How to get an influence victory?

Inflluence points are used for voting in the UP, not for flipping planets.

To influence flip planets, you need to project cultural influence onto them. The simplest way is to use your own planets - large populations and influence boosting projects will project more influence. But this isnt likely to flip enemy planets on its own, especialy not in other starsystems. For that, you need the influence starbase, and you need the higher tech influence modules as well. Build these near enemy planets, and build enough that the planet is subject to four times more of your influence than its own civilisation. After that, it'll be marked with an icon denoting a chance of flipping, and eventualy it will flip. How quickly depends on exactly how much influence you project, but its a random roll each turn. Sometimes youll get it on the first or second turn, sometimes they dont flip for hundreds of turns.

Also, try and grab an influence resource or two.

Be warned, the AI will spot you doing this and may or may not take action against you. A high military power will help you keep them peaceful.

Be warned, the AI will spot you doing this and may or may not take action against you.

You know, my daughter came home from a party last night. When I asked her, where the party was, she told me it was on Starbase 301. I didn't even know that we had this starbase. When I checked, I found out it was indeed a torian starbase!
I don't want to see my children to run around in torian clothing! Remove starbase 301 in sector 0-3 or I will continue to remember you of it until you do.

Flipping planets tends to be an all or nothing strategy-- either you have a lot of influence and the planets fall like dominoes, or they don't fall at all.

To win with "soft power" try the following:

Make sure you have large populations on all the worlds that can support them. Influence is predominantly generated by population.
Get the restaurant of eternity development.
Research all the techs that give influence bonuses (mostly in the trade and goverment tech trees).
Get any influence resources and mine them all out.
Build influence mines-- as mentioned above this may provoke a violent reaction if you're diplomacy & military ratings aren't high enough.

Research all the influence and diplomacy techs. Sell techs for cash and influence. Buy everyone elses resource starbases. Sit back and watch.

My latest game, I didn't build a single influence starbase. I did mine 3 difference resources, then built my econ. Whored techs for cash and influence points, then built up enough cash to pruchase all the other resource starbases. The entire map was my color, and planets started coming my way quickly. Sometimes a few turns would go by with no flips, but other times there would be multiple flips in a single turn. I started by researching diplomace and influence. I got all my military techs through trade. I was the weakest of all civs, but everyone loved me anyway. Also, once I noticed that a minor was about to be taken out by another, I parked a transport close by, traded ALL my tech to the minor for all their cash (let them finance their own destruction) and as much influence as I could get. Then I would take them out before they could use the tech or trade it.

Hope this helps.

Adding to the above. I didn't build a single farm either. I kept moral at 75 until I could afford to get it up to 100. Once it was at 100 for a few turns, the cash increased. Other than the minor races, I have not been in another war. And the minor race was taken out in one turn (to make sure ALL my tech didn't get away from them).

Here is what I build:
Factory
Factory
Moral
Research only on bonus
Econ Centers everywhere else.

If the planet is small I only build 1 factory, then overwrite it later with tech or money.

I only build starports on a few planets, because everyone elses planets will have a starbase, and when they flip, they will be mine.

I have only gotten another type of victory once. Other than that, all of my wins have been influence victories. I think it is much, much too easy. I only built 2, as well. This was on "painful" difficulty. Just stick around and let your population grow, you are bound to get an influence victory soon. Build two or three I-starbases, and a victory is ensured.

Hmm, I think I get it now. Do you need an influence resource to build an influence starbase or can you make one anywhere?

I am still having problems I have two influence starbases next to a target world, the target word has about 40 influence, one of my starbases is +255 and the other is +315 or so. But, a hundred turns and the planet still hasn't turned over to me. There are actually three planets within range of these two starbases, one has like 50, another has 40, but not one has switched over. Are these planets combining their influence scores to resist or something?

Like 1100 influence over this planet now, help meeee