Thought this one deserved its own thread. I know influence received some nerf in 5.83, but either it or benevolent needs another hit with the bat.
Won a culture game as Terrans on a medium map by turn 105 against gifted AIs, and it was cake.
I was locked in the corner as Terran with only 4 planets to my name. 6th in power, I was not too impressive. I got the missionary buildings to start building up some influence, then got the 100% bonus to my homeworld's influence.
BAM! 3/4 of the map was Terran blue in an instant. I didn't even have any influence bonus or influence starbases on my homeworld except the missionary building (near the end I slapped on the entertainment capital as well for a big boost). I did have one of my planet's that I had specialized in influence.
Then I got the next benevolent ideology, and suddenly nearly every starbase and planet within eye shot was mine. Honestly though getting the planets was a nice touch, but they were going to fall like dominos anyway....the starbase pickup was the nicest part.
A simple 10 turns later it was all over.
1) The 100% homeworld bonus is just too strong. No one could fight my influence, except by taking the malevolent ideology that prevents flips (and honestly an ideology that completely stops a game mechanic is a bad idea imo).
2) The timing of this is very arbitrary because of the way ideology points work right now. If I could have snagged 2 more planets early on, I would have gotten to do the 100% bonus a good 20 turns earlier (10 benevelont points per planet, +10 per missionary built on that planet).