I don't know if that's in the game at this point, but it doesn't seem to do much harm ; well, I know that it was ineffective in GC1, but I hoped this had been improved.

As an exemple, I was funding 800 credits/turn to the opponents in the Drengin empire. Let us be clear : at this point of the game, this was more than 50% of the Drengin's whole spending.

After 30 turns, I still saw absolutely no effect on the popularity rating ; he was second, he stayed second... I just quitted putting money in a uselesse sink.

It would be nice if that feature really did work.