Experiences with Shroudwalker event chains?

[Xenith_Shadow]

I guess the main problem is timings.
I got enough science and resources to build hyper relays in every system and build ring on every planet, turn the half of them into ecumenopoli.... but my abilities are very limited because of mana.
For example, in 2263.12.09 my alloy income was +192. That means that I can build something like two orbital rings per year... But the mana income (+3.95, that isn't so bad) says that I can build only one. I don't even mention that T1 ring is quite useless for boosting planetary production. Upgrade, of course, requires influence, as most of Overlord features. And within 1 month I'll finish 4th tradition tree, which means that I should have 200 more influence to turn my capital into ecumenopolis. All previous influence was spent to outposts, hyper relays, shroudwalker roulette, for one habitat and for one mercenary enclave.
If we return to the original topic, this means that next time I should forget about shroudwalker coven because it delayed another stuff for something like a decade.

I've got hyper relays and habitats techs in 2240, orbital rings in 2260, ecumenopoli AP in 2264 and mega-engineering in 2280.
And I know that for someone it will take twice more time to reach the same technological and industrial level. That someone will have twice more mana (because it doesn't scale as literally every other resource in this game) and will have quite less problems with it. There is a lot of people, who plays better than me and they will struggle with influence even more.
So why the infuence overall is bad mechanic. Very limited sources of getting it punishes fast science/tradition/economic development, while the small influence cap is punishing players, who play with increased tech/tradition cost or just develop their economy slowly.

3 commercial pacts and 1 research pact, lol. AIs are spamming me with NAP requests for decades and I'm forced to witness this spam because I can't afford losing 0.25 precious mana per month.

Influence gating the ability for fast development is kinda the point. habitat's and oribtal ring's are generally ment to be mainly for empires that aren't still expanding and or making claims. Ecumenopoli and under the same criteria. Also as someone else said mega structure don't need influence any more allegedly.
If your short on influence either take advatange of the other sources for it as mentioned by other's or only building spend influence on things you actually need.

 

[Nerisande]

Are you serious?

Assuming base cost, with 3 commercial pacts and 1 research pact, it means you produce 5 per month, which is kinda the minimum you can produce.
You get 3 base influence and 2 from power projection, so 5.

Let's not do anything to have more influence when I struggle with influence.

It means:
- You're not Auth (+0.5 or+1)
- You don't have domination tradition (+0.5)
- You're not psyonic (Leader +0.5)
- You've no Rival (+0.5 per rival up to +1.5)
- You don't have the leader trait (+1)
- You don't have vassals (+1 per vassal)

I mean, you don't need to get every bonus, but at least, having 3 rivals is the minimum

And all of this is not enough, lol.

According to my science/industry capabilities, I should have something like >10 influence per month to be not completely blocked because of stupid mana. And it is impossible without cheesy vassal spam, custodianship and +5 mana edict.

I mean, you don't need to get every bonus, but at least, having 3 rivals is the minimum

But the galaxy loves me, where I should get 9000 rivals??? And even if I was the complete bad guy that betrays his friends because of no reason, I was still unable to get mana - most of AIs are pathetic.

 

[z4mml]

Is it possible to remove the "An Age of Darkness"-modifier? It ruins stability on one of me few worlds.. and I see no way to do anything about it.

 

[Forblaze]

They were pretty underwhelming. I'm not sure what I expected exactly since it's just an origin, but it's really easy to forget about them. Playing as a xenophobic spiritualist, the locus event was also really obnoxious. I wasn't able to use proactive first contact so I had to keep switching off of supremacist foreign policy to complete it.

I was initially excited about freeing up the ascension perk slot, but there's not a lot that I want that doesn't require 2 picks already.

I would have almost rather just getting to start with mind over matter unlocked and cutting out the flavor about the shroudwalkers. At the very least they could have had an actual quest chain.

 

[Elbub Sram]

I didn't get to try much of the shroudwalkers stuff as of now for the exact reasons Nerisande said : influence is dreadfully hard to get when playing any kind of non-sluggish empire, once you get experienced enough.
I actually NEVER build habitats (just once since 2.0, when void dwellers came out) and very rarely restore Ecumenopleis (and never take the perk), because I feel it's a huge waste of influence. It gives very little buffs compared to getting numerous planets through expansion or claims, even though I often play with few habitable worlds (0.5 or 0.25 most of the time).
Interstellar Dominion, on the opposite, is an absolute necessity and is always the first or second AP I take (depending on how fast I get the first AP). And even with such cost reductions, I'm forced to play xenophobe, authoritarian, fanatic militarist with lots of empires or genocidal.
Adding to that, GC and favors has never ever been something to be considered and, now that it costs influence, espionnage is the same.
Research agreements and trade pacts are something I do mainly for my dominant factions and sometimes for what they offer me, when they are particularly good.
Elections are never an option to spend influence on either.
Sure, most megastructure no longers cost influence, and that's a huge relief, but now there's hyper relays and orbital rings that cost even more, relatively.

Influence is the only resource in the whole game that never adapts to fit different paces of gameplay and can't be tinkered with, even in galaxy generation.