How soon does an Influence victory need to be aquired?

[kopfschuss]

Hiya,

I'm currently playing as Terran Pacifists, with five random races/intelligence in a medium galaxy on normal difficulty.

In GalCiv1 I obtained it rather easily, but I'm having trouble in Dark Avatar. I can keep everyone at peace with me no problem, my main problem arises from my inability to flip other planets, and I get the feeling the longer the game goes on, the harder this is going to become.

During initial expansion I usually grab about 4 planets and then Mars of course joins me and sometimes if someone colonizes another nearby planet that one joins up with me too, but as for actively going out and influencing planets in distance systems with starbases, I'm sort of at a loss.

Usually I work on getting my government/trading techs up first then go for culture but I can't help but wonder if this is taking the long way around and giving everyone else time to cement loyalty.

I should also note that I don't focus on any military units/techs. That's one thing I really enjoy: trying to keep everything balanced while leaving myself completely vulnerable to destruction if I fudge up my relations.

 

[Island Dog]

I have never gone for an influence victory so I really can't say how long it should take, although I can imagine it can take quite some time. I'm going to play tonight and see how far I can get with it.

 

[Sarcasticon]

In order for a planet to have a chance to flip, your influence points (the IP figure mentioned on planets once you've reached at least low espionage - you don't need espionage to flip it, but it helps to see how much you need to do before you reach 4.00) need to exceed 4.00
After that point you'll see the skull and bonus icon appear. Note that sometimes the AI will counteract so that the IP drops below 4 again, so keep an eye open and add influence add-ons whenever needed.

You'll need influence starbases with quite a few add-ons to reach that 4.00, except for nearby planets such as Mars.
Every turn, any planet with skull & bones has a certain chance to flip. Increasing IP will NOT increase the chances of a flip.

In my experience you need to count on at least a few months on average before a planet flips. In the worst cases it took some 3 years, but that's really worst case. Most maps up to medium I've easily won using influence in some 4-6 years, and I'm not the fastest, most aggressive player around...

Just get warm with them, build those influence starbases next to their capital + next to or between their major planets and wait for them to flip It will annoy them though, so make sure your relations stay good enough, especially if you don't have a military score significantly higher than theirs.

Some additional factors can help or work against flipping (some races are more difficult to flip, special buildings can prevent a planet from flipping so you'll need a spy to disable that building, which is a pain) but those are the basics.

Time makes a difference: the higher the population of a planet and the more influence / government techs the AI has researched, the harder it gets to reach an IP of 4.00 or more

 

[kopfschuss]

Ok, so I've built the MCC and I have overlapping influence starbases near clusters of large planets (none are capitals). They all have the skull & crossbones but they're not flipping. I thought the MCC was supposed to speed it up? Or is that only for planets near the world it's built on?

 

[Sarcasticon]

Well, the MCC is still broken as far as I know: instead of the faster flipping it gives a 100% economy bonus.
So until that's solved, even with skull & crossbones you need to be patient.

Island Dog: what's your experience in terms of typical duration before some planets flip?

 

[kopfschuss]

D'oh! Didn't realize it was broken. Ah well, I finally figured out after all this time that going after planets in a large sphere of influence was a bad idea.

Strangely enough, even though I'm horribly evil, and I have influence starbases in everyone's face, they're all ally/close with me. I'm sure it's my stockpiles of money, military and planets that are doing that though.

 

[Sarcasticon]

On the contrary, going after lots of planets through influence is often an easy though slightly slower path to victory... Especially if there's that one cvilization that doesn't feel like becoming an ally.

"Your alarming influence" is only 1 factor that determines an AI's stance towards you, just look at the report with plusses and minuses. Stockpiles of money and planets don't enter the equation.
It's ethical alignment (evil, good, neutral), trade, economical / research alliances, military strength (ideal to be at 3 or even 10 times their score using a Spin Control Center), close borders, influence.
Then some more such as historical animosity, "we know what you're doing", militaristic.

By the way, being evil will help to get alliances with evil races + you've got those great military (and thanks to the broken MCC economical) benefits. Evil is often seen as the most lucrative or easiest route. Until you enter a galaxy of good / neutral civilizations