Post #7 or so of
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/310771

(didn't want to retype it all. )

-- Retro

Capital ships only repel enemy culture. They do not produce any of their own. You could have a dozen capital ships somewhere and they wouldn't do a thing to help take someone else over. So it would only be the two enemy media buildings versus your own media building and resistance caused by your capital ship, which if high enough level is enough to heavily slow down the culture rate spread. 1 + 1 vs. (1 + .3 + .05 per level). Two level 5 capships and a media hub will exactly resist 2 media hubs.


NO again for the same reason. The planet's allegiance will never sink to zero, only to the base value it would have had if you had never built any media hubs close to it somewhere, which is determined by distance to the homeworld.

-- Retro

k, got some information here:


First we review the basics.

Planet A is yours, planet B is mine.

A-----B

You build a culture production center and start shipping culture down the phase lane at a rate of 1.

+ is your culture.

A++----B


Allegiance at planet B immediately starts shifting in your favor. The rate of allegiance change is a fixed thing that is not affected by culture spread rate or anything else the player can upgrade.



I build a culture center at Planet B. * = my culture

A+++----***B

Eventually our cultures collide.


A+++++*****B


But you are advent and have upgraded your culture to 1.3 spread rate. I am lowly Tech and haven't upgrade my culture at all. So you're culture is STILL pushing towards me at a rate of .3, thus my allegiance continues to drop.

And eventually the situation will become

A+++++B++++->


That's the basic culture situation.


Now whenever culture crosses a grav well it's spread rate gets cut in half.
So lets say A is your planet with a single unupgraded culture center. B is mine or neutral whatever, just doens't have any other culture items.


A++++++B++++
^ ^Spread rate .5
spread rate 1


Now spread rates stack, so you can mitigate this by building another culture center at A. Then you can havle a spread rate of 1 on the other side of B.



now for the new info
NEUTRAL PLANETS:

a neutral planet is uncolonizalbe IF enemy culture is moving through that grav well
and down the next phase lane so...

Planet A is yours. Planet B is neutral Planet C is mine
A-------B----------C



You're culure looks like this
(signified by +)
A++++++B-------C
i CAN colonize the planet


as soon as it looks like this:

A++++++B++++++++C

or even this:

A++++++B+++++---C

or even this:
A+++++B+------C


I cannot colonize B.

so in order to colonize B
i need to begin repelling your culture from C and fight you back to

A+++++B-----C

then i take B then I can take B.

This is simple enough if I feel like building culture centers.

If I don't I can use capships.


CAPSHIPS AND CULTURE REPULSION:

capships repel culture at a rate of .3 at lvl 1 .05 for each level
so .75 at level 10

this has NO effect on allegiance of any planet EVER.

this repulsion only applies to phase lanes immediately touching the gravwell the capship is in. That is, capship culture repulsion does not cross gravwells.


Now the Kicker:
Capship Culture Repulsion rates get HALFED at neutral planets
and are reduced to Zero at hostile planets



so in the case of
A+++++B++-----C
a good solution is to put capships at C.

But remember, even if you build just a single unupgraded culture center at A, the spread rate from B-C is .5. So I'll need at least a Lvl 7 capship, or equivalent to begin pushing it back... very very slowly. And once I do that, and colonize B, the allegiance there will begin dropping immediately.


So we can see that a protracted culture war can begin to get very costly very quickly. The player who invests hard and strong in his culture (at the expense of other thigns) will be able to make life significantly difficult for the player who neglected his own culture or wasn't expecting major culture warfare.





that is all

I don't believe this is right. I could be wrong, but I believe the culture had to actually REACH your planet before it would start shifting its allegiance. Otherwise, what would happen to a frontier planet with different culture coming in on different phase lanes?

-- Retro

Okay,

I just verified, the allegiance does indeed begin changing as soon as culture starts moving towards the grav well. However, it takes a long time for the allegiance rate of change to get to it's full value. (sometimes longer than it takes for the culture to make it all the way down the phase lane)


If a planet is being hit by several cultures at once, the allegiance simply changes in favor of the faction with the strongest culture affecting the planet. The affect of hitting a planet from multiple angles is simply cumulative.



I also noticed an error. I can't go back and edit my above message, dunno why.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE:
The rate of allegiance change slowly climbs to .7. It maxes out at .7. The speed at which it climbs to .7 is due to a variety of unknown facotrs, but may have something to do with the strength of the culture affecting the planet. Either way, this is such minutiae it doesn't really matter.

Enjoy.