Question on the influence overlay

Well, if in a sector you have 10 as influence and the AI 11, the sector will have the color of the AI .
You can always check with F8 the various number.
Maybe the AI have mined some influence ressources, or have developped lots of influence ehancer projects.
And if I remember correctly, there is a small diffuse influence in all sectors of the Galaxy, based on your overall influence.
And don't forget that if the AI have meet more aliens than you (and aren't at war with them), they could have bigger influence.

Checked F8 for all sectors around my area ... my influence 36, all other civs 0 yet the color of the sectors when I turn on the overlay for the small map is of the AI to the north (in this case dark red). I understand that the AI may have some better overall influence because of the factors listed but unless the "small diffuse" total somehow adds up to more than my capital and all the surrounding stars then there is for sure a bug going on here.

Myros

EDIT - ok I guess I was a little off there, once I hit the end turn button it changed the listed influences drasticly. Now its listing the AI to the north as 300-500 and mine as 100ish so I guess in spite of the fact they are so far away they have much more than me going on as far as influence generating buildings etc
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Influence takes a few turns to re-calc properly after a reload, so that could explain why you saw the first set of numbers.

I am playing a game where the Ai seams to have a lot of advantage when it comes to influence. For example in one sector I have an influence of over 58000 and the AI has an influence of about 6000. But his planet in this sector has not revolted to my side, however on one of my planets where his influence was about 1600 and mine was 1400 my planet revolted, This has happened several times. I can not figure out how to get these planets to turn to my side, So I stacked 3 and 4 starbases maxing culture, in hopes that they will turn. Tha was well over 200 turns ago. Any ideas?

I ran into that and thought for a while it was a bug. But when I filled the surrounding sectors with maxed out starbases and finally flipped the system, I found out that the Altarians had built a bunch of improvements like Spin Control that increase cultural resistance.

~SDC~

The AIs influence bonus is also directly tied into difficulty. The higher the difficulty the AI is, the bigger the bonus, and on maso games, it is simply huge (i.e. good luck owning any sector you dont have a planet in tell latemid/late game).

edit: and on the revolt thing, he probably had maxed out his cultural resitance buildings, and as someone has previously said, it takes a while for influence to calculate. The higher difficulty AIs, again, have a very strong resistance to flipping.
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I'll take an influence resource fully loaded over six party palaces any day of the week. If it's a culture war you want, I am your man. I am a pretty dedicated culture bomber, probably the most notorious culture bomber on the board that will claim the wins so often in such a low scoring manner. (The inhabitants of the Masoverse tend to disdain low value wins.)

Sector ownership takes three to four turns after a reload to ramp up, as Magnummaniac said. It will take a while to build up enough pop, buildings, wonders, and techs to win a culture war against a high level alien. Don't despair, keep at it. They may build the Resturaunt, they may build the Galactic Exhibition, heck, a crafty alien left unchecked may even build the Galactic Monument (Altarians are especially good at building up culture and resistance), but you can still win in the end by waiting them out.

Get them into wars (or just wait for them to fight) and steal their influence resources. Then make sure that the holy triad of mid-game influence boosters are in your bag: artificial satellites, artificial planets, and terror stars. Build embassies almost everywhere once the system influence is 4 or more. Then layer on the cultural exchanges if necessary. Build every +influence wonder you can get to. Even if you miss a few because the aliens are faster, there are just so many that they can't grab most of them unless you almost totally ignore them yourself. So they steal the Resturaunt and the Galactic Exhibition. You just counter with the Historical Preserve and maybe something like Propoganda Machine and Spin Control. There are just so many empire wide influence boosters out there.

Sure, if one drops a hundred million people off on a class 13 planet in the same sector as an alien system the alien is going to overwhelm it with culture, but the secret to staying in the game there is morale and cultural resistance. Keep morale as close to 100 as you can and build a news network first (and maybe even higher resistance buildings like secret police and propoganda centers later if needed). But a 100 morale is no assurance the planet will not be flipped. It is just unlikely to flip at 100, especially with resistance buildings in place.

Better yet, keep out of the alien sectors containing their high pop colonies until the mid to late game when you already are getting the culture arsenal build up unless you are coming in with an invasion. While a low grade colony in a sector with a thriving alien system is a struggle to keep in line, 10 billion survivors of an invasion are one heck of a culture buffer. Grab the low grade colonies in the border sectors surrounding the alien main systems. Then throw in the buildings and then maybe build the party palace if you need it. But I have won over half of my 32 games through culture and most of them with one party palace or even no party palaces at all. The wonders and the resources can do the job later. The party palace is just frosting unless you want a rush job (like it is an emergency or just want them to flip faster). I find that slow, constant pressure pays more dividends than rush jobs. For rush jobs, a more direct tactic like an invasion would be better if it can be done. Culture bombing takes time to do properly.

Now, I admit that I have only tested my skills against one or two incredible opponents at a time and not a full boat of five or seven at maso, but even an incredible alien can be brought to his knees with a slow build culture strategy if you can stay out of a war with him and keep the trade up. (Unless, of course, you can invade him successfully and directly knock down his base culture by taking systems.) The real nightmare scenario is the incredible alien tying you down with wars, limiting your trade and directly threatining your base culture by taking your planets and cutting off the bonus influence by killing starbases with influence or culture modules. So play nice with him and try bribery. Better yet, keep him in wars with other aliens and try to keep the peaceful trade and resource stealing going.

Well, that is the off-the-top-of-my-head culture guide. If there are any specific questions I try to answer them when I am around to see them.

Thanks for the tips Gerakken. On my new game Im trying the culture war and its difficult but Im finaly seeing some progress ... my influence sphere actualy extends beyond my own sectors ..woot! Lost a few built up stations to space sharks though, that hurt lol.

Myros

Spin Control is mainly a defensive cultural resistance improvement. I think you meant Hyper Distribution Center (+33% civilization influence wonder).

Yes, my mistake. I was thinking ahead to the cultural resistance part of the post. Thanks, Downie.