Hi there,
I thought I'd create a thread for Gal Civ 2 questions on this forum since it's been years since the last post in it's own forum. Anyone else who has Gal Civ 2 questions can feel free to use this thread.
I hope this is okay, feel free to move it if there is somewhere better for it.
I've only been playing for a short while and have been doing a lot of reading on the side to supplement my learning and I feel I have a decent understanding of the game in it's broad strokes, but it's some under the hood mechanics I'm having trouble finding information on. Some things seem a bit unintuitive and vague.
I'll start with my major question and perhaps add others to the thread later.
1. How does Influence spreading work?
I've read what it says in the manual and the wiki about Influence and I understand what it is, but it's a bit vague on the details of how it spreads. For example, does a heavily influential home planet at the back of your empire help in pushing out your borders, or does the planet need to be near the borders?
How do Influence starbases work? I've heard them described as Influence 'amplifiers'. If that's the case, do they amplify your entire empire's influence or do they just amplify the influence of planets in their radius? This amplifier idea may be wrong, I'm not sure. What happens when you drop an influence starbase in the middle of enemy space?
When your borders expand and an enemy's shrinks, is it because your empire-wide influence is stronger (how much stronger?) or because your local influence in that area is stronger?
Quite a lot of questions there, I realise, but it's something I'd like to understand better. I'm sure I could win an Influence victory just by generally building influence buildings, researching influence techs and filling space with culture planets and influence bases, but I'd prefer to understand how it all works a bit better.