Influence starbases represent an interesting contradiction at the current time: The are an important tool toward the a non-military victory, but they almost always result in war.
The idea of the influence victory is that it is for the players that want to play peaceful diplomatic games and win the the sheer awesomeness of their empire. However, there is a big difference in how the AI responds weather you try to spread influence from planets or from starbases. If you just let your planets be awesome and influential and take over the universe, the AI usually just kind of allows it to happen. Their people start watching your holovids and buying your sweet fashionable cloths until they just decide to be part of your empire. However, if you try to accelerate the process a bit by using influence starbases, the AI is pretty quick to declare war. This means it is basically impossible to use influence starbases offensively since it forces you into military conflict, which is what influence is supposed to avoid.
Now I know nobody wants the AI to just sit back and let you win, but there has to be better ways for the AI to defend itself. It could use its own starbases, or stack influence on the planet you are trying to flip. (btw if espionage is still coming in expansion 1, the ability to flip starbases with spies would really help this game imo). I am a little torn, because I'm glad the AI isn't just letting you win, but to me it really feels crappy to be forced into war for pursuing the strategy that is specifically supposed to avoid it.
See it from another perspective: American movies may be allowed in many countries, but if the US gov was to start "bombing" tracts telling people of these countries that their governement is bad, their policies are bad, they should overthrow their government and bask in the glory of the USA as a new territory, these governments would not react too well.So, in my opinion, it may require tweaking, but at the same time, it's kinda expected that the AI will react badly if you try to flip its empire one planet at a time.I think if anything, the AI does not react quickly enough when you expand your influence making it too easy, especially if you play benevolent with those influence perks. Converting all planets and starbases to your culture should result in an immediate dow from all AI concerned.
At the same time, I recognize that it's silly that there is no border and the AI can colonize and build starbases everywhere it wants.
I assume when you say the AI DOWs when you build a culture sb, you are referring to a sb adjacent to one of their planets.
That would be like the US building a cultural center in the middle of Lenin Square at the height of the Cold War. Not gonna happen, never should happen.
Regular people doing stuff like this, this, and even this is one thing... the government explicitly doing it in their metaphorical front yard
as others have pointed out is one of the fine lines governments shall not cross without consequences.
a. I never saw influence starbases as propaganda centers, just massive creators and distributors of culture. Like if the Mall of America, Dineyworld, Walmart, and Hollywood were all bundled togeather and shot into space. Which, come to think of it, isn't such a bad idea.
b. Even if it makes sense from a lore point of view, my real objection is from a gameplay point of view. In my mind the role of the influence starbase in the game is to allow me to capture planets without going to war. If all they really do is force an AI to go to war with me so I have to take the planet by force anyway, what's the point of these starbases?
about b.
If the AI does not react when you build/extend your influence and start flipping its colonies, than it becomes too easy. Yes, it's one way to win, but the moment your influence becomes really strong, there's no way the AI can compete, even with massive build of cultural centers, there's no turning back.
And for a civiization like the Drengin, wich are better at war than spreading influence positively, if they were to simply stand by and fight back only with cultural buildings, they would lose 100% of the time.Imho, the AI should react with war if you threaten its culture to the point of making it lose the game. Influence let you avoid some conquest, but not all of it, and it shouldn't be that way. As I said, if you play benevolent, it's way to easy to win a cultural war. The moment you have the perk that lets you flip planets&bases to your side, if timed properly, it simple spells the doom of your ennemies.
100% agree. Human civilization rulers and presumambly many intelligent species rulers will do anything to keep their iron grip over their populations through ruthless dictatorship, the most common form of government historically. They won't take too kindly to any actions that undermine their authority and control.
You could use influence starbases to boost the influence of your own colonies. I never build influence starbases in my opponents' territory; neutral space and edge of my zone is fair game, but never next to another player's planet. You could also refrain from building influence starbases in their space until you have a non-aggression treaty with them.
I don't see the influence victory as a victory type for the players who want to play peaceful, diplomatic games. That's what the alliance victory is for. The influence victory is much more akin to the domination victory that other games offer (i.e. you win once you control X% or more of the claimed territory on the map). This is reinforced by the fact that conquest is by far the easiest, fastest way to boost a player into an influence victory; you're not only removing influence generators that you'd otherwise need to overcome and adding them to your own empire, you're also gaining all the influence that those generators have created up until the point in the game you took them over.
The safest way is to build at the edge of your territory, and not let their range cover an opponent's planet. I do this all the time and they ignore it.
I think there is not likely to be a sustained intelligent discussion over this topic. It's just too marginal while "awesum planetz" and awesum battlez" are so much more fascinating for having a chat over. Yet opinions abound as you'll have observed. I just don't see anything developing, that's the trouble.
PS. seeing that part of the diplomatic report does tick me off, but I just take deep, slow breaths and in a minute am fine again.
Thanks for this, you are right, you can pressure borders this way with little or no diplomatic consequence.
I have done similar tricks with the combination of settling a planet deeper in their territory than usual and then giving it a couple of influence bases. As they work together, they open a hole in the opponents borders and your bases are no longer annoying them. After you build up your planet influence, you can decommission the influence bases and replace them with economic ones. If I am good, the hole being opened joins up with the encroachment of starbases at their borders. I am fond of the Benevolent trait that turns all bases into influence bases. Lots of encroachment happens with that.
My 2 cents. I think the game has it pretty close to right. Influence from a planet is not the same as a SB dishing out influence. SB's are offensive tools and should be treated as such. Place a SB near my worlds and if it starts to impact me I'm going to blast it. That's what we would do as humans. So why can't the AI react the same way? You want a passive aggressive approach without any consequences.
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