It increases, the loading tip says it does it slower than your own culture, but thats bullshit, my impressions are they increase allegiance like your culture..

Indeed, as far as I can tell allied culture is as good as your own, minus the fact that if you suddenly become at war with each other, relying on allied culture can be very dangerous indeed. 

You'll only get culture bonuses for what you've researched. You can't get another factions culture bonus- period.

The bonus given is also impacted by the culture saturation on the planet. 50% saturation is half the bonus.

I agree allied culture behaves the same as your own in terms of raising base allegiance. But just like the above conversation you won't get an allies Allure of the Unity bonus

Edit - same goes with the Advent's Starbase Allegiance Upgrades. Not going to happen on an allied world.

That's what I meant. You always get YOUR culture benefits, you never get your allies. Thus allied culture is basically has the same effect as your own.

Hey yarlin, was playing a game earlier today and went through a wormhole...  Problem is I hadn't researched that tech yet.  Didn't even have it prepurchased in the research tree.  So it seems we can fly through wormholes now with the new patch, but now no longer need the research to do it.  I was playing as advent loyalist when I ran into this bug just in case this bug turns out to be faction specific.  Hope this helps.

Check your artifacts. I believe one allows you to use wormholes without the needed tech.

Allure of The Unity is not a culture related bonus (so if you don't have any culture nearby your planet the extra 5-10% will be applied to the max allegiance, only it wont grow)... It's about planet ownership, have you researched Allure? good all your planets max allegiance are increased, I don't see culture playing a part here.. Only in raising that 5-10% extra..

Just checked... Nice catch man... Must be one of those new artifact bonuses.  I'll have to remember that one.  Thanks for the heads up.

Actually its not. It been there since the beginning. Check the map Ancient Gifts IIRC. Everyone gets one of those artificats.

Turchany- Have you ever researched Allure of the Unity? I'm surprised you don't know how it works.

Fair enough.  I know that artifact has been there from the beginning and I knew it's bonus, but I didn't know it allowed wormhole travel regardless of research.  I've been playing this game since the first Sins got released and I'm still learning new things every time I play.  Love this game's depth.  You know a game is really good when you've been playing for years and still find new things all the time.

Agreed. Still doing the same myself. Throw in some modding time and it gets real crazy.

???? What do you mean? It is a level8 Advent diplomacy research.. 2 levels, 5-5 max allegiance increase. It was in the civilian tree some years ago, same stats. What do you think I don't understand, because I feel there is something (in your opinion).. You say culture is needed for it, but you get the max increase everywhere even if you never had a culture center, though your allegiance does not increase by this research, only the max cap.. You don't need culture for the max increase you will have it everywhere, you need culture to fill with allegiance.. I know the difference between (current) allegiance and max allegiance. Max allegiance is a static number, like 110% at your homeworld that gets increased with Allure to 115-120%. Allegiance is then increased if you have allied culture on the planets incoming phase lanes.. So after say 1 minutes you will have 104% allegiance at your home and so on, more time more increase until you reach the cap (110% before allure at homeworld), am i missing something here?

Allure of the Unity increases the max Allegiance granted by Culture. You don't get an increase without the culture, never have.

I'm not sure home much more culture related you can get from a bonus.

Even the modifier states it's culture related: AllegianceFromCultureMaxPerc

still max allegiance is just a number that your allegiance may reach after some time if you have friendly culture nearby, and after some time your allegiance will reach that number and be equal to max allegiance.. but its nothing that arguing is worth about I think, there are more important issues, we both know how culture and allegiance works (trust me, I played for years and payed attention to everything in the game.. and I know you are an excellent -and for me famous- modder having sight in every little part of the game )

Now i know what the problem is, I categorize it as an economic bonus, for me culture related things are the culture center and everything side effect culture can get from research. I know how Allegiance works I just have a different categorization than you.. Sorry if it caused misunderstanding

For people that don't understand the game's mechanics it made it sound as though the allegiance would increase without culture. No worries though, just clearing the air.

I wasnt meant to confuse anyone reading this so its ok

As feedback, I would like to ask that the Advent deliverance engine be given a huge buff. It is the least balanced of the 3 superweapons. The Novalith is basically a "CLICK HERE TO DESTROY ENEMY COLONY" button, whilst the Kostura at least disables all orbital structures. The only other remedy IMO for the issue, would be to nerf the Novalith. Considering we only get 8 starbase upgrades, having to use one of them to ensure the planet doesn't fall in the event of a Novalith blast on every single planet gets really old, really quick.

You never had a full Vasari fleet coming right after a Kostura hit on your homeworld, had you? This can be actually stronger than a Novalith as it disables all struvtures, repair, hangars etc for minutes, and say goodby to any well defended world, maybe if he is VL he will even strip the planet and you will get a dead asteroid if you reach there..

But Yes, the Deliverance is still a weak thing, nowhere as strong as it would kill planets or such..

Nah, usually I can defeat Vasari pretty quickly so I haven't had a chance to have them nuke me. So I can't say for certain, but still, the knowledge you provided me with further helps my point. Deliverance is hugely underpowered in comparison to either other factions' weapons. It doesn't have the oomph that the others have.

So I would just go on to say that Deliverance needs a HUGE buff.

K... I know I mentioned a couple days ago that the AI seemed to lose a lot of it's bite on normal, but now I have no choice but to remark the opposite since the new AI update.  The AI on normal and hard is way too aggressive.  I have a guy who I'm teaching the game to and we're playing on hard.  He died and I barely survived.  I played the game on normal two days ago as Advent, and I couldn't push anywhere because every enemy has a full fleet so quickly I can barely react.  Especially when I'm constantly getting hit from every flank by sizable fleets.  It's like the AI is just automatically being friendly with everyone else and teaming up against me.  So my friend died today on hard, so we tried again on normal.  He died again and I'm holding my lines but not much else.  Now my friend's got a few games under his belt, but he's still just learning the game and since the last update, he just can't get anywhere.  The AI is just coming up with huge fleets and hitting you so early and so hard it's unreal.  Don't get me wrong, I like a challenging AI, but I'm trying to teach this guy the game and he's not even getting a chance to experiment and try new ideas because he's constantly getting hit by enemy AI he can't handle.  And believe me, the only thing helping me hold my lines are my starbases.  Otherwise I would be in just as much trouble.  I liked the way the AI was before the beta.  The first beta revision was easier... A little too easy.  Now, it's way too hard.  I can understand the current normal difficulty being the hard difficulty, but it's just too hard for normal.  Especially for someone just learning the game.  The AI needs more balance.  Right now it's just way too aggressive.  Normal is too hard for normal and hard is too hard for hard.

I can win against the AI at this difficulty, but I've been playing this game consistently for years.  It took seeing what was happening to him and noticing it myself just how much work I was having to do to push forward for me to realize just how hard the AI was playing.  Definitely too hard for people just learning the game.  Crap, I'm tired and talking in circles.  Sorry guys.  Only just noticed.  Anyway Yarlin... I recommend better balancing for the difficulty levels.

^ i almost guarantee you if you research all the tech in the diplomacy tree the AIs will not be so aggressive with u & ur friend on hard level (you can see why the ai is not happy with you via the relationship info)

well if you start with all AI having minus 10 relationship with you that wont help you.. this factional huge penalty kinda decides in the beginning who you can ally with, thats why i dont play ffa, often there is noone to ally with, or most times only one (if i play with predetermined races that doesnt feel as good as with random)

AI never use Kostura properly, (skilled) humans online do...