I played since Alpha and influence was majorly broken up until about three weeks ago. Even then, I was able to make significant progress with cultural victory but nothing insane. It's not so much the 10% but if you compound that with a cultural space station then your output can be strong enough with your homeworld to take over a small map. It wasn't difficult a month ago and still not impossible two weeks ago.
Besides you're right when you say that +2 is strong because it is strong.
It's all about the stacking though and that 10% will seem crazy.
Yeah, but a 50%/+1 building would be better in the center though, won't it? Suppose someone goes crazy and puts a 10%/+2 in the center of a ring and puts a bunch of 50%/+1's around it. Isn't it still better to put a 50%/+1 at the center of such a ring than a 10%/+2? The total amount of extra percentage boost from the adjacency that the Emigration Center gives over the Outreach Center is, what, 30% (5% times 6 for each of the extra +1's)? That's still doesn't cover the 50% base of what you could put in there (10% + 30% = 40%). And that's if you max out the adjacency as much as one can.
Sure, if the Outreach Center didn't have the adjacency bonus, it'd be worth it. But unless I am doing the math very very wrong (and I could be), it seems to me that there is no reason to ever build it. A 50%/+1 should always be superior, no?
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Now the two buildings that come after it (the One per Empire and One Per Galaxy) are worth it because they grant a 10% boost to all planets and everything you own respectively. Plus they have a +3 adjacency bonus instead of a +2 which does overtake a 50%/+1 if you build enough around them.
Dunno. What am I missing here?
