?? About influence/stations (Being new sucks=( )

Oh yes, I forgot, one last question.

Are resource mines flippable, or only conquerable via combat. I assume the latter.

Thanks so much again

upgrading your resource starbase over an influence resource increases your overall influence ability, also you can use constructors to focus your influence in specfic locations(ie building 3 influence starbases in an enemy sector will increase your tourism income and your overall influence in that sector maybe even enough to "flip" the planets to your control). be aware that flipping the AI's planets to you control will hurt relations with that civ and they may declare war. to answer your last question no, starbases are not flippable your assumption is correct.

If when you said 'resources mines' you meant asteroids that you mine, then yes, those are flippable.

Influence Starbases boost your influence independantly, they don't really need a planet nearby to do their thing. But the range of an influence base is limited. If you click on one, you'll see a circle around it. This is the only area that is affected by that base, it's influence won't expand past that. So if you're trying to flip a planet, you have to make sure the base is properly positioned in order to have an effect.

Incidentally, another use for influence bases that alot of people don't consider is flipping asteroids mining bases to your cause. Build one nearby and add a few improvements and eventually that mine will be yours, provided the other race's influence isn't too high in that area.

Thank you very much!

I still wonder though: lets say I have Osiris I and Osiris IV in the same quadrant, with 10 embassy type buildings on each. I build 4 fully upgraded influence starbases around them, (yielding well over 800% bonus to each colony). Does this raise my *Overall* influence score a ton(thus raising my appropriate bonuses such as my entire border radius, tourism income etc), or is it a local effect, only causing bonuses for those 2 colonies, and only increasing the radius of my borders created by those 2 planets (if any, assuming they are on the edges of my region).

Also, can someone just tell me what influence does besides flip colonies/astroid mines, raise borders, and create tourism revenue? Does it do anything at all beyond that?

Again, thanks for the valuable feedback, and for being so helpful.

Again thank you, i made my reply to the previous quote i made at the same time as you did so I did not see it until posted. I am aware of the radius, position requirements, and vs. opponents influence factors, just not sure what else high influence yields.

But you cleared up my primary question, which was whether or not the influence starbases were co-dependant on planets, or able to be used independantly.

though im still wondering if jacking up colonies with lots of +influence buildings then stacking influence starbases on them increases my entire civ's border radiuses or just the radiuses of the colonies under their effect. Or if that has any other good effects or reasons to do it. Still fuzzy there, but many thanks!

an actual influence starbase won't contribute to a colonies influence, building on a influence resource(the blue resource on the map) will help magnify a colonies influence. as far as embassies i only build them on special tiles(pre-cursor artifacts), influence starbases is all you need to wage an influence war.
your influence border depends on the amount of influence in a certian area(much like the game Civilizations border system), the more influence on a planet the larger it grows. the easiest way to grow your border is to capture influence resouces(the blue ones) they will magnify influence of all your planets, though i'm not sure if it contributes to starbses.

I don't use influence buildings much. Population and lots of stock markets are more productive and they increase a planet's influence rating as well. When using influence starbases to flip planets or asteroids, it's necessary to add the influence modules made available through the yellow influence techs. There are 11 modules altogether, but the 5 most effective ones are all that I ever use (I don't know if it's intended behavior or a bug, but once you have all of them, you can skip the first 6). Overall influence makes your influence starbases more effective. The way to increase that is through overall population and most effectively, by mining influence resources. Adding all 7 mining modules made available through the orange industrial techs is imperative. Some of the other yellow techs increase overall influence and there are a couple special projects that increase overall influence. You can use influence starbases to counter the effects of outside influence on your own planets. If one is threatened, build up an influence base next to it. Oh, and watch with flipping too many planets at once. A race will get hostile if they see you attempting an influence war on them, but they are fun. Form an alliance with a race then execute an influence war on them, pretty cool. If your influence is strong enough, influence war can be almost as effective as traditional war, but without all the bloodshed.

Have fun!

You have already named all the uses of influence...except of course that if you can cover 75% of the map area with your predominant influence, you win an Influenc victory.

drrider

Cultural victories seem to be my own personal best way to win a game, as in I have the most success, personally, doing it that way.

At least, so far... If you play nice with all the civs, you can sometimes win a game without ever building a single warship. I've even had civs paying me tribute while I'm busy flipping their planets.

Thanks for all the feedback!

I raised the question originally when i discovered the max modules for influence starbases add up to the final one adding 100%, seeming to make them extremely potent, for whatever their primary use was.

Unfortunately for me however, I attempted to flip 4 starbases of an un-allied krynn opponent (they got in MY galaxy), and their military blossomed before mine so they decided to systematically exterminate my starbases.

Do the negative relation hits become reduced if the opposing colonies youre trying to flip belong to an ally civ? It seems they get *real* touchy *real* fast even if you start to attempt to flip them (if theyre not allied), which of course makes sense.

I picture it as eating at a large family holiday dinner and your cousin's husband sitting next to you keeps slowly pulling your salad fork closer to his area every time you look away.

.....the response is obviously to stab him in the hand with it.

"building 3 influence starbases in an enemy sector will increase your tourism income"

I was unaware of this... thks!!

very informative thread... thks for starting it, Counterintel!!


Chr*s

Influence stations are great for defending your own worlds from rebelling , plus if you are aiming for a non military based win if you use influence stations to cut them off from thier own influence, if you use the map toggle to show area of influence 9colour coded0 this is easy to see the effect of not only where your influence and enemy influences reach but just how effective each influence station is too.

basically if you can cut off any of thier influence contact from the world except what the world itself produces then sooner or later it will show with the unhappy symbol and rebel to your side sooner or later. likewise with asteroid mines if you put an influence station near an asteroid field and/or build a colony on a world closer than the one they are beaming the resources too...sooner or later they will switch and beam resources to you instead.

Counterintel,

I've not delved to too difficult a play level as yet, but I've found the best way to keep them at bay is to gift them techs... Speak to them often and if they seem grumpy, gift them BC or techs.

I do this even with the Drengi and Drath, with nations warring... The only tech I never roll over are influence/economy techs. I'll research the quickie things after I've gotten up to historical assimilation, just to have junk techs to throw at them all to keep them happy with me all while I'm flipping their planets.

So far, it's worked. Only once has it not...against the Iconians (it even worked fine against the Yor...I just kept giving them BC and they left me alone lol).

Here's my trick, though... I make sure that I've researched enough into engines to build a fast-moving constructor. Then I get multiple planets only producing these. After that, I do what so many here say not to do...I beef up the attack and defense to max on ALL of my influence bases.

All but 1 of my wins has been without building a single warship... If you're at war and they go after you, they'll go after your bases first...if they can't destroy them, they'll lose all their ships trying.

Yeah I play gumpy-no skill required difficulty still (im only on my,like, 3rd legit game) and being a big fan of the Civ line, I quickly identified that the speed ability with its 8 point cost is extremely valuable, and quite addicting. Needless to say I shoot straight for some research techs (Im trying different starting tech spreads), then pound out to warp engines. It's a hard grind, kinda makes me nervous, but having colonies and constructors with a 16 (Or whatever it ends up being) speed is pretty sick, but Im sure it's only because my opponents are as savvy and intelligent as inbred orangutangs.

I expand extremely well (I'm also currently using super adapter with my speed ability), so I control a large portion of the galaxy. If you've never tried super adapter, I like it a lot. It's extremely potent being able to snatch up those planets, even at 50% production. You dont necessarily have to even build anything on them, but having claimed several toxic/aquatic colonies with a 20+ quality early in the game, has really wet my whistle. They make GREAT future set-ups for hardcore starship spam planets, or any kind of planet you want to stack a bunch of 1 thing on (research, money, production, w/e)

It's also extremely cheesy if you like the influence game. You can easily plunge directly into enemy territory, snatch up those huge colonies and stack em with influence to keep em on your side, and eventually turn their territory...into yours.

I'm not sure these tactics are even remotely viable on higher difficulties with smarter opponents...this is just my few observations from a new point of view. The few things that have clicked in my head as "whoa....that's awesome!"

But yeah, still learning, but again thanks for the positive feedback!

I forgot about that. I play with all optional victory conditions disabled, military conquest all the way, kill, kill, hehe.

To the guys mentioning "speeding up their constructors" - it sounds like a great idea... same w/making Freighters/colony ships/etc faster....

BUT

if you add advanced engines... it drastically increases the time it takes to push said ships out of the shipyards = how does that really help in the longrun???

I've tried this strat you guys speak of, but the time would go from (for example) 4 weeks for a normal constructor to say... 6-8... and if this is early game and I'm trying to colonize in a hurry... how does that help in the longrun?

Combined with the fact that one has to start out researching other techs usually instead of going engines right off the bat...


baffled noob here
  

The trick is to get a super powerful economy going so you can just buy the ships instead of waiting for them to build. One thing about DL that is vastly different from DA, in DL, you can build all-factory planets that can easily pop out engine laden constructors every turn. In DA, engines are much more expensive so you have to use your economic might to help get those constructors/transports out. You'll never be able to pop out a round every turn, but with a strong enough economy, you can build for a turn or two, then pay off the rest.

Regular constructors on Earth (I almost always play Terrans) almost always end up being churned out once every three turns. On even Tiny map sizes, at a stock movement of 2, the default constructors could take 8-10 turns to get to a base deep in enemy territory.

Along comes my Azanti Constructor with a movement of 6... It's taking 6 turns to produce and getting there in 3-4 turns.

I net more constructors arriving in a given timespan...

If I'm in a rush, I buy them turn after turn, stack a few up, and by the time the last 3 are arriving from 3 different bases, I go from no platform to a Culture Domination influence base armored with at least +10 shields and armor, as well as about 78+ total attack power between banks of lasers, mass drivers, and missles.

Edit: Oh, another advantage is, in times of war, the faster they can move, the less chance the enemy has of shooting them down before they arrive at the base, leaving me free to still not build a single warship (aside from planetary defense ships with nothing past basic engines) and let them go on unprotected.

I play on the largest map settings with plentiful amounts of stars/planets/habitable planets, so after over a year into the game, theres still absurd amounts of unclaimed territory. Understandably, from what i can read, many players play very small, very compact maps, in order to foster a more 'give me 10 turns, and ive got ships up your ass' kind of game. Rush games. I do not enjoy go-go-go games, I do not like pounding out wins in an hour so, in my games, by the time ive got the tech to make ships that move incredibly fast, I've got the colonies with the production to pound them out.

Your point is very valid: In the beginning of a game, or on small maps, theres little to no point in making insanely fast colonies/constructors (moderately fast is still good, to outrun enemies in times of war), but on huge maps, your top production planets are usually deep in your own territory, so moving 3-4X as fast as opponents constructors/colonies, is a huge advantage, and you can quickly lay claim to colonies and resources in, or even beyond their influence.

Keep in mind I also play as super adapter, which permits me to colonies aquatic and toxic worlds by default, so it's important for me to be able to zip across the map and claim those 16+ quality colonies before the opponents are able to get the tech, and then get a ship there.

I have to agree I dont go the speed route myself, indeed engine techs i usually leave till last and ive never had a game i have trouble gaining the majority of good planets fairly easily. reason being .. REMAKE THE COLONY SHIP lol i do not use the standard colony ship, i make a new colony ship with a single colony mode and better range, they are inevitably produceable in much faster time than the standard one 9which the opponents use) thereby allowing you to build, reach and colonise most worlds before them.

if you dont get all the worlds you want to colonise just quickly slap some influence stations about the worlds you want until the rebel to your side then decomission all the stations around it except 1 in order to keep the planet securely part of your empire. i also tend to leave the enemy planets for some time to let them build them up before rebelling them 9after all no point me spending my cash on buildings when they can spend theres and i can get them for free when the world rebels lol).

Economuy and influence techs tend to be my first port of calls

How many Constructors are you sending somewhere?

Going with the hypothetical example,

Slow constructor - 3 turn build, 10 turns to get there.

Fast constructor - 6 turn build, 4 turns to get there.

Slow - Fast

First On scene

Turn 13 - Turn 10

Break Even Point

Turn 16 - 2 constructors either way.

Now quick buying the first one:

First On Scene

Turn 10 - Turn 4

Break Even Point -

Turn 16, 3 constructors either way.

So a slower, steadier constructor might be the way to go if you want a lot of modules quickly.

For mining resources, you're even better off using both. Buy a fast constructor to claim the resource, then follow up with slow ones to upgrade it.

Well, I wasn't going to give everything away, but yeah. I'd even rush-buy the fast constructor and then pump out the slow ones.

To get really fast ships doesn't require excessively long build times.

Keep in mind I utilize the speed abiilty, for a base +2 movement, and I primarily go for the engine techs for the free +speed to all ships, raising their speed without raising their production times. Starting with +2 speed, then gaining another +2 from some relatively easy researching is causing my first wave ships to move 3X faster than the opponents, which is extremely significant considering the production time doesnt go up. And later in the game it's nice having the option to buy a ship with a 15+ speed to snag a resource or high quality colony, hopefully before the rabid opponent can and does.

The only types of ships I really put multiple, expensive engines on are my 'map sweepers' that are just fast, with large sensor range, so I can easily find more resources, open colonies, and just generally open the map. Their build time isn't significant, because they don't have anywhere specific to be anytime soon, they just need to be there at some point to reveal the map. Tho, they are addicting as well and each game I play I find myself saying "I wish I had a sweeper out there right now"...but the urge must be resisted.

Obviously the bigger the map, and longer the distance you need the ship to travel, the better the return is on a longer build time. I havent really dont the math or anything but im sure there is a point where the speed becomes excessive, and inefficient. Honestly, sometimes it just pleases me to know my colonies/Constructors are covering crazy ground, even if it doesn't work out to be 100% efficient.

I think I stated in an earlier response here that it really isn't viable or highly reccomended to take this approach for smaller maps, for obvious reasons.


--End Transmission From:
Obnoticus: Lord of the Rediculoids
of planet Home Depot II.--