Even though Influence can be stockpiled, just like Money in Humankind, other than claiming Territories and Wonders or merging Cities and attaching Outposts to Cities, it is rarely used. Therefore I would like to share some of my new ideas to make Influence more meaningful Resource and know your own ideas on how to make Influence much more relevant.

Here are my thoughts:

1) Legacy Traits can be modified with spending Influence

- Slightly increase positive bonus of Legacy Trait.

- Slightly decrease negative bonus of Legacy Trait.

- Fairly increase positive bonus of Legacy Trait, at the expense of introducing a new significant negative bonus or (if it already exists) deteriorates even more.

- Unlock new "minor" Legacy Trait for your current Culture.

- Each modification or unlock require 1 Legacy Trait Point.

- Legacy Trait Point is limited to certain amount(1 or 2?) per Era. (maybe Aesthetic Cultures could have +1 more Legacy Trait Point?)

- Legacy Trait Point is only earned if certain amount of Influence is used. The cost should scales with something... but I'm not sure... maybe Era? or total generation of Influence?

- Only Legacy Trait in current Era/Culture can be modified. Once you adopt new Culture, it becomes impossible. (But not when ascending)

2) Civics choices can be deactivated with spending Influence

Historically, Civic choices have changed as the time goes by, sometimes without violent clashes. Therefore we need a new way to change our Civics choices.

- If you spend certain amount of Influence, it is possible to reset your Civics choice.

- Since it is being reset, another Civics Point is needed to activate the other option.

- Influence cost scales with the duration of turns, for which the Civic has been activated, and the total population of the Civilization.

3) Make attaching Outposts to Cities more expensive

Currently it is too cheap compared to merging Cities, to the point that activating a Civics choice, which makes -30% cost to attaching Outpost, seems meaningless... (maybe not in so early game, but obviously in mid or late game)

4) (not sure because most of it remain in veil) Espionage operations costs Influence maybe?

- Also Influence can be used to counter spy as well?

5) Introducing Mercenaries?

- Purchasing Mercenaries with Influence and Money might also be plausible... but unsure if it ever makes sense in Humankind... There is no system like that of Endless Legend or Endless Space 2...

So far these are all. What are your ideas?

There are some good ideas here. The one I would like to see most is being able to change Civic Choices later in the game at the cost of influence pts, which depends on number of territories owned. (Number of pop could be used in equation too but needs experimentaion first.)

I gonna throw in few of my ideas too.

1. Each army/navy group costs 1 Influence pts to maintain.

- This amount should not be too much of a big deal if players maintain just 1 group of unit(s) per city as local guard/patrol. However, this does matter more when going to war when there are many groups of units present.

2. Certain specialised districts use 1 or 2 Influence pts as part of their upkeep.

- Specifically Hamlets: People can spam Hamlets to increase population capacity in their cities as well as exploiting all FISM resources from terrains. Adding influence as upkeep for them might be worthwhile choice for balance. This may not totally stop players from spamming if they have decent influence income, but at very least, it should serve as part of gameplay balance.

Commons quarters are useful too and could be spammed for high stability. Even though it is unlikely that players would build so many of them and that they need to be built next to other districts, I still feel Common quarters are a little too good for their function. So same as Hamlets, they could use some balance with some kind of maint cost.

EDIT

On 2nd thought, maybe no influence upkeep for Common quarters, because they do not exploit rss on the hex they occupy which is one of major cons already, but this would need some experimentation.