Opponent gains 3000 influence in one turn!

Hrm, well if it was the Korath, all their planets completed the Dark Influence improvement AND they got the event to amplify their influence...

That graph, does it only show the current races in the game or all races that were in the game. If for some reason a high-influence race surrendered to another it would bolster their influence through the roof and since the other race is gone, their graph would no longer be there.

Without knowledge of the progress of the game I couldn't tell ya what happened.

Did one race surrender to another?

Maybe one race bartered their influence points to these guys (that's an option in the trade screen).

There is that event where the culture of a dying race (this is much, much, stronger than the normal xenophile event) catches on. If the influence mega-event were triggered, it might produce something like this. I had it cost me a game because I didn't realize the race that got it (who were my allies) were about to get an influence win. We were about to get an alliance victory too, all I had to do was kill a few more Yor planets. Maybe you got that event and then accidentally clicked past the screen telling you about it?

All good comments and questions, thanks.

I was playing a tiny map game with only the Yor and Drath present and a single minor race. The influence gain occurred with the Drath who have only a single planet. I checked the event log and can not find anything which may have caused this.

I have also noticed with TA a few other anomalies which may be as a result of my lack of understanding. In this same game (captured in the first save game I emailed in) my income skyrocketed to a level where I could set tax to zero, spending on full and a full investment in espionage and still make money - I couldn't spend the money I was making. My tourism income was over 1000. Remember this is a tiny universe with only a handful of planets.

I suspect this might be influence related to as tourism is related to influence. I previously posted a problem with save games not retaining influence when restored. Maybe TA has an influence problem.

That influence 'issue' was a feature I believe. It was aimed to decrease save game size and loading time by waiting until the first week after loading to calculate non-population-based influence.

I have never understood that, but then my system only pauses briefly when loading an immense map. I would rather wait a few extra seconds (30-60?) and have an accurate map than the current situation. That is especially so when I load a game that has influence borders that suddenly flip a planet that would not have even been in the enemy's area otherwise. You have to wait sooner or later, so why not just doing while you are waiting anyway?

At any rate, it makes no sense to me.

It seems like it shouldn't increase game size if it just does a full influence recalculation on reload. Not that I know for sure how long that would take, but I've never noticed a significant delay on turns where influence borders move around.

There is the Retaurant of Eternity that boosts influence, however it shouldn't have been by that much.



I just want to clarify this; the influence that you trade on the trade screen is ONLY used for the next UI vote. It has no bearing on your empire's overall influence that you see on the mini map and it does not add to your touist income. Trading for that influence will not help you flip planets.

While all of the responses here are well intended, for which I thank everyone, I think you may be missing the point of the scale of the increase. There are three races present in a tiny universe - Yor, Drath and myself (terran). The influence scores are roughly 600, 600 and 1500 respectively.

So I was leading quite significantly. In a single turn the Drath went from ~600 to over 3800 influence. Myself and Yor maintained our positions. This is captured quite nicely in the screenshot and saves I emailed to Stardock.

So my question is, from where did the 3000 influence gain materialise. Collectively there was not enough influence in the universe to pool and explain the increase. The only vague possibility is an event, but that does not show up in the event timeline.

I believe it was a bug.

Save games?

Regarding what you said about suddenly having more money than you could possibly spend, that happened to me too - it's influence related it seems. It happened to me right after I conquered two minor civs and, having no real use for their planets, I filled them with nothing but influence structures. About 30 turns go by and I've got some money and nothing to really spend it on (peace, large fleet, and already spending 100%), so I started rush-building the influence planets, hoping to conquer a nearby Yor world. I didn't succeed in flipping the planet, but within a handful of turns my income more than doubled, with over 1,000 per turn coming just from tourism. Seems overpowered, IMO, if it only takes TWO planets to get such a juggernaut economy, when you can also fill a half-dozen planets with *economy* structures and not get close to the same results.

I think it is quite balanced. If you can get the same result filling a planet with economic buildings, then it is just another strategy that requires filling the planet. The end result is the same, and both are based on population. It is actually quite refreshing to have more than one strategy available for the same task.

I think we're all still missing the point. In the absence of random events, the galaxy should be somewhat predictable. If not, all strategy is useless and we will all surcome to unpredictability.

Cited in this thread, we have two examples, one of an influence blowout, the other income; both appear related.

I am not sure if developers read this thread, because we certainly remain unacknowledged, as does my email submission. I appreciate their business, but I too am busy and will not spend forever helping to resolve possible issues. There are plenty of other games...