Stardock, please fix the influence bugs

from GalCiv2 Forums
I'm playing only the higher AI difficults. I don't know this happening on easy-intelligence AI Level too. I play with the latest patch 1.0X.010 and in other games tried out the 'latest build' patch found here https://www.galciv2.com/latestbuild/

I played 5-6 games nearly to the end and in every game i notice very strange things about the influence.

Thinks like that happens all time:

- in the influence statistic suddently 1 nation grow rapidily eating influence from most of the other nations in just a few weeks
- then suddenly another nation grow in influence and in the same way the old influence nation loose an equal amount of influence in the statistic
- sometimes it change one or two more till one of these nations control the complete map. Its seems totally random which nation gains this rapidly influence growing.

There is no clue how this massive influence was created. I only notice that there is a strong increased weekly influence income. Like 5-10 times of my own influence but a few weeks ago it was very equal. The other AI nations loose planets because of rebellion in a short time.

I tend to build many influence bases and in the last game (AI set on genius) i had 5 full equiped influence starbases around a single system with 4 planets. In only 4 weeks my influence bubble colapsed even in this system and i still can't find out why. I played on a small galaxy, had sensor ships to see all starbases on the map and had a good espionage level on the influence winning AI nation. There was nothing which explains this huge grow in influence.

In sum i had around 700.000 influence points and the growing nation had only 500.000 (seeable in tradescreen). But its seems the total isn't important only this curious growing rate. After a few turns later the influence nation won an influence victory.

Because i read in some other threads that there are population bugs in which sometimes a planet grow to 93993Billions of people which increases influence too. I checked the population and income statistic and there weren't any strange occurrences only in the influence statistic which had raisings and fallings like the mount everest!

Please check the influence in higher levels. There are some bugs and at least for me it ruins most of my games!

EDIT: Some testing with a cheated game:

- the tradeable sum of collected influence has apparently no sence. You could trade away your hundresthousendt of collected influence and it has no effect on your influence baubles or your influence graph.
Weird: i'm still indicated as "1st" in influence because of my great weekly influence income but the influence statistic in "Stats and Graphs" compares the useless pool of influence (Influence Might Rating there is 0 but i own nearly the complete galaxy with my influence).

- influence starbases seems to be very useless. There is no noticeable increase of influence after building a full equiped influence starbase. Even the 2nd and 3trd full equiped influence starbase just give a local bauble but didn't increase the 'influence'-graph.

- mined 'influence is super. It increased the influence points of every planet and thats the only main base of influence points.

Influence should be more clarified. Why exisiting a pool of influence when it has no effect. Why could we trade this uneffective influence? And why are there are a statisitc in "Stats and Graphs" comparing these influence pool when the only important influence stat the turnbased produced influence is?

EDIT2: Ok, reading the rulebook sometimes helps ;). The pool of influence is important for the voting issue held by the United Planets.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree.

I was playing a tiny map game today on challenging and was ahead in everything. Playing against the Altarians, Arceans and Drengin, I had just been in a war with Altarians and had taken 4 of their 7 planets when they agreed to give me nearly all their tech + money for peace. Bad mistake, I could have wiped out the Altarians and the Drengin in about 50-70 turns max but I was a bit bored with the war and being #1 in all categories, I figured I could take my pick of military or influence victory. Keep in mind I had more planets and higher quality planets than anyone including the Arceans.

Next thing you know (20-25 turns) the map is Arcean yellow from coast to coast. No way did they have the influence to completely overwhelm me like that. I had researched every influence tech, I had influence improvements on all my planets and I had 4-5 influence starbases. I was not mining influence and the Arceans were but JHC a couple of influence mines shouldn't be that strong.

As a last ditch effort (I was close with the Arceans), I started giving the Drengin 1000 per turn for 4-5 turns to try to get them up to close for a diplomatic victory, no dice. When it became obvious they were going to get an influence victory, I went in debt building an additional culture improvement on all my planets and I bumped up most of my influence starbases to cultural conquest. Nothing helped, not even a little.

I don't know if you can call it a bug but it was the weirdest game I have ever played.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
franco:

not a bug or wierd

reload a savegame from sometime before they won the influence victory, destroy their influence mining starbases, you will win.

mining influence starbases(the ones that mine the blue resource) help more than anything else in the game.

normal influence starbases and planetary improvements barely come close to mining influence starbases in actaul impact.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have noticed that after a while the influence no longer will go up, it doesn't matter if I build more influence starbases, it won't go up.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First thing is that you have to realize that cultural calculations, from what I can see, is a lot like calculating the electric field around some static charges of the same polarity. The charges act as sources for the field, and outside the source, the field is calculated using a reflexive algorithm commonly used in physics.

What this means is that the AI and Player essentially being treated equal in code terms, the sources of this field are the same and have the same strength, in other words, the game is indiscriminate.

There are a few things to note, however. I once played a game against genius setting altarians, and I seemed to be winning. I had half of the planets and some starbases. However, within weeks, the altarians won because they churned out this incredible amount of influence. I was perplexed and desperatly wanted to find out how this could have happened. So I loaded the savegame in cheat mode, gave myself loads of cash and spent it on espionage to discover their planets, bonusses, etc. Also revealed the map. Turns out they conqueored 2 influence starbases, and quickly upgraded them ultimately tripling the strength of their cultural sources. No wonder.

So there is no magic or faul play, or bugs, from what I can tell it seems the Ai wins fair and squar.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I found the best way to get the influence victory was to . . . remove . . . the planets from other civs which were still creating a barrier against the onslaught of dark blue I think I had an influence mining starbase but I can't remember the game.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@ender1983

what are you thinking about the influence which you could trade. I tested it in a cheated testgame, collect 200.000 influence and trade it away complete for money.

Absolute nothing happens to the influence baubles!

Why are influence tradeable if there are nothing to do with? Its only important to have turnbased influence. The collected influence has no effect.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I found the best way to get the influence victory was to . . . remove . . . the planets from other civs


I found this particularly funny. Remove as in "You have failed me for the last time?"
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I keep hoping for a patch where the will add a (evil civilization) tech that lets you actually remove a planet(or well blow it up I guess). Or at least make it unliveable.