Are influence buildings ever a good idea?

In my opinion No. Stock markets have a five percent influence boost[edit:unless this is changed in DA, I haven't played much] and I always have plenty of those covering most my worlds.

Influence buildings are like economic buildings, but while they provide much less of a bonus, they multiply based off of the entire galactic population, not just you're own. Meaning that besides going for an Influence victory, influence structures are only significant when you control a very small portion of the galactic population, because economic structures can only magnify the income of your small population, influence will grant you the galaxy's worth of tourism money.

I don't know the actual numbers though. You might want to check on that.

I do build them but only on planets that are right next to an opponents planet. As well as maybe helping to flip the next planet (as long as its an AI) it keeps morale on my own planet up enabling me to make more money out of the happy population. Once my influence on the next planet is sufficiently high i just change the influence building into something more usable.

I build them when a planet is in enemy territory and I get the warning that its about to defect. Thats the ONLY time i build them. It costs like 250 BC to buy it outright and it usually does the trick.

Or, if your really lame, save the game and reload, there's some funky bug where your planet will not flip after a load/reload for another 3 or 4 turns at least. Thats why whenever you restart a game, the influence spheres will sometimes look all messed up until you click the TURN button.

As a disclaimer, I dont use that exploit, and I do believe it has been reported   

No.



- Wyndstar

Actually I almost won a game on the hardest difficulty if I only had a few more turns I could of won but cause all the enemies planets aproval was at 30% and dropping. But then all of a sudden i got raped in a war. So close I could taste it... if I had won wow... but no its not a good idea. But seriously how the hell do you win on hardest difficulty. lol.

If you're going for Metaverse I could see why you wouldn't want to, but I don't do Metaverse and I build Embassies on almost all bonus tiles, unless there is some specific specialization I am using that planet for (and I don't do economic planets). Embassies are cheap. And I have plenty of planets that don't have anything better to do. I seem to get remarkably better diplomacy when I have more influence, on top of everything else. I have had games on Large/Abundant/Abundant galaxies where I won an Influence victory before the colonization phase was technically over.

Probably because the prick of an AI loves to rush planets in range of the human player and then relaxes when your fenced in (does the same with anomalies too). serves it right to loose!