Is it really worth it to choose an influence bonus when creating your race?

I won almost all of my games with cultural victory. But I don't think, the bonus in the beginning is too important, since with influence-resources you can get much more bonus. You could try once to get all influence resources in the galaxy, and then get a planet in the heart of the enemy's empire. If your influence is high enough, all nearby planets will join your empire, this way starting an unstoppable chain-reaction.
As I experienced, you need about at least 20% higher influence in the given sector, as the alien race, if you want their planets to join you.

~SDC~

There is a thread in the strategy forum which was discussing influence picks http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GS&id=71149#71330

I turn off cultural victory.

I still win by it (more or less), but it gets scored as military.

I generally use 10-20% influence when picking my abilities. I think this is important for a little edge it gives you.

I feel that culture wins are way to easy. All you need to do is build 100's of SB in the race territory you want to absorb. Quite simple actually one of the easiest ways to win galciv IMHO. I play on Gigantic maps now, and culture wins are not as easy. I normally go for the tech win seems to give the best scores.

To desert fox; hundreds of starbases IN EACH SECTOR? Where are you getting all this money from ? I thought that diminishing returns was implemented for starbase benefits...

All boni that you can select are not quite powerfull in the long sight, so choosing those that help you to have a very good start are superior. I speak of +Speed, that helps you to expand a lot faster and +Diplomacy what helps you to stay in peace in the critical phase and get even more money from trading with the minors...

Boni! I like that word. I'm going to print that out and hang it on my wall.

*ahem*

That said, the influence bonus doesn't seem to be worth it now that I have tried it a few times- if you aren't right next to a system you want to capture, all you get is a lot of voting power, and that sure as hell didn't save me when the Torians came with their frigates and steamrolled the bejesus out of my poor battle axes.

In my few games I get many enemy planets peacefully because my influence. In my last game first lost 2 to Altarians but later got them and few extra back.

I have only finished 2 games on gigantic map and first was pure cultural victory, second would have been cultural victory but I was so close to research victory so I just declared war on Yor ...who earlier had declared war to me when I installed 1 cultural module to starbase close to their planets. But unfortunately I think Yor surrended either to me or Altarians because got alliance victory just before finishing my research victory..

Wondering if would have received better score with other kind of victory?

I think influence bonus is nice.


~SDC~

the most usefull ability are those you cant really get ex Planet quality, Luck, Social Production, Military Production at least that is what i think

Luck +25% is a pretty handy thing, I don't mind telling you.
I like increased Social and Military production too . . .

I guess I don't go for a speed bonus because I aqm lazy and like my culture to reflect my personality . . . LOL
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I tend to go with stuff that either is realy helpful eary in the game or is always usefull througout the game. My favs are speed +1 (gotta have it lets you get way more planets than anyone else), pq +3%, moral +10, growth +10, I also like the diplo picks. It all depends on what kind of game you want to play, if are going for military victory +atack is nice. The only pics I dont like are the +social/mil/research ones, I just cant get it out of my head that they make me spend money faster All the picks are pretty well blanced and I change mine around almost every game

how does luck work? does it mean that i will find more ships? or is it that i will more likely get the good events where one of my planets turns out to be owned by the precursurs?

I do like Military Production. I played a tough game with War Party, +50% Military Production, and a solidering bonus. I had to be at war constantly (and getting older ships destroyed), but it was a lot of fun - and even when I fell behind on the military chart my ships were stronger and being produced faster.

The primary purpose of luck is to prevent bad things from happening to you. Good things do happen more often, too, but good things are less likely to happen to the #1 power in the game. If you are behind, though, then the boosted luck does provide consistent good benefits as well as help prevent the bad events.

I don't know about hundereds of starbases, but I was just playing around with a basically won game. My objective: To win without firing a shot. I built 6 maxed terror stars (they were originally the starbases that had been built to harvest a resource but provided no other benefit.) I sent them towards the one remaining empire. They were peacefully marching along, all the enemy planets flipped before they even entered the sector. Unfortunately, something went wrong--I was blown out to the desktop.

re: The luck thing.

I kinda picked it initialy just for the simple reason I had one point left over and it costs one point. Then I started to notice the variable benifits (finding ships at critical times early in the game, space monsters molesting the AI more than me, less bad luck, the inate feeling that 'I'm Lucky and therefor special! ( LOL )' . . . and so on). After that I just stuck with it.

By the way, the scoring for the different types of wins is as follows:

Conquest- 10
Alliance- 9
Influence- 8
Tech- 7

The low Tech weighting is made up by the bonuses you get for researching the tech tree.

Last game I played I took luck and for the first time I stumbled upon Ranger class ships ... 3 times during the game (and it was when the Drengin were attacking me with frigates)

So I think luck is a good pick.

Luck is a great pick. I get tons of Rangers in the games. You can always make your own influence with SBs later in the game. It's not really worth the picks.

About luck... its 25%... great... 25% OF WHAT?!

25% of zero is very different from 25% of infinity.

.

And what if you pick the luck attribute and the Universalists? Does it really help that much?

oh and LOL @ Cotal ;D.

I do not buiild 100's of starbases. I was being sarcastic that is a cheesy way to win a cultural victory. I never found where the luck attribute did anything. Its all about Economics baby! Anyways I always pick 20% influence it seems to work fine for me. Terror stars with maxed out culture can give you a culture win really quick.

Hey, is it possible to make 100 starbases in one area and use it as a 'platform' from which to launch your fleets to any sector in known space ;D? (via speed boosting modules)

For that matter, lets say you ... gah... I lost my train of thought. Damn silverfish distracted me. Anyone have any tips on how to get rid of them?