Mind Control Center prevents planets from defecting to your civ?

This is interesting. I never realized the reason. But I play as evil and always build the Mind Control Center very soon.

In my last 2 Gigantic games I never had a single planet flip to me. Not once.

I completely gave up on flipping planets, and just assumed I was too evil to get planets to flip.

I have to invade small PQ5 planets even when they have pirate flages flying for 2 or 3 years.

Yup, I've observed this as well. I've never had a planet flip when I have an MCC in play. I don't build them anymore, as a result.

Kryo has said the MCC is broken. It gives 100% econ bonus, but, he thinks, probably doesn't allow planets to flip.

I can a little close to confirming this today, playing on whatever difficulty sets AI to 'bright'.

I started my normal cultural conquest strategy, and after two and half years i have a quarter of the map under my control. Near the middle there was a star cluster with about 8 habital planets, controlled by 5 different civs. I build two influence starbases and after about 5 turns, one of them finaly flips. Boom, in the next five turns the rest all flipped.

I found another such cluster of planets, though none with such diverse set of cultures (so more cultural 'defence') and did the same thing. All flip in a few turns of getting one to fall.

I then set up to do the same thing with two other clusters. I built a ton Constructors, piled them up. I built the MCC and then four starbases, two at each cluster. Right away, boom, 15+ cultural rebellion, 8 planets immediatly go into revolt, and i start click the turn button. I even set my expenses to nothing so i dont have to worry about building anything. After another year, not one planet flipped.

I'm kicking myself. What I should have done was save it before I built the MCC. Then I could compare the exact same effects of those influence starbases with and without the MCC. I will start up a new game tomorrow and see if I set that up.

Cornhusker, I have seen lots of info about the broken MCC, and looked at comments from Kryo, but I didn't see anything by him or anyone else confirming that the MCC PREVENTS planets from flipping. I may well have I missed that.

As I understood it, the 100% econ bonus was in place the missing revolution-inspiring effects of the MCC.

I, and many other people, believed the the MCC had NO EFFECT on plannet flipping, wether positivly or negativly. But it seems increasingly clear the the MCC is preventing plannets from flipping to my civ. (It would be ineresting to know if my planets can flip to other civs.)

I want confirmation, and a fix, if the MCC is indeed PREVENTING planets from flipping. I don't mind if the MCC keeps it +100% econ bonus, but it sucks that i can't flip planets period.

Neither have I

What I have said is that it definitely doesn't do what it's *supposed* to do. Whether it somehow has some secondary effect that's completely the opposite of what it's supposed to do, that's what we're trying to find out.


If it is, it'd be kind of interesting if there's a price tag on that 100% econ bonus after all

I just finished a game where a couple planets did flip after I built the MCC, so it doesn't prevent it entirely. However, it DID seem to prevent planets from flipping inside of my influence starbases' radii, because those that did flip did so well away from them. The flipped planets also took their sweet time doing so, seemingly at about the normal rate.

Sorry, Kryo. I thought I had read that from you.

Maybe I was "influenced" by my own experience. I had influence techs the highest and 3 influence bases right around a 1 billion pop PQ4 AI planet at 43% approval, deep in my area of influence -- and I had many high-pop planets near it. I had flipped many larger planets before this, but I had just built MCC. This planet didn't ever flip. I had to invade it at the end of the game. So, if MCC doesn't entirely prevent flipping, at least it comes darned close. Of course, that's all in my experience.

Again, I apologize for using you an authority when you hadn't really said what I was asserting.

I just finished a game as the Korath where I was evil and built the MCC. I did have a couple planets flip to me after I built it, but I had created a huge amount of influence starbases and had over half the planets ready to defect for several years with only 2 actually flipping to me. So the bottom line is that the MCC is definitely making it A LOT harder to flip planets. Definitely need to fix this.

Thanks guys, im sticking with neutral. 100% ecomomy isnt worth having to fight for each planet.

Besides I have a PQ1 world thant is already slated to be a 10 and i only have the first terraforming tech. But at this rate my game will end before all the tiles are even useful. Its like having to build on each tile twice for the entire planet. So going neyurtarl will instantly transform the tiles once i get the tech.

On the other hand ive seen something about an orbital terraformer. what is this? And how do i get one?

If the MCC gave you 100% economy bonus *AND* planets could flip, MCC would be overpowered. Some people think it's already overpowered as it is.

Planets can flip when you have the MCC. They do for me almost every game I play evil. Does it make it harder to flip the enemy? Maybe. I don't have the formula down to know how long it *should* take to be able to measure if there is an appreciable difference with the MCC up.

My guess, is any effect has to do with a higher tax rate. The happier and more populous your people are, the quicker other planets will flip to you. After I build the MCC I usually jack taxes, lowering approval, which might result in the effect on flipping, if any.

Indeed, given the relationship effects on flipping multiple planets now, I would see it as an advantage if I could be immune from accidentally flipping other planets once I had this built. I already make sure to give away all the influence tech I research. But everyone has a different approach to the game.

Kryo, if you need a pair of save files of before and after of an enemy planet flipping with the MCC up, I can provide it.

Hope that helps.

An orbital terraformer is a galactic wonder, requiring the last tile improvement technology to be researched. It automatically upgrades all planets in your Empire (And any you capture later) to utilize all the usable tiles.

WOW, i want one of those. lol. So evil it is,,, then to get me a terraformer.

In one of my games I actually tried to flip planets while having the Mind Control Center.

I simply couldn't do it.

I built tons of influence starbases and nothing would flip. I eventually gave up and just started invading.

It is true that 0 to 1 planets will flip during each of my games after I build the Mind Control Center, but it is extremely rare.

I often get 1 to 5 planets flip before I build the MCC, and 0 to 1 flip after I build it.

It is true that I no longer try to flip planets once the MCC is built, so perhaps the situation has changed. But I often have alien AI controled planets in my spehere of influence that have pirate flags flying for as long as one year, and they just don't flip.

- Livonya

Well, sure. I've had pirate flag planets sit there for close to four years before they flip. But they do eventually. How long does it normally take? I never flip enemy planets that quickly except in the early game when populations are all small. Once enemy populations are in the 12b+ range, they just don't go. Of course, I don't use influence starbases. And I work to increase the AIs influence, because I dislike flipping. I don't notice planets flipping faster when I go neutral, which is why I'm suspicious of claims that the MCC is what accounts for this game activity.

Wyndstar -

Yeah, I don't know how long it should take, and as I said I no longer try. So you could be right that it is just bad luck and not something to do with the MCC.

The only time I actually tried to flip planets with the MCC up I did in fact build about 20+ influence bases around a cluster of planets that I was trying to flip. Nothing ever happened.

It was the first time I had ever tried to actively flip planets in the mid to late game as a strategy for victory, and it wasn't happening. Turn afer turn nothing happened. I just assumed that influence flipping was a waste of time, and never tried again.

Later I saw this post and went, "Ah, maybe the MCC was the problem."

So it very well could be that the MCC is doing nothing to prevent flipping.

If that is true that the MCC does nothing to change flipping then I congratulate anyone that can win through culture flipping as their patience is monumental.

- Livonya

I was playing with this a bit in my current game. I got to the point prior to building the MCC that I could expect an average of one planet to flip every turn. I had a nice solid forty planets with flags, probably more. After building the MCC, I received no additional flips. In fact, in all my games, I have only ever had one planet flip post building the MCC.

If you want to go evil, and want to flip planets. You can, just hold off on the MCC. Even with just the Artificial Slave Center, evil is pretty good!

Wyndstar and Livonya, while I don't have conclusive proof, my experience shows me clearly that MCC is a great hindrance to planets flipping. Before I realized what was up (just before I started contributing to this post a couple of months ago), when I was going for a strategy of flipping to conquer I would go evil to get MCC. I had all influence techs and many starbases, so that I'd get about a flip/turn. After MCC, for two games straight, the flipping utterly stopped. And there was no other reason for it to do so.

Until I hear that the situation has changed, I'll avoid MCC if I'm trying to get planets with influence. As it turns out, though, I stopped using that strategy after my two bad experiences with MCC! Now I just prefer conquest all around.

Just a thought:

I have no proof either way, and I don't disbelieve any of you that the MCC stops your flipping efforts. However, I get frustrated when I accidentally flip planets, so I hate the fact that planets keep flipping after I build the MCC.

BUT, I'm probably playing the game different than most people. I actively work to supress my own influence, and increase the AIs. It sounds to me like people who try and *increase* their influence have the most problems.

What if the MCC just made it so you return the wrong influence value, or inverted your influence ability somehow? If with an MCC up, it looks to your enemy to decide your influence value, or somehow higher influence modifiers become inversly proportional - then you would be frustrated in whatever influence strategy you took. I try to prevent flipping, and yet the stupid things do it anyway. You try to flip a planet a turn, and yet it stops completely.

This could be a way off base idea. I'm just trying to rationalize what different people see.

I have to believe either there's a serious problem with the influence calculations or it's the MCC building. I suspect that the MCC building actually just does the exact opposite of what's it's supposed to do. I suspect it makes every planet take the maximum amount of time to flip rather than the minimum. It's a simple programming error that would be hard to catch.

Here's an example, in my current game trying for an influence victory, I have one planet deep in my territory with 12 billion enemy on it. I currently have an IP rating on the planet of 190 times their rating of 41. It's been almost a year that it's been at that rating.

If the MCC isn't affecting the influence system, wouldn't that mean that there's some ridiculous crazy bug going on? I noticed a long drought after I built the MCC where no planets flipped. Then the planets which would have been the first ones I endangered slowly began to flip, I can't be sure, but I suspect in the order I endangered them.

I have always assumed that the MCC prohibited planets from flipping to you but that's just my personal experience. However there's another very realistic possibility. AFAIK once your influence to their influence ratio hits 4 the red skull and crossbones appears. Once this happens the planet rolls to see if it would flip and the probability of the planet flipping is proportional to the influence ratio, so the higher the ratio the higher the chance of flippage.

However, I'm also under the impression that it take two rolls like this to cause an actual flip. The issue with this may be that in the late part of the game turns can take quite some time. In this case you may be saving and restoring the game pretty much every turn. AFAIK when the game is loaded the Zones of Control (your influence area) is not yet calculated and any planets will not be loaded with the red skull and crossbones set. I then think the quickest that the planet could possibility flip would be three turns later assuming that there was no intervening save/restore.

The three turns consist of the first after restore where the ZOC's are calculated and the skull and crossbones appears, the second and third turn would be required to get 2 "flip" rolls. This of course assumes either a very high ratio or two very good rolls. Anyway, in my games from the middle to the end it's very rare indeed that I can get three turns in without having to go to bed and save the game.

I think this is at the root of what's going on and since I always have the MCC nowadays I really have no basis to say how it works differently without it.

The thing with the mind control center is, that even when you refrain from building it, you still can get it by flipping an evil-race-planet that has the mcc already built on it. That would pretty much end an influence victory game in an instant.
Sadly the only way to prevent this from happening right now, is to exclude all evil ai races from one's game.
Would it be possible to make the mcc destructable or to prevent the ai from building it? I can imagine you guys are probably very busy with the betas, bugs and the like, but i miss the Drengin and Korx realy badly from my cultural conquest games already.

Mumble, that's an interesting idea. As I'm sure you know pretty well, I typically stick to playing Medium and smaller maps that only take me a few hours to play. There is no reloading, no recalculating my ZOC. I notice that both Livonya and purge who also report having conclusively seen this negative MCC effect also, AFAIK, both play on Gigantic all abundant settings.

There is something else I noticed. In Thaumaturge's example he was trying to flip a planet with a 12b population. I don't even remember the last time I've seen a non-capital enemy world with a pop even close to that. Again, I play on medium(ish) maps, and to expand faster the AI will often seed a new world with only a few million colonists. Given that on a medium map most people start in each other's back yard, my wars are typically fought well before any enemy colonized world hits 6billion, forget about something higher. And, to be fair, I have never influenced flipped an enemy capital world - the only worlds I deal with that might, might get a population close to 12b before the game is over. However, I also don't try to flip enemy capital worlds. IME, capital worlds always give you a tech when you invade, in addition to being generally juicy targets, so I go around taking capitals first. Always.

So, in short, I'm typically dealing with worlds with 1-5 billion(ish) colonists and I don't save and reload. But I'm sure that I still flip planets after I build the MCC. Do they flip less often after I build it? As I stated above, maybe.... I don't know how quickly they should flip to be able to measure if there is a difference.

Hope that helps,
- Wyndstar

With the MCC, it can take insanly long for a planet to flip, up to three years for one planet in my experience. So i can understand that some folks get the impression, that planets stop flipping entirely.
Also, and i might get a lil paronoid here, when reading Kryos post with all the winks one can get the impression, that this was intentionally implemented as a drawback to the powerful 100% economy bonus (righltly so). Then again it doesnt make sense, because someone with an evil alignment probably doesnt want planets to flip anyway and rather butcher population instead of meddling with their heads to make them defect. So in this sense, it is actually an additional bonus instead of a penalty.

I encourage anyone, that is even remotly interested in this topic, to play a test-game to figure out for yourself if and how the MCC effects the flip chance. Please, no more maybe-it-does -or maybe-it-doesnt-posts. Its a slap into the face for those, that have made that experience and already came to a conclusion imho.

Actually all in all I'd prefer that people not poke at the MCC with their sharpened sticks. After all the true purpose of the MCC was to give a 100% bonus to cause planets to flip to you faster. The fact that it actually has the opposite effect is merely ironic.

The actual effect of being a 100% global economic bonus was never intended and could probably be classified as a bug. Of course it's one that's been there forever yada, yada, yada but considering the hue and cry concerning the other issue discovered recently that's been there forever, I'd personally prefer that anyone not open this can of worms with the almost inevitable result of it being nerfed.

If you really want to play for an influence victory you can still have evil in the game. If the MCC gets built then attack the planet with mass drives invasion tactic and hopefully it wll be destroyed. Failing that you could always "destroy" the planet after its capture.