Influence - How to get this crap going.

[Vade]

How the hell do I get this up? I'm being told that I should drop my outposts - which means I lose the system, I do not understand what to do.

[Grinch]

Influence hasn't been used for outpost upkeep for a long time now, so i'm not entirely sure why you'd be told that.

[I got 1984'd]

Appease your majority factions as best as you can. Pick civics that give you boost to faction influence gains, like parliament. Or go Authoritarian ethic which also gives steady influence income.

Drop treaties that you don't need. Things like defensive pacts cost monthly influence. Drop faction suppression or promotion because that takes a chunk out of your influence income.

Outposts, you can build as many as you want if you have the influence. But it doesn't have monthly influence upkeep.

[Stormwind]

You cant really increase influence in the same way as, say, mineral production. I have had it as high as +7 I think.

[MissedHurry]

Also look for the civics and tradition trees that reduce influence cost per outpost and/or war claims. Declaring rivalries also increases influence a little bit, and later when you get into more advanced techs, you'll get a tech that adds "ambition edicts" which are edicts that you can spend unity on, and one of them increases influence by +5 more per month. Do what you can to boost research and unity to get to that one faster.

[Nightmyre]

A much better question to ask is - "why do I need more influence"?

There's a reason why influence is generally produced at a low amount - it's because it's not really that necessary. If you are finding that you are always low on influence, you're likely doing one of two things incorrectly:

A) For whatever reason your actual influence gain is too low - you should be easily able to get to +4 per month, and by later in the game, +5 per month should be no problem.

B) You're using your influence incorrectly. Until mid-late game, the *only* thing you should be using influence on, is building outposts in systems, and the occasional claim during a war. And for outposts, you should almost never be skipping systems - the cost increases at a rate of 100% for every system you skip, which means you should only do it if you're racing to a spot.

[Kayden_II]

Originally posted by Vade:

I'm being told that I should drop my outposts - which means I lose the system, I do not understand what to do.

You don't need to drop outposts anymore since nowadays each one takes "just" a single payment of influence in order to be constructed. ( What you're referring to was changed nearly 2 years ago since at this time each outpost had lowered your monthly influence-income, but as I said that's history ).

Look for respective a-perks ( "Interstellar Dominion" as the very first one for example ), traditions, ambitions, edicts, civics, ethics etc. pp.. Please your factions and don't waste influence via the suppression or / and support of factions.

And be aware that it's intended that influence is a bottleneck.

[Meewec]

appease your factions, finish the domination traditions, rival any genocidal empire since they hate you already or rival an inward perfection empire since they can't do anything about it. you can also declare war on your rival to humiliate them and get some influence if you win. making first contact with other empires can also grant some influence as can some event options.

the expansion traditions also have one that helps with reducing the cost of your outposts while the diplomacy tree cuts down costs for diplomatic actions.

[Wokelander]

Play Determined Exterminators and just take outposts from your enemies, instead of paying for them

[ColorsFade]

Originally posted by Vade:

How the hell do I get this up? I'm being told that I should drop my outposts - which means I lose the system, I do not understand what to do.

You definitely don't need to drop outposts. Influence isn't used as any sort of a maintenance cost.

Originally posted by Khorvale:

Play Determined Exterminators and just take outposts from your enemies, instead of paying for them

Or Vassalize them. It's a longer war and you have to capture every single system they own to get them to capitulate, but it's a more complete victory than doing a piecemeal war.

[pipo.p]

Originally posted by MissedHurry:

Declaring rivalries also increases influence a little bit

It's +0.5 per rival, up to three rivals for the usual empire. +1.5 influence is nice early in the game, but better declare rivalry at far away, already hostile empires.

[Vade]

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

A much better question to ask is - "why do I need more influence"?

There's a reason why influence is generally produced at a low amount - it's because it's not really that necessary. If you are finding that you are always low on influence, you're likely doing one of two things incorrectly:

A) For whatever reason your actual influence gain is too low - you should be easily able to get to +4 per month, and by later in the game, +5 per month should be no problem.

B) You're using your influence incorrectly. Until mid-late game, the *only* thing you should be using influence on, is building outposts in systems, and the occasional claim during a war. And for outposts, you should almost never be skipping systems - the cost increases at a rate of 100% for every system you skip, which means you should only do it if you're racing to a spot.

This was really helpful. So to Noobs like me - read this and the answered question. Guys thanks so much!

With your advice I got to +4 and a semi stable economy....semi...stable lol. I didn't realise once you promote a faction that also costs...

What a great community and thanks :) x