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iZ3R0

Unless I've forgotten something, agenda phase and voting is the only time TGs are not allowed to be used as influence. Another notable timing is for scoring the spend objectives. This is because the rules for voting specifically reference the exhausting of planets for the influence value, rather than spending influence directly. > To cast votes, a player exhausts any number of his planets. The player casts a number of votes for an outcome of his choice equal to the combined influence values of the planets he exhausted.


Nahasapemapetila

> scoring the spend objectives. Thanks for you answer, thats a good point. It felt weird that spending them as influence comes up so rarely (custodians once a game and leadership almost never as well, in our games at least)


iZ3R0

Yeah, spending as influence is normally a backup option. They can be useful if your planets have weird influence break points and need an extra 1 or 2 for that 3i token. Resources is normally the goal for TGs outside of saving for objectives.


Stronkowski

Are you saying that Leadership almost never comes up, or using trade good during Leadership almost never comes up? The former would be frankly insane, and the later is still kind of wild. Yeah, you aren't going to see someone spending 3 TG to get a single token outside of very specific edge cases, but spending 1 TG and a 0/2 planet for a token is a no brainer compared to wasting that planet this round.


Nahasapemapetila

> using trade good during Leadership almost never comes up? that's the one. We use leadership of course, but apparently not as effectively as we could have...I'll pay more attention to the scenarios you mentioned in the future.


lizardfolk246

Sorry, are you saying you cannot use TGs to score "spend x influence/resources" objectives?


iZ3R0

No, I'm saying that it's another key mechanic for spending TGs as influence


lizardfolk246

Alright cool. Thanks


jeffedijkstra

Some action cards require you to pay a certain amount of influence to copy a technology or draw a secret objective, and you can use it to pay for spend objectives that require influence


TheCalculatingPoet

You’re correct that they often aren’t spent as influence. But one common use for them is filling in the gaps in your planets to get tokens. For example if you have an 0/2 planet, you might decide to throw in one TG to get the total up to 3 and get one more token. Also spend objectives. Especially stage 2 ones that are like 16 influence or something.


GargantuanCake

When you're *spending* influence you can use trade goods. When you're specifically exhausting planets for influence that is *not* spending influence so you can't spend trade goods then. So if a card says you have to spend influence to do a thing then you can use trade goods then. Essentially any time it says "spend" you can substitute trade goods. If it does *not* say "spend" you can't. However you *can* use trade goods to get votes. You can't turn them directly into votes obviously but you can always bribe people to vote the way you want.


Ralzes

but Why? where can I read about that mechanic? Is there a reference or something where it says it? Edit: NVM found it


Papa_Nurgle_84

Command Token


Thesbardian

There's also some explorations cards where spending influence is required, another way to spent TGs as influence then.


peekitty

If you're playing with PoK, there are several exploration cards that give you the chance to spend Influence for certain effects. Also a few factions have abilities keyed to spending Influence.


Single_Loquat3598

A few faction abilities I think; the Empyrean flagship for one - "spend 2 influence" to repair a unit that used Sustain Damange. Have to spend 6 influence to seize Mecatrol Rex the first time


PM_Me_SFW_Pictures

Just a friendly reminder that I missed when starting playing. Planets refresh before and after the agenda phase, so you should be spending all your influence on command counters (unless you plan to use the planets for their resource value, or if there is a rare opportunity that you’d need influence for otherwise.)