Spread of Imperial/Shogunate Influence Seems a Bit Random

[Lemur]

I've played a chunk of three campaigns (didn't finish any yet), and I've noticed that the spread of Imperial of Shogunate influence is ... well, there's a pattern to it, but with wildly varying results. For example, Tosa will usually take over Shikoku, and then flip to whatever allegiance you are not. So if you're Imperial, Tosa will flip Shogunate, and if you're for the Shogun Tosa will flip Imperial. That seems to be a pattern.

Likewise, if you're having a lot of success grabbing a bunch of provinces, this seems to prompt some of your allies to change allegiances. But not always. It's quite puzzling.

For example, my second campaign was pro-Imperial, and seemingly everyone on the main island flipped Imperial. I suddenly wound up with an entire island of Emperor-lovers. Not sure how that happened. I was not sending out agents to influence anyone.

Conversely, my third campaign was Kyushu-based, and when I was done consolidating the entire island for the glory of the Emperor, all of mainland Japan had gone Shogun. Again, I was not sending out agents. And since everyone goes to war with you if they have a different allegiance, I was suddenly very concerned with how to flip a few to the Emperor.

I parked one of the allegiance-agents (forget the name) in a province, converted it Imperial and kept it that way. Eventually the clan flipped too. Coincidence? Is there a process to this?

Any thoughts, ideas, tests, experiments, hypotheses? There's clearly a mechanism at work, but I can't quite puzzle it out.

Also, "We sarl fur gloreee" is my new favorite bit of voiceover.

[quadalpha]

From a cursory examination, it seems that a) the +x to influence does not mean +x% per turn, since it doesn't take 200 turns to convert a province even when influence is at +0.5, and b) each province spreads +0.5 (at the beginning, I think; some techs/buildings increase this) of whatever allegiance it is to neighbouring provinces. Also, the happiness penalty from wrong alignment only ever changes by +/- 1 per turn, going up to a maximum of -8 (I think) on normal difficulty.

[TargetSlayer]

My observations are similar. Still, I construct and upgrade police stations in all my provinces to control the population and create agents (which are great offensive weapons). Not sure what we are suppose to see. In Civilization Revolution culture would flip settlements to your side. I haven't seen this in TW, but I don't believe it works that way in any event. The best way to spread your influence remains conquering the province.:smiley:

[quadalpha]

b) each province spreads +0.5 (at the beginning, I think; some techs/buildings increase this) of whatever allegiance it is to neighbouring provinces.

This is incorrect, I think. I've never seen it above +/- 1.0 total in any province. Perhaps it's a binary 'most of neighbouring provinces are imperial/shogunate'.

I feel that it is currently not influential enough to win a game for you, like you could with culture in Civ, but might be useful to turn smaller clans to your allegiance.