The mysteries of influence

[ThePeach]

Could someone please explain the strange concept of my fluctuating influence? As the English, I was up to about 5 when the sicilians got ex-commed. sicily wont its war with the papacy however, and installed a puppet pope. naturally, the brits went on a rampage, attacking sicily and the hungarians. my influence went up to around 6... only to plummet with the reappearance of the pope, that dirty bugger. My influence is now 1 and the Spaniards have moved against my homelands (its a GA game) in continental Europe. My empire is still more or less the same size, and I haven't been excommunicated, so what gives?

[katank]

could be that before, you had more victories than defeats.

now, with more defeats, the influence drops.

also, you may be declaring war on allies which can cause an influence drop.

[shakaka36]

maybe the game just plain doesnt like you?

[nick_maxell]

Quote[/b] (katank @ May 29 2004,18:55)]could be that before, you had more victories than defeats.

now, with more defeats, the influence drops.

also, you may be declaring war on allies which can cause an influence drop.
to add to katank:

if you send a crusade after the reapearence and lost it - that would drop influence too.
If I remember correctly there is also an event that costs influence for english kings - combine all stuff mentionend and you can easily have a 4-5 drop in one turn.

btw - is there a rule of thumb how much influence you loose/gain in combat and does abandoning get into it too?



http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

nick

[katank]

losing a battle is a decent hit that can take up to 1 crown away whereas retreating without combat doesn't hurt nearly as much.

In a successful campaign, even if you stab your allies, you will still likely gain some influence although once your gains are reduced or even slowed, the reductions catch up to you.

crusades are also 2 influence a piece.

[Kristaps]

It seems, there is a bug in the GA game mode: I've had my successful crusading English king go from 9 influence to 1 and then, over a few years, back to 9 and then back down again (just to regain it in a few years).

During these fluctuations there were no territorrial losses, no crusades failed (actually all succeeded, which was what brought the king to 9 influence in the first place), no allies were attacked (by me) and the king was not excommunicated...

I have heard this mentioned by other people too. I have never seen this happen in a GD campaign though.

P.S. In my experience, this affects only GA crusading kings after their crusades succeed...

[Tricky Lady]

I've seen something similar in a Spanish game too. Sent a crusade to conquer Austria on the excommunicated HRE, but the http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif Italians decided that they wanted Austria too, and conquered it before my crusade arrived. So, crusade disbanded, and my king's (already low) influence dropped by 2 crowns. Oops

Something strange though (from another campaign). French send a crusade to some steppe province, but get excommunicated 3 turns after the departure of their crusade (they took the landroute). French excommunicated, but still they keep on happy crusading??? I don't understand it... I would expect a crusade to be disbanded when you're excommed? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-huh.gif

[ThijsP]

I believe crusades arrent affected by excomies.

[katank]

excomms and dead popes mean that no more crusades launched now but all currently active ones will continue.

as for Kristaps, that's the influence wrap around.

your 1 influence is actually more like 10 or 11 influence.

this corrects itself by increasing by 2 crown a turn until it's restored to 9 but this will negatively affect your heirs while it's recovering.

this is much like the "wrap around" heirs who has monster stats except for a 0* command rating.

[Kristaps]

Quote[/b] (katank @ June 01 2004,12:49)]excomms and dead popes mean that no more crusades launched now but all currently active ones will continue.

as for Kristaps, that's the influence wrap around.

your 1 influence is actually more like 10 or 11 influence.

this corrects itself by increasing by 2 crown a turn until it's restored to 9 but this will negatively affect your heirs while it's recovering.

this is much like the "wrap around" heirs who has monster stats except for a 0* command rating.
I am reluctant to accept the 'straight wraparound' theory (also, in a few posts I've seen certain MTW programmers argue against it). For one, if there was a wraparound it would imply some infinite program loop for influence incrementing, which should appear as a consistent problem across the game (like the year 57 bug): actually, this is not the case with influence.

When I first heard about the influence wraparound speculation I tried the following: take a sultan and take him to max influence by declaring a bunch of jihads against some rebellious province. Once you've achieved 9 influence, declare one or two more jihads. If wraparound was present, this should take the sultan down close to zero influence. Actually, his influence doesn't budge... At least, it didn't when I tried this. My conclusion was: there must be something more going on than a simple infinite counting loop.

[katank]

really? I've see my 9 influence sultan or king get 1 influence from 1 extra successful crusade/jihad.

never 0 influence though, always 1 influence.

I've see this in my games and a series of screenshots from someone a while back.