Can't get any planets to flip

First game as evil, so planets less likey to join my civ?

Hi all,

I am getting majorly frustrated.

I've played a few games using a cultural conquest strategy (without the victory condition) and have had no trouble flipping planets, sometimes two a turn, by rushing diplomacy, influence and government techs and buying off people who didn't like me. Spamming Influence bases all over the map. It would get to the point that I'd flip one or two planets most turns.

However, I trying it again, and it's simply not working. I have built influence star-bases all over the map, and conquered all the minor race planets (which are often influence heavy)
About 90-95% of the map is my territory. There are currently 46 alien colonies not under my control, 32 are in revolt, and 22 are in the teens (I don't know exactly what the number in brackets next to IP is, but above 4 seems to be 'in revolt', so I think 18+ is pretty rebellious!) This has been situation for 20 turns or so, and I have not had a single revolt. I even just hammered away at the turn button not caring what happened for another dozen turns, and zero planets flipped.

The only difference this time is that I am playing evil. Normally I play good. I have even built the mind control center, which says it should make any near revolt planet flip instantly. But I have had not one planet flip. 22 planets in the teens for a dozen turns, plus a mind control center and no flipping?

My influence stat, with 3 influence mining bases, natural ability and tech, is +180, next closest opponent is +30.

What's going on?

Also, in the planet screen, the Mind Control center says it adds +100% to economy? What does that mean?

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Also, in the planet screen, the Mind Control center says it adds +100% to economy? What does that mean?

The MCC's intended function is missing from the game, and apparently the game treats any unknown abilities as economy bonuses. This is a popular exploit used by high-difficulty players since the bonus is civ-wide, giving you a considerable income boost.

There are currently 46 alien colonies not under my control, 32 are in revolt, and 22 are in the teens (I don't know exactly what the number in brackets next to IP is, but above 4 seems to be 'in revolt', so I think 18+ is pretty rebellious!)

The number is simply the ratio of the dominant influence in the area, versus that of the planet's owner. Once it is over 4, a planet will begin making random rolls to see if it will flip or not, modified by the race's loyalty ability (Yor have double the loyalty of most other races, FYI, so they're hard to flip). It is still a random roll though, so no matter how high the ratio gets it's possible for the planets to not flip.

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Ah, so that's a known issue then? It seemed to me, the last time I played with an MCC, that it not only wasn't working, it was actively preventing defections to me. I don't know if it was just a run of profoundly bad luck or if there's something to that.

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That's something that crossed my mind Vinraith.

I did have a few planets defect earlier in the game (the AI colonizing those 5 and 6 Quality planets I skipped) But I don't remember one flipping since I built the MCC.

Anyone else notice this?

Does Stardock not have any info on this?

-G

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Actually, I was just looking through some posts in the bug section, and there were a couple of people who seemed to think that the MCC prevents defections, I am looking for some confrimation.

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Interesting. Well, I've not built one again since that game, since I suspect that it IS preventing defections. I didn't know about the 100% econ exploit, but that's just another good reason to pretend the thing's not in the game at all. Pity though, if it did what it was supposed to do it'd be ideal for my usual evil strategy.

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