to do with each other.

JaquierKhader wrote:

Mildly relevant to the topic. Why doesn't the propaganda programs, such as Militarist propaganda or religious propaganda use influence, instead of negating all production?

Exactly what I proposed in my own post. Grant Dictatorship and Autocracy an additional law slot. Auto-fill this law slot with propaganda and enable the player to choose what political party to support. This can enable more interesting playstyles and still not be as overpowered as Republic, which is essentially a better dictatorship with more law slots, overpowered laws, 2 political parties and a small cost of 2000 dust every 20 turns to decide on your favourite political party.

IceGremlin wrote:

A little while ago it came up in another thread that the Religious party has this weird split focus on Influence and Heroes; I think it would be great to see Influence put to use as the currency of Heroes, possibly as either a currency with which to buy new ones through the Academy Embassy, a cost for directly purchasing , and other things. That would make the Religious party the party of the Hero mechanic, and give room for Heroes to become much more interesting as a METHOD of progression instead of just a little side thing that kinda helps you along sometimes but is mostly not that useful except situationally.

Admittedly Heroes would need to become MUCH more complex and deep for this to work, to the point of looking like miniature technology wheels with their bonuses being on par with a developing System and all of its buildings. But in my opinion that would be so awesome to have my empire stand on the shoulders of god-aristocrats and legendary hero-saints. At the very least it would bridge the weird mechanical gap between Influence and Heroes, since they are for some reason linked thematically and lore wise by Religious politics and the Academy but otherwise have nothing to do with each other.

I really like this idea. This makes for a great trade-off between stockpiling influence and spending it on laws, too. Also very relavent for low-law governments. You should make this an idea!

It seems to me that in Endless Space 2 researching influence-heavy techs and then building the improvements is not really worth my time, because you can get too little value out of this particular ressource.

      Endless Legend kinda fixes this with: 

               1. Empire plans, even if they feel a little forced, to justify spending your influence on

               2. Victory type

               3. Races that use / need influence (Drakken, Culitsts, to a lesser extent Mogawr)

               4. Espionage, though it's rather inexpensive

I say kinda because Influence still feels a bit unnecesary except for fullfilling those exact roles, which makes it more gimmicky than immersive. I probably forgotten a few situations you need influence, still, in the end, Endless Legend gives me reasons to aquire this particular ressource.

Now to Endless Space 2, unless you are playing with the UE, which was my first playthough, you don't really need influence. You use it to buy of the minor factions and for diplomacy, which at this particular stage of the game is not very rewarding / effective / functional. Even if you choose to play diplomacy heavy, you never spend as much influence as you end up making if you build a couple of influence-granting improvements. In the endgame i wound up having 500k influence, after i realised i dont really need it and i shouldn't improve/research for influence anymore.

Is this just me? Or is this issue "idea-worthy"? Did i miss an aspect of the game that requires you to spend influence?

1) EL's Empire plans have been turned into the law system in ES2 with the high-end laws costing 4 influence per pop they get very expensive and end up using a majority of my influence production especially late game.

2) While it does not have a direct victory type it can help in other victory types with the passive system takeover using influence, I would much like it that I can use my influence in ways to help me win rather than just get x influence and you win.

3) As you already said the UE use influence to a great extent.

4) Espionage while not currently in the game, I am sure will be added at some point (it was not in the original EL either after all)

5) I find the Minor faction diplomacy system quite rewarding but mostly from assimilation which gives your faction the faction trait from the assimilated minor faction, they can be quite powerful especially when you collect a lot and I think they stack if you assimilate the same minor faction twice or more. I play on the largest map settings with the most minor factions possible my experience with them may be quite different to yours.