I don't think influence should buy ideology points as it's a representation of borders.

I do agree it is only good for flipping planets, and to an extent for tourism income.  One thing I hate about this games mechanics is how it treats borders as open all the time.  If borders where closed, unless at war it would shut down some annoying tactics that can abuse crossing others borders.  I think that is 90% of the reason why influence is useless as it is now.  

It got issues though. If influence is tied to Ideology, it makes great sense when you are doing peaceful stuff. When warring, not so much, you don't want to spend resources on that then. Everyone should have access to these choices whatever strategy they pick, and tying influence into it forces your hand. That does not mean that the current system is good enough though. (I have tripled the ideology point increase from buildings since I rarely colonize more than 8 worlds) Some other way to improve it should be found, but I don't think influence is the way to do it.

Influence should be a part of everyone's strategy. I'm not forcing it down military civs throats any more then they throw military down my throat. What I mean is we are penalized for not having a military even if we aren't aiming for a military victory. Heck most victories, including influence, practically require a decent military push. I'd add this as a feature "Penalizes warring civilizations."

My own idea would be similiar-ish to what we see in civ 5...

We get a influence bonus of +10 idealogy points, likely going to our 'main' idealogy. (no choice since we're spreading the influence of our current idealogy). These bonuses are in tiers. Each tier is exponentially more expensive then the last. The number of colonies increases this cost significantly, based on the galaxy size. Small influential empires will profit from this a lot. Large empires, espesially ones focusing only on military, will benefit the least.

It shouldn't be a huge difference whatever the mechanic. Just a nice little bump, and a smoother rate of progression.

Where do you mod that?

That's a good idea. If you don't have the building, it shouldn't give you free ideology points because you might not be going down that path. If you have all 3 buildings, it could add to all 3.  Nice.

The problem with tying Ideology to Influence is that you make Ideology a large-empire characteristic, even more so than it is right now.

That is, doing this means that it's yet another huge bonus for having a larger empire than your opponent.  Like we need to stack that deck even more.

Right now, a smaller empire can specialize in producing Ideology and be able to out-compete a larger one on that stat, if the larger one chooses to not to bother with much Ideology.  If you change the association as suggested, then the small empire will lose no matter what it does.

Ideology isn't influence in any shape or form. Why would morals be helped in any way merely being more influential?  Don't tie them together.

If we're worried about lack of mid/late-game Ideology production (which is an issue), address that directly, not by trying to muck with fundamental components of the game.

The thing is, idealogies and culture AKA influence are intwined. One can't spread culture, their way of life, without simultaneously spreading their ideologies. This makes the whole thing a very natural bond which makes sense.The way I see it, they are both tremendously lacking as separate entities anyway.

Do I want influence to be about idealogy and vice-versa? no

Do I think a steadily increasing mechanic like influence could be used as an additional trigger for idealogical events? absolutely.

My suggestion was to break influence into tiers which increase at an exponential rate, which is decided by the number of planets you control verses the galaxy size. This would be most advantageous to small empires. There are other mechanics they need to balance in a similar manner.

The second part. Idealogy is influence. When your influencing others your spreading your morals. Think Star Wars. The dark side is spreading their influence. Their influence is the dark side. One can't separate the empires ideology and its influence. Sound like a bad example. Its no different then imperial Rome which began spreading christianity, its idealogy, throughout its sphere of influence.

Influence in game is not a representation of the philosophical entity of "influence". It tries to do one thing, and that is consume hexes for the influence victory. 

So essentially your influence should give ideology points to your neighbors affected by it as well at the same time? I don't think you should try to connect the game to reality too much, it gets messy fast. ^^

Quoting sjaminei,

reply 15

So essentially your influence should give ideology points to your neighbors affected by it as well at the same time? I don't think you should try to connect the game to reality too much, it gets messy fast. ^^

I agree to a point. This isn't just a strategy game, not with all the customization options. We should feel like influence is something more then an artificial barrier that eats planets. In its current state it should be removed from the game. It adds nothing positive to the role-playing experience.

Though it doesn't really matter, I'm not sure I get how its increasing a neighbors ideology. The spread of influence implies that people are leaving the other empire to join the superior culture. Like other said, it doesn't matter, so I'll make sure to avoid discussing it any further. My own personal idea for influence isn't very realistic anyway. There is little realistic reason for a small empire to get an advantage over a big one. I just wanted to point out that they fit together naturally, or in other words, partially combining the two can be done in a way which doesn't feel like a artificial game mechanic.