"Flipping" other races

Hello, razorrick. Welcome to the forums.

Influence victories are not my forte, but I have enough general knowledge that I think I can help you out.



First, you can't flip a minor race. To flip a major, you need to have more than 4x the amount of influence that the planet in question is generating. For example, if the planet has 50 influence points, then you will need at least 200 in order to flip it. When you reach that 4x, the game will, each turn, 'roll the dice' to determine whether or not it will flip. The more influence you can exert, the more likely this is to happen. (I assume.) You will know when you are getting close, as a skull and crossbones icon will appear next to the planet.



A starbase generates it's own influence, which is added to any other sources.



This is determined by the number and type of modules you install. Some modules will give a +5, others can give a +20, or even +30, IIRC. I can't say off the top of my head what the absolute cap is; perhaps someone will come along and answer that for you.



I'm pretty sure that they do, but I honestly couldn't say what precisely that would be. Another one for someone else to answer.



Absolutely. Place a spy on an influence generating planetary improvement, such as an embassy, and you can see their influence drop.

The AI will vue the use of influence starbases as an act of aggression. It's not about to sit around and allow you to take it's planets. When you begin to deploy these, you will take a diplomatic hit to the relations with that civ. This will continue until eventually, war will be declared. So use these judiciously.

Something else to consider: Influence starbases can be used for more than flipping planets. They can be used simply to increase your area of influence. The Yor's super ablility is determined by their area of influence, so the larger it is, the more valuable that ability becomes. Also, many (if not all, can't remember) of the civs have ship modules that increase the attack or defense values of those ships, but only in your own area of influence. Increasing that makes these more useful.

I hope that this has been of some small help to you. Good luck.

Few more pointers:

1. Easiest way to see a planet's influence is to turn on the "spheres of influence" for the mini-map. Thats how you figure out the Yor's super ability, and I'm fairly sure influence works in a similar method.

2. You can also click on your planet, and it will tell you what influence it is exerting, as well as influence exerted on it (in parenthesis). Something like 44(1.5)

3. At least for DL/DA, if you reload a game, or just restarted a game from a saved point, don't expect ANY planet to flip for a few turns. When you see the little crossbones pop up, that means its getting close, but if you then reload, the crossbones will disappear. It some weird bug or intentional coding that messes with the influence calculations after a reload. Anyhow, if it s a planet you are trying to flip to your side, it can be annoying. Also, if you choose to do so, you can prevent YOUR planets from flipping to the AI also. Just reload the game and you'll have 10-15 more turns to increase your own influence before it revolts.

4. Sometimes you get better results by conquering a large PQ planet that is near multiple smaller planets, as opposed to wasting time on a starbase. Your new planet will exert more influence and cost less than building all those constructors and setting up a base.

5. Don't build the Mind Control Center, it does the exact opposite of what it claims to do. Sort of like politicans...

Hope that helps, if you knew this stuff already, then I wasn't really here and these aren't the droids you're looking for **waves hand across your vision**

Disclaimer: All advice herein is from personal experience, and mainly based on DA, not TA. Most of it carries over, though.

More pointers:

Influence is based on the population and structures on a building, and degrades with distance from the planet. Part of what happens when you hit "Turn" is that each source of influence is recalculated, then each space has to be calculated based on distance from various influence sources.

The loading issue is only ONE TURN long, and avoidable. All you need to do to avoid this is do something - anything - that changes the influence map before you hit turn. Build a starbase, add a module to a influence base, destroy a base, take a planet, whatever. Even rush-buying an embassy will cause the influence to be recalculated before the turn runs, thus restoring it to what it was when you saved.

The maximum value of an influence base is 337% in DA. In TA this will vary between races, as not everyone has the same available modules.

From my experience, influence overkill does NOT affect how fast a planet flips. It's all based on random chance once you get over the 4x point. I've held planets at 80+ for more than a game year and not flipped them, and I've had planets flip the first week they could.

Spies reduce influence even faster if you use one to turn off a farm. Influence is based on population, after all.

For DA, avoid the Mind Control Center. It actively prevents flipping instead of encouraging it. I hear this was fixed in TA, but I can't confirm this personally.

Do multiple Influence Starbases in a sector stack their affects?
Can a Minor race flip a major?

Multiple bases DO stack. Just realize that they are effective only within the starbase area of effect.

Minor civs are basically immune to influence, either incoming or outgoing. They flip or be flipped.

Thanx for the tips. I flipped my first planet yesterday….the Torians.
I wonder if minor race influence affects major races. There was a minor race that had 3 influence starbases in my sector where the Torians were located. I had been trying to flip the Torians for a while with no luck. I tried an experiment. Even though I am playing a ‘GOOD’ race I decided to declare war on the minor race. ***side note – why are all minor race planets 15 quality?*** I built a fleet and some transports and attacked everything the minor race had, including their home world and literally wiped them from exsistence in one turn. I tell you that was fun, logistically annoying, but fun. Well the very next turn the Torians flipped to my side. That experiment makes me think the minor races have more influence when it comes to major races then I first believed……Thoughts anyone?

Also: is there a 'combat view screen'? I think I read that but I cant find it

I believe that appears only when one fleet attacks another.

Yeah, but how do I turn that on?

Open the options menu, it's in there somewhere. Click a box labeled "show full battles" (or something like that, I don't have it open in front of me.)

I just read my post from last night. Between that and this one, I really shouldn't still be awake at this time of morning.

I hear you. The last 4x game I played was 'Birth of the Federation'. The last game that I really have had sleep loss over was back in the day when StarCraft first came out. I love this game. It is kinda like Full Contact Chess w/ a side of Axis and Allies and any Sci-Fi thing you are into.

Hi all, I'm a newbie and only just finished by second game in the Dreadlords campaign yesterday; haven't played any sandbox games yet.

I flipped an enemy planet yesterday with an influence starbase that I piled construction ships into until I used up everything from the main mining line. It was great having good morale again! Mine was ridiculously low, I guess because of high population. Anyway, soon my enemy, the Drengin, came calling and was defeated, and the AI didn't seem to recover from it. I'm not sure if conquered planets have their buildings all start at zero level, but everything there had to upgrade, so the planet wasn't really doing too much for a good while.

I like sneaky tactics like that. I'm a newbie bungler though, so I started the first influence starbase so far away that its area of effect didn't reach the planet I wanted to capture even with all the upgrades(and time it took to get them there!). So then I brought in another and only at the very last upgrade was that close enough. (Yeah, I'm dumb.)

Is there a way to know the right placement? I didn't want to come to close, both times, because I would be in the enemy's territory and I assumed that would lead to an act of war. I mean there's guaranteed effect if you're right there, but I didn't want to suicide.

Click on any starbase, and you will see the area of effect.

The A.I. seems to tolerate influences starbases more than military ones. When you click on a constructure ship it will show you the area of effect. I place them right outside the colored borders of races trying to include as many planets as possible.

The area of effect for influence bases is not what the ring indicates. Influence bases do NOT amplify the influence of your empire, they amplify the influence they generate themselves. Bases (and planets, for that matter) can be treated as point sources of influence, which then diminishes over distance. Influence from bases falls off faster with distance than that from planets - my theory is that planets diminish linearly with distance, while bases go by distance squared.

It is NOT worth placing a base to reach an extra planet if doing so prevents you from placing it in contact with one or more other planets. Your priority in placing influence bases should be to put it squarely between two enemy planets. Once you can get one or both of them to flip, the rest will domino.

Sorry, pardner, but this only applies for influence *resourse* starbases.

I disagree, and have done the experimentation to prove it.

For that matter, I can talk you through a simple demonstration. Take a dozen constructors out deep into an enemy's territory. It doesn't matter whose, or where, as long as it's pretty far from your space. Start an influence base, then add modules one at a time. You will eventually get a spot of your territory completely surrounded by theirs - but it starts as a tiny circle, not the entire area of effect. As you add more modules the spot will become bigger, and eventually (assuming you have big enough racial bonuses) become an approximation of the "official" AoE.

Unlike other starbases, the effect of influence bases is not uniform throughtout the area of effect. The ring defines the maximum AoE, not the effective AoE.

Nice to know. Thanks. Like I said, influence isn't my strong suit.

...as well as the sector (large squares) that it's placed in. They don't help too much outside of that sector.



Aye, they neither create influence nor are affected by influence when it comes to their planets being flipped.


I'll confirm that in TA the MCC is working per it's description. As soon as the skull & crossbone symbol comes up, that planet is yours the next turn.