I often try to convert a nearby planet of another civilization by building a space station with a bunch of cultural improvements (up to the palace).
If my planet is in one sector, and the enemy planet is in an adjacent sector, should I build the cultural platform in my sector or his sector? I am not sure how the mechanics work, so tips from the knowledgable would be appreciated.
MoseyingAlong
          
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If you try building a cultural base in an enemy's sector, they will ask you to hand it over. If you refuse, they will declare war on you.
A Culture Palace in your own sector that is adjacent to an enemy sector will be quite effective, as it will amplify the influence your system produces. You could build the Culture Palace in another adjacenet sector to the enemy that you don't have a system in, but it won't do as much.
I see you've submitted quite a few Cultural Conquests...I hope I haven't told you anything you didn't already know! 
Galactic Guardians:  Link
   
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Actually, I usually don't have "enemies", just friends and neutrals that I want to see things my way.  As you might guess, I tend to play Universalists.
I often put cultural palaces in both my sectors and their sectors. I have yet to receive a demand for turnover. It may be that I do not build starbases in sectors where I am not at least competitive in influence already. I am just not sure which is more effective.
(The following from the Encyclopedia)
Here is how sector influence is calculated:
1st: Your civilization's total monthly influence (i.e. all your star systems added up) / (Number of sectors in the galaxy).
2nd: Then it looks at how far away from a starbase or star system that sector is and the further away, the weaker your influence is.
3rd: It looks at what starbases are doing in a given sector. I.e. are they magnifying influence there.
4th:: Then it multiplies that amount by 5 (you'll see why in a second).
5th: Then it does adds the influence from the adjacent sectors to the total without mutiplying them by 5 (this way, local influences weigh much more strongly but what's happening in other sectors matters some too).
(End Encyclopedia entry)
Alas, the 5 steps are not very specific. Is a starbase the same as a planet? Or not? If a starbase is the same as a planet, then creating the cultural palace in their sector is going to be 5 times more effective than doing it in my sector. On the other hand, if a starbase is 1/10 of a planet, then I am better off doing it in my sector with a planet, even though I give up a factor of 5 for not being in the same sector as the target planet.
Alas, I am still getting my feet wet with this game. Right now I have one underway where I have two allies, and am picking up the planets of minors by military might because I cannot get them by influence. Maybe I will get to being a military genius, but am not there yet.
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| (The following from the Encyclopedia) |
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Cultural Influence has been updated since then and cultural influence has now drastically been reduced, but it is still an affective method, just takes a little longer.
When you start playing at harder levels you will find that AI will ask you to hand them over as Theoden mentioned and if you dont then be prepared for war. A good way around this is you can make an alliance with the race you want to flip, then they will allow you to place cultural SB's in there sectors as long as the alliance holds.
For Honor and Justice! Link
    
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If there is an uncolonised system with a low PQ planet in the same sector as your "target" AI systems, send 10-20 million on a colony ship to colonise it. It will give your influence in that sector a huge boost. Backed up with a few neighbouring culture SBs you should be able to flip the target in a few turns then abandon the low PQ.
A bit of a cheesy tactic, but very effective now that culture SBs have been made more realistic. Oh, yeah, make sure you control all the influence resources aswell - makes life a hell of a lot easier (but you probably know that already).
 
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Some great ideas here! To tell the truth, I usually trade technology or technology and small cash for a starbase. Often what I am doing is upgrading a starbase created by another. Does upgrading create the same problems as creating an initial starbase?
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One more thing about unoccupied stars in AI space. There is the occasional "Precursor star." It usually has a PQ 9-12 planet and it's base influence can be between 10-50. If you find one of those in the same sector as the AI, colonize it for a huge influence gain.
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| Does upgrading create the same problems as creating an initial starbase? |
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Yes.
 
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Same rules apply when you own them in 'enemy' sectors, whether you built or bought them.
I see you are currently on V1.20. If you upgrade to Altarian Prophecy V1.49, then it will make a big difference. Firstly, the culture calcualtions have been significantly changed for multiple SBs in a sector, and also most of the SB culture upgrades now cost money to build aswell.
Some people hate the changes, others (myself included) don't mind and think it makes it a bit more realistic, although adding the cost in is a bit clunky and not really necessary IMHO.
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I get the feeling the next build of AP will deal with the cost of starbase modules...it's really too wacky right now to keep status quo.
Glad you're getting the help you need! Keep asking questions!
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To clarify your current situation:
If you're not afraid of the AI declaring war on you, building them in his sector is significantly more effective.
With your current game version, the bonuses for culture starbases within a single sector multiply together. So if you build one party palace, it will roughly triple your influence in that sector. If you build two, it will multiply influence by nine. Build three, and it will multiply your influence by twenty-seven.
If you didn't know already, you can monitor your influence in any sector using one of the small icons in the top right of the screen. You can also see the source influence from a star system when you click on the star - it is based on PQ, population, star colour, and non-starbase influence bonus.
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| If you didn't know already, you can monitor your influence in any sector using one of the small icons in the top right of the screen |
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F8 key does the same thing - and it's quicker
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Thanks for pointing out F8. The icon up above is a bit of a pain. What would be really nice is if I could see a map of influence. A little bar graph superimposed over each sector would be good. For example, for empires 1-6 (color coded, of course, but not in this message):
___4__
_2_4__
12_45_
123456
Oh my. Starbases are multiplicative? I try not to take advantage of cheese tactics that are really software bugs. That has to be an accident.
I have toyed with the idea of getting the Altaran Prophecy, but am still getting a lot out of 1.20, and still learning a lot about the game mechanics, as can be seen from these questions and my less than impressive game results.
The game I was asking about is my most recent 11000ish score. The only worlds that had not fallen to me culturally were in the four corners of the galaxy. Next game it seems I have to attack the corners militarily because they hold out too well culturally.
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| That has to be an accident. |
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It was well known for a long time and they refused to change it, perhaps because it took a lot of the tedium out of cultural conquest. They've finally decided now to make it harder to win this way, at least for Altarian Prophecy games (where you also have to pay a fee to build a party palace).
I wouldn't feel too guilty about using this technique in any game where you're obviously going to win anyway. Just surviving to the point where it's possible to build that many party palaces is a tough enough challenge on the higher difficulty levels.
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| What would be really nice is if I could see a map of influence |
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Not sure if you're talking about the same thing here, but one of the buttons below the mini-map shows who has most influence in each sector by colour.
If you want to improve your scores, disable the Cultural victory condition from the game setup page. You can still play it exactly the same way, and when the last system falls to you, they call it a military victory and you get about 25% more than a cultural victory. You do have to flip every planet for the win this way, but that usually isn't too hard by the end
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