Sector ownership and influence driving me crazy

Don't worry about influence that much early on, it only starts to really matter once sectors end up owned by empires other the owner of the systems in those sectors. At that point there's a risk of rebellion to the influential empire.

Re: getting boxed in...there's a lot of strategy involved in the early land-grab. Try taking speed picks and following the other advice in the strats forum and see if you can't beat the AI to the punch.

-EtherMage

~SDC~

Be concerned, but don't be mortified. It means that you need to play catch up on influence, but that's never a super-critical thing, at least until you start hearing the warning bells about such-and-such planet making overtures to antother side. On the other hand, it is something you're falling behind in, so it's best to take action.

But as to what I see as your root question, no, it's not a gamebreaker, worry about only incednetally, especially since there are so many ways to make the end in this game.

As to the land grab, Ethermage has it. Generally speaking, it's a matter of dumb luck, combined with that you all want the same things after all.

~SDC~

Just in case you were wondering, the game isn't set up to spread the starting locations of AIs evenly over the map. I believe this was done on purpose to create a more random start.

BTW, I almost always fall way behind on influence early in the game because I spread my population out further and thus keep it from growing as fast initially. Once the rush is over and I settle into my high-morale, low-tax growth spurt, my lack of influence quickly evaporates. So don't rush to build influence buildings the instant you see you're falling behind: there are other ways to gain influence, primary among them being building up your population.

-EtherMage

~SDC~

Robert,

Influence is a function of your overall population total in the sector. There is also a "bleed factor" from adjacent sectors and SB's. If the AI has more influence than you do in a sector, it will turn from your color (blue) to its.

There are a number of articles in the Encyclopedia which give the background to influence.

Culture-flipping will occur only when another Empire's influence exceeds yours by ~1000. Loyalty checks are made against each planet's morale every turn. Planets failing 2 checks in a row defect.

To avoid defections, raise morale. To improve loyalty checks, increase your Resistance value. Resisting destabilization (and raising morale) is a function of both these factors. Many players try to raise morale alone (by decreasing tax rates, building +Morale improvements, embarking populace), which has an economic toll. Raising Resistance in contested areas is equally important, especially at the higher skill levels.

The most efficient (cost-effective) way to raise your Influence is to maximize influence resource mining with SB modules. The SB will act as an influence generator in and of itself (meaning you can increase its effectiveness by adding the culture-based modules to it) while raising your overall Empire bonus by mining the resource. Since influence "pushes out" in a wave from its centers of generation, building SB's with culture modules in or adjacent to enemy systems is a very effective game strategy.

~SDC~

NB: The differential noted in my previous post (+1000) for defection is Large/Gigantic. Smaller map sizes take commesurately less of a difference to flip planets.

~SDC~

Don't forget about culture starbases. The AI players don't use culture starbases very effectively. Also, multiple culture starbases in the same sector are much more effective than you would expect.

Remember you can also trade techs, money, etc. for influence points. I did this in my last game because a United Planets council meeting was comming up. I quickly traded for as much influence I could get. The council vote was on who would get to colonize a new planet. With over half the votes, I got it.