I’ve conquered every AI. I have profitable colonies on every island settled. My balance is quite high, as are my coins. I have a vast fleet to protect the empire. All is about as good as it gets.
My influence? Nearly negative 200...
I would laugh at that if it wasn’t so absurd.
Worse still, I have to build two mounted guns for a quest towards the end of the campaign, for “protection.” I have cannon towers lining the harbor, with a fleet protecting it, as well. Get around 200 influence to build two worthless, useless mounted guns that require a total of 6...
What a ludicrous system.
I would offer an unpopular opinion that influence system is absolutely fine. Even more so after one of the patches that buffed influence gain.
Almost every strategy game has some sort of system that punishes player for over-expanding too quick so that player would not be able to use early advantage to further snowball it. It usually comes in form of money/resource penalties (for example, in TW:Shogun 2 you receive the same amount of taxes from 20 and from 50 provinces, all due to ever-increasing tax penalty) or in some sort of limitation way (like support pool in RTS games that prohibits you from building more units until you increase it).
Just treat influence carefully without spending it on things you don't need at the moment (like islands you currently have no use for) and you will always have some free influence left. After all, isn't that the point of strategy games - managing limited resources and trying to achieve the best results?
at first i did not like it much, but as you learn to balance your game it is actually a nice motivator, and i like it, otherwise i guess the game would be too easy, even at the hardest setting with hardest opponents you allways have tactical advantage over them, that being your BI (biological intelligence :-D) and power to bend time and create alternative universes (that being save and load game), you can also tweak your game by using specialists and items, and those poor AI are protected only by influence points system somewhat limiting you and your army of clever, micromanageable SOLs. and later in game after you eliminate opponents if you wish so, you can have so many investors you do not know what to do with influence points.
The main problem with the influence system is that you have to choose wich part to focus on.
IT would be alot better if it was influence to spend per factor.
So you are limited to what you can do but only per factor.
This meaning that if your influence for warships is filled to max you can no longer build warships however you can still build a zoo or museum if you haven't got one yet because there you would still have all the influence.
I find it highly illogical that having alot of warships or trade guilds would prevent you from building a zoo or settling another island it's just very stupid.
The only thing it does work for is the newspaper however if you are using to much propaganda people will riot alot more often so that itself balances itself also out.