Read in the loh of the upcomming 1.5X:
AI will heavily factor influence starbases into relations with a given player if defections have occurred (tough or higher difficulty)
Going to be tougher to win with an influence stragtey now

but this little change brought a question and an idea to mind that i had intended on posting earlier:
It might be a good idea in a future patch to have more influence buildings after cultural exchange center so that influence strategies be less dependant on starbases as they are right now.
I know this is easily modable but it might be an interesting addition to rebalance the different ways to win the game and to rebalance the importance of starbases and influence resources when conductiong an influence strategy.
Should influence strategies beome less dependant on starbase construction and influence resource mining?