Meanwhile, there is me, myself and I, Glorious Tall Gamer Master Race playing on high difficulty settings, almost always sitting on a pile of influences looking down to all the Dirty Wide Gamers Peasants.
More seriously tho', I would agree about the fact that Spy Networks and co. shouldn't require influence overall, but that's more on the issue that... spy network need a huge buff overall. Even without influence cost, most of the spy missions aren't worthy enought to consider spending time on them, usually... On the rest, I would say that influence is doing it's work, and doing it quite well.
For the record, let's see what influence goal is: to ensure that you're not steamrolling the game and that you don't crush the game too early. It's a limiting ressource that should force you to make choices about what to do and when to do.
About the issue regarding influence and how to counter it, I'll consider we're talking about a PvE standpoint, because PvP game don't follow the same rules, and most of what you've talked about aren't really even used in competitive PvP, as far as I know.
> Gaining more influence consistantly: Have you heard about power projection (let's call it PP) and co.? Yeah, that's it.
You get a base 3 influence +0.5/1 (Autoritarian) +0.5 (Domination Tree) +2 (Base max PP) +1 (Imperial PP bonus) +0,1/envoys on GC (Politics Tradition) +1 (Chosen One Leader) +Rivals +Vassals buildings
You can easily get to +6 Influence per month generation without maxing PP without even having the need for the late game edict or unreliable methods like the random leader trait Deep Connections. I usually don't need more.
Also, PP depends on your empire size, so again, Tall is good.
>Early expansion stage: Erm, so first things first, we're hitting exactly where influence should slow you down, but anyway, -20/40% cost (Xenophobe/F Xenophobe), -10% (Expansion Tree), -20 (Interstellar Dominion)
There is also a leader trait as well if I remember correctly but no one care. I could also have forgotten a thing or two.
> Claims cost too much whinning: Militarist -10%/F -20% ; Galactic Force Projection -20% ; Rivals -20% ; -15% (Nationalistic Zeal Civic)
Hey, we're already at -75% claim cost without much loose ends, considering you're planning to wage war at this point. Also remember you can in and out from the civic every 10 years for a small unity cost. Still too much for you? Oh well...
Total War casus belli: NO CLAIM NEEDED. Can be done in late game with the simple 3 steps easy to do "build a colossus" giga-brain plan.
You say it's too late? Have you heard about... NIHILISTIC ACQUISTION (or barbaric despoilers, if you wanna steal relics too... and yes, that's a thing)?
Yeah, well, claims cost have a lot of way to be answered.
>Space Deal with Xenos cost monthly infuence: If you're taking a lot of them, it mean you're doing a diplomatic game... so take the diplomatic tree maybe? If not, you should need a non-aggression pact with the one neighbor you don't want to be backstabbed by and that's good.
> Space buildings like Arcology, Rings, and co.: Okay, let's be honest, if you're going for a warfare build who focus on expanding, you shouldn't even CARE about thoses things at first, because you should already have plenty of planets and space to not even need it, or at worse you would need what? Like 1 Arcology to park the excess pops?
About the orbital ring, I disagree about it being a mid game structure. You usually shouldn't need it except on a few world for the production bonus before the late game where you'll build the additionnal space module (I don't remember the name), by that time you should already be in a position where you can see the game unfolding even without doing it, so it's a win-more spending, not a necessary one. Same reasoning about Mega-structure.
And you shouldn't bother about the gate system if you're playing wide. It sure is a money sink in that case, and not only influence wise.
And if you're going for a war, but Tall build, please explain me why you don't have Nihilistic Acquisition yet, or why you're not abusing the vassals mecanics to already win the game without much influence cost?
>Spying cost too much influences: Yes. Also spying is bad overall, that's just the cherry on top of the cake. I do use spy from time to time, but mostly for RP reasons. It's even worse now that we have cloacking devices. (Say hello to the invisible spying corvette that cost around a hundred alloys and maybe 3 exotic gas... it's free real estate!).
And if you play for RP, why are you letting yourself getting bothered by things like "I lack some ressources"? Use it to create a better narrative... or could it be that RP is fun only when it goes your way? ^^'
>GC cost too much influence: First, why are you bothering with the Galactic Community? Are you trying to pass a resolution every 20 years when most of them already get proposed by the AI? In the end, you could maybe, but that's again, more a win-more condition to spend influence usually. And even without considering that, in the best case scenario, you can't pass more than 1 every 20 years if my memory serves me right. That's not even a sink considering 20 years in game will provide you a base value of 720 influences.
So yeah... there is a lot of influence sink... the funny things is: if you're playing wide, they will hinder you if you abuse them but they also should be... totally useless for you in most case. That is, if you can manage your economy properly, because most of the influence usages are made to gain an economic advantage.
Yep, that's it: there is a lot of influence sink that you shouldn't be paying attention to. And you get penalized when you do spread yourself in all direction considering you should do all of it and shouldn't need to specialize yourself.
So yeah, influence is doing it's job.
About envoy? Pah! They are mostly useless. Put 1 or 2 in federation (if you have one), the rest in the GC for the Diplomatic bonus (if needed, lol, fleet power is still the determining factor anyway), keep one for potential contracts with other empire and forget about them. I usually have half of my envoy that I forgot to use and finaly decide to park in the GC if I'm playing with more than 2, just so that they aren't completely useless, officialy (tips: they still are). And for increasing relationship, a friendly 1000 CG gift in early game will give me way more in a minute than what an envoy would give me in the spawn of a few years.
But yeah, it's totally possible, and usually easily achieve, to play without almost never run out of influence at a critical time if you manage it and your other ressources correctly.
To me, even now, influence is a ressource that only really matter in the early game, mostly because it have no uses that are not just "win-more conditions" when the early game as gone by. And if you want to get the benefit of both tall and wide gameplay, well, take your time and improve all the rest while you need to wait a little for influences. It's spread thin, but so is your time.
That was my coin in the conversation. Influence is thin as it should, but Spying need a good change.
Also, for your information, I usually play tall and use most of the feature mentionned above, even thoses I've deemed as "win-more", because I find them funny, while I find playing wide to be boring and repetitive, as I'm not fond of congratulate myself for painting the map on a certain color.
PS: Sorry if I've shown you some lack in english, that's not my mother's tongue, so...
