Has anyone been able to convince the AI to upgrade its influence starbases?

The AI doesn't seem to use influence bases aggressively enough so even if they did have the sense to upgrade one, it probably wouldn't help them much.  You can pretty much rule the AI out as a serious contender for influence victories.

Unless if they become VERY massive...

I have seen games where the AI would place influence starbases near other people's (even my) planets. So sometimes they're able to make use of them, but it is of no use if they don't upgrade them.

I have never seen the AI use any modules from the "culture techs" branch of research, but I have seen them go beyond the first level with the modules from the government branch. Does your AI research those very often?

I don't think there's much hope for ever making it into a serious contender in an influence war, but with certain races on smaller maps, it can make a good try at it.

Yes I believe the AI only uses modules from the diplomacy branch, and I've never seen them go past the first two, except for the minors. Even if I give them the culture techs, they don't use the modules on the starbases. The AI seems to enjoy economic starbases the most, followed by military ones, which it develops fairly well.

I've seen all races build influence starbases, so I don't think the race matters. But indeed on a smaller map they seem to build influence starbases more often, but to no use, since they're almost always left without modules.

In my experience, several of the AIs with base personality 8 - the Terrans, Drath, and Krynn - will develop influence starbases to some extent, and even put them in logical places.

Do they also upgrade them to potentially pose an actual threat? In a 1v1 game against the Krynn they placed 2 influence starbases near my homeworld, but failed to upgrade them.

They did upgrade them, though as I said they only used modules from the government branch.

That prevents them from being any kind of threat, but it does suggest a possible workaround of upping the effects of those modules (of course it would have to balanced somehow with the needs of the human player).

Removing the influence branch modules all together and upping the government branch ones to compensate might work. The only problem would remain in the AI not using race-specific modules, like the Thalan or the Krynn ones, but I probably could live with that, if the AI would competently upgrade its influence starbases.

However, before I begin doing this, I need to further test-play to observe current AI behavior.

Well I checked on my current game looking for upgraded Influence starbases.  The Arceans at least are fielding them with upgrades from the Xeno Business modules.  They're only using those starbases defensively, to ward off my influence.  The other races, don't know.

So take a look at the Starbase XML in my mod, it may help.

In particular I put the modules in reverse order (last to first) because that helps with making sure that module pre-requisites are respected.  I think.

I actually took qrtxian's word, and modified my files so there are only 4 influence modules available, all on the diplomacy branch, except for the race-specific ones (Krynn and Thalan). I made them powerful and expensive, and also made the techs expensive. They're balanced because they're very powerful, but fully upgrading a starbase will cost you close to 2000bc.

I've made many test-plays today and I've seen games with no influence starbases at all, games with plenty but not upgraded, and games with a few ones upgraded. It seems very random. I made these tests by using the CTRL+Z cheat and watching the AIs develop.

I'll look at your starbase XML MarvinKosh, maybe I'll learn something. Although your mod changes the techtrees so drastically that the behavior you describe might be attributed to something else, rather than the StarbaseModules.xml.

EDIT: Your StarbaseModules.xml looks pretty vanilla, except for the inverse order you mentioned. I'll try that.

EDIT2: Also, playing with CTRL+Z isn't the most reliable method of testing, since the AIs have little time between turns to think ahead, and sometimes the AIs seem to go full retard. But I don't really have the time and patience required...

So I've come to the conclusion that since the AI is generally reluctant to upgrade its influence starbases, my modifications, i.e., reducing the influence modules to only 4, very powerful, expensive, and expensive to research, when the AI does decide to upgrade its influence starbases, it will be easier for it, since even after 2 modules, there's a 90% increase in projected influence. Being expensive and tied to certain diplomacy techs, it ensures that it's expensive to spawn influence starbases, and that not all races have access to the higher-end modules.

But all my testing was done using the CTRL+Z cheat so the AIs will play by themselves. What's your experience with this? How different is the AI behavior from a normal game?

I have a question about efficacy of influence starbases by themselves. For example, I snatched a level 9 planet from Dominion of the Korx in the early phase and then proceeded to fill it up with embasies and also took the trouble to put 4 influence bases in the sector to try and flip remaining 2 planets (level 9 and level 6 or so)... with absolutely zero effect.

The bases were heavily upgraded until the cost of the entire enterprise backfired and got me steamrolled by others.

Korx even have a loyalty handicap, while I did not have any racial bonus (custom civilization).

So... making AI waste effort like this only handicaps them, no?

A few possibilities:

• Perhaps the bases weren't so heavily upgraded as you think, being in the early phase of the game.
• There's also an ethical choice that gives a big bonus, or even immunity to revolt, can't remember exactly. While the Korx are usually evil, they may turn good, or neutral.
• Maybe they got some other tech that made them hard to convert.
• There's also the reeducation center, that makes the planet immune to conversions
• Maybe you played the Korx in a previous game, and gave them a big bonus to loyalty, those modifications will stick with the AI unless you delete the .raceconfig files in My Documents.

What was the IP on their planets? You need to have a certain level of intelligence on that race to view the Influence Points you project on their planets.

I have to share this rare moment of which I am quite proud. Playing as the Torians, I've seen the Thalan engage in influence warfare.

You will notice that the starbase modules are not vanilla ones, they are modified ones, fewer, more powerful and expensive to build. They are all in the Diplomacy branch of the tech tree. The 35 one is the default one available to everyone, the 55 one corresponds to the Diplomatic Relations tech, and the 80 one corresponds to the Expert Diplomacy tech. There's a 100 one that corresponds to the Total Majesty tech that the AI didn't build. The Thalans also have their race-specific modules that they also didn't build. But even so, these 3 modules that they built put together add up to a total of +170% influence, which is great. Also notice that the starbase is actually in range of my planets. It was built when only one of those planets was mine. Other AIs have also built influence starbases but haven't upgraded them. They do seem to be the lowest priority when upgrading starbases.

PS: It might be possible to make the AI improve their influence starbases more if there are fewer starbase modules to build, so their constructors will finish improving other starbases faster. It would also make improving starbases less daunting even for the player. I have reduced their number quite a lot already, but I haven't touched the mining and the production modules because there are so many, it's hard to decide how to spread them out. Maybe I'll give it a shot at some point and report back.

I did this in my mod, but not as far as I probably could with most of the races. The Thalan, however, have only about 19 or 20 modules total (his includes two sensor modules and the five modules for Terror Stars, neither of which the AI uses), but I have yet to see them upgrade influencer starbases with culture modules, even though they have only two (three of they turn good).

Still, it is always good to see, that the AI is actually capable of doing this. It is easy to forget, if you don't get reminded. I've only occasionally seen the Terrans and Krynn doing this, and even that has been a while ago.

My effort to solve the problem was to eliminate costs for all starbase modules.  Since the AI lacks any ability to budget or plan for the next turn, they often don't have the cash to upgrade a starbase when the constructor gets there.  Then they either pick a free upgrade or turn around and go elsewhere.  This is more critical with AIP 11, because there is only a brief window between the colony rush and militarization where the AI will build lots of constructors.  Miss that window, and the chance of having random influence bases upgraded declines sharply.  AIP 8 loves it some starbases, though, so I think it is less of a problem for them.

Also, for playtesting, I gave up on autoplay long ago.  Instead, take over a minor race, use the research cheat to get all the techs, build up your planet and make a few guardian ships to deter aggression.  Drop out of the UP and just keep ending your turn.  It's a much better way to watch things develop, and not prone to disaster like autoplay.