Influence is an enigma to me.

Can it span through a planet to another phase lane? Can one ultra planet influence the entire solar system? How does intra-solar influence work? Why don't my 5 broacast towers and full tech not take over a nearby planet with no broadcast towers? How long does it take for influence to take effect? Why would I want influence to extend to another star? ...

I could go on for ages! I don't mind these questions being answered here in the forums, but the UI should make this apparant to me. The only indicator I get of influence is how much per second each planet is generating. I can see who my biggest producers of influence are, but without data on my opponents it's useless information. Hell, I didn't even know what those colored lines were radiating from my planets until I looked them up here on the forums!

A simple tool might help solve it: Mouseover an enemy planet, and it gives you an ETA for cultural takeover. That would solve a lot of my problems. Perhaps a mouseover for how long it will take to make a colony on an empty planet with foreign influence.

I also think influence should be ... more influential. A true threat. I hate to bring in other-game paralells, but a Cultural Victory in GalCiv2 is a MAJOR threat that is difficult to defeat. Right now, it's much too easy to ignore it. If enemy influence starts enroaching on my territory, it is quicker, cheaper, and easier to simply fly to the offending star system and blow up his cultural emitters.

In my last medium-galaxy game, I invaded a star system and took half the planets and asteroids. I upgraded them fully and gave them all nothing but cultural emitters. I must have had twenty or so. My culture touched the enemy planets, but even after leaving them for a full hour of gameplay not much happened. I converted them all to labs, trading posts, etc., built a fleet, and just walked over them instead. Maybe I'm just impatient? Does it take THREE hours to take effect??