Hello, razorrick. Welcome to the forums.

Influence victories are not my forte, but I have enough general knowledge that I think I can help you out.



First, you can't flip a minor race. To flip a major, you need to have more than 4x the amount of influence that the planet in question is generating. For example, if the planet has 50 influence points, then you will need at least 200 in order to flip it. When you reach that 4x, the game will, each turn, 'roll the dice' to determine whether or not it will flip. The more influence you can exert, the more likely this is to happen. (I assume.) You will know when you are getting close, as a skull and crossbones icon will appear next to the planet.



A starbase generates it's own influence, which is added to any other sources.



This is determined by the number and type of modules you install. Some modules will give a +5, others can give a +20, or even +30, IIRC. I can't say off the top of my head what the absolute cap is; perhaps someone will come along and answer that for you.



I'm pretty sure that they do, but I honestly couldn't say what precisely that would be. Another one for someone else to answer.



Absolutely. Place a spy on an influence generating planetary improvement, such as an embassy, and you can see their influence drop.

The AI will vue the use of influence starbases as an act of aggression. It's not about to sit around and allow you to take it's planets. When you begin to deploy these, you will take a diplomatic hit to the relations with that civ. This will continue until eventually, war will be declared. So use these judiciously.

Something else to consider: Influence starbases can be used for more than flipping planets. They can be used simply to increase your area of influence. The Yor's super ablility is determined by their area of influence, so the larger it is, the more valuable that ability becomes. Also, many (if not all, can't remember) of the civs have ship modules that increase the attack or defense values of those ships, but only in your own area of influence. Increasing that makes these more useful.

I hope that this has been of some small help to you. Good luck.

Disclaimer: All advice herein is from personal experience, and mainly based on DA, not TA. Most of it carries over, though.

More pointers:

Influence is based on the population and structures on a building, and degrades with distance from the planet. Part of what happens when you hit "Turn" is that each source of influence is recalculated, then each space has to be calculated based on distance from various influence sources.

The loading issue is only ONE TURN long, and avoidable. All you need to do to avoid this is do something - anything - that changes the influence map before you hit turn. Build a starbase, add a module to a influence base, destroy a base, take a planet, whatever. Even rush-buying an embassy will cause the influence to be recalculated before the turn runs, thus restoring it to what it was when you saved.

The maximum value of an influence base is 337% in DA. In TA this will vary between races, as not everyone has the same available modules.

From my experience, influence overkill does NOT affect how fast a planet flips. It's all based on random chance once you get over the 4x point. I've held planets at 80+ for more than a game year and not flipped them, and I've had planets flip the first week they could.

Spies reduce influence even faster if you use one to turn off a farm. Influence is based on population, after all.

For DA, avoid the Mind Control Center. It actively prevents flipping instead of encouraging it. I hear this was fixed in TA, but I can't confirm this personally.

Multiple bases DO stack. Just realize that they are effective only within the starbase area of effect.

Minor civs are basically immune to influence, either incoming or outgoing. They flip or be flipped.

I believe that appears only when one fleet attacks another.

Open the options menu, it's in there somewhere. Click a box labeled "show full battles" (or something like that, I don't have it open in front of me.)

I just read my post from last night. Between that and this one, I really shouldn't still be awake at this time of morning.

Hi all, I'm a newbie and only just finished by second game in the Dreadlords campaign yesterday; haven't played any sandbox games yet.

I flipped an enemy planet yesterday with an influence starbase that I piled construction ships into until I used up everything from the main mining line. It was great having good morale again! Mine was ridiculously low, I guess because of high population. Anyway, soon my enemy, the Drengin, came calling and was defeated, and the AI didn't seem to recover from it. I'm not sure if conquered planets have their buildings all start at zero level, but everything there had to upgrade, so the planet wasn't really doing too much for a good while.

I like sneaky tactics like that. I'm a newbie bungler though, so I started the first influence starbase so far away that its area of effect didn't reach the planet I wanted to capture even with all the upgrades(and time it took to get them there!). So then I brought in another and only at the very last upgrade was that close enough. (Yeah, I'm dumb.)

Is there a way to know the right placement? I didn't want to come to close, both times, because I would be in the enemy's territory and I assumed that would lead to an act of war. I mean there's guaranteed effect if you're right there, but I didn't want to suicide.

The A.I. seems to tolerate influences starbases more than military ones. When you click on a constructure ship it will show you the area of effect. I place them right outside the colored borders of races trying to include as many planets as possible.

Sorry, pardner, but this only applies for influence *resourse* starbases.

Nice to know. Thanks. Like I said, influence isn't my strong suit.