Center of Influence Facility

[Knaughts]

In game, I'm seeing two strange, dramatic Empire Bonuses that I've never seen before this latest expansion:

-51% Influence on Empire from Center of Influence Facility
-10 Influence on Empire from Center of Influence Facility

Does anyone know what the heck a "Center of Influence Facility" is, and how can I stop it? Since I only have 10 Influence income right now, this suddenly cut my influence from more-than-enough to zero.

[Astasia]

It's a stupid fortress facility that is automatically discovered and marked on your map when you reach like era 2 and instantly cripples your influence generation. It gives -1% per fortress to every other empire on the map on top of the flat -10, for me that's -55% in my game, and the thing is literally the farthest possible distance anything can be from me in this game. I don't think it was playtested on the largest map sizes with the most oceans, that's what I set my game to and this thing caused me to earn almost no influence for 100 turns, and only with a heavy influence focus after that was I able to start earning any useable amount.

[Knaughts]

Oh, that's crazy! I don't think it appears in every game, does it? If not, are there other game-changing Fortresses that can appear, like one that affects Food instead of Influence?

Regardless, it's good to at least know there's a theoretically-possible solution. Thanks!

[aBluePegasus]

Oh, that's what it is? Weird... thank you for the info, Astasia!

[Astasia]

It's bugged, and there's a dust one that does the same thing that's even worse. They are revealed automatically once you enter certain eras. Prepare for a huge economic crash when you hit era 4 or 5 until this is fixed.

[Spear Deer]

Yeah, I had to race my dust reserves to my win condition once I hit era V.

[Aurelia]

that is complete and utter, needs fixing instantly, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!
BAM: no influence for joo... wtf game

[YuMMz]

This bug actually makes the Drakken almost unplayable currently. The influence loss is so huge that you can't really take advantage of their special ability to force diplomacy. I was losing around 70-90 influence every turn because of the facility, which negated a big part of playing Drakken in the first place. Kind of sucks, I'm hoping to see a patch sooner rather than later.

I have not even ran into the dust one, which I can imagine is terrible. That's got to cripple a few races.

[Iceberg]

Not sure it is a bug. I think another empire just grabbed the fortress with it attached. Unless the bug is that it gets revealed prematurely. Perhaps later in the game it wouldn't be so difficult to get to on bigger maps.

[Balkoth]

It claims -1% per fortress on other empires. Yet somehow that translates to me losing 8.8 out of 18 influence per turn, dropping me to 9.2. Which is then reduced to 0 by the flat -10.

This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Knaughts]

A couple times, I've tried sending a fleet down there to take it, but it's always been _super duper_ far away. I inevitably take lots of wrongs turns, and piss off neutral major powers by going through their space. The fleet eventually attrites to nothing.

So my eventual solution is to rush all the influence buildings. Once I have the Arena, I find the problem largely mitigated.

[WhiteCrow]

Damn, that sounds rough. Playing my first game right now and I'm about to enter Era V. I'm really not looking forward to this if it spawns or is revealed on my map. Can you destroy it or capture it to negate it? I'm exploring my oceans right now, so hopefully it won't be hard to find.

[Aurelia]

neutral fortresses empower it until a 'player' takes control, then only those the player controls, from what i've seen after i took it

[Ruzen]

holly ..
I thought this was some bug.