Some raw data on Influence

In my current Expert French Early GA campaign, I decided to take some notes on my kings' Influence. Figured I'd post my findings, so when I have a question about how Influence works in another 15 years I can find this old post and remind myself :P

I'm basically turtling, just going after GA points, not attacking any neighbors, and only going for Crusades in terms of military conflict (until the 1160s, when England attacked me).

Philippe I starts off in 1087 with 4 Inf, which he maintained until his death in 1120. During his reign he acquired a couple of allies (Poland, HRE, Aragon, England) and got the "happiest populace" message, but none of that moved his Influence score.

Philippe II began his reign in 1121 with 4 Inf.

This dropped to 2 after a failed Crusade in 1127. However, it raised to 3 in 1132. This could be because his second Crusade eliminated the Almohads the year before, but I'm not sure.

That Crusade's success in 1136 was followed by a raising of his Inf to 5. Next year, the Egyptians counterattacked and the Sultan was slain in the battle; this may (or may not!) account for the fact that the king's Inf raised to 6 the following year. The king's Inf increased by 1 point every year thereafter, until it reached 9 in 1141. That year, Philippe II died.

His heir, Jean II, took the throne with 5 Inf. in 1142. A failed Crusade that year dropped his Inf down to 4, but over the next 3 years it raised one point per year until it hit 7 at 1146. The next Crusade succeeded, and increased his Inf to 8 in 1151. In 1152, however, the wraparound bug struck, and Jean's Inf dropped to zero.

Fortunately this was temporary. In 1153 it raised to 2. That year the French were greeted with the "largest military" message. In 1154 his Inf rose to 4; in 1155 it jumped to 6; in 1156, to 8. In 1160 it was 1 (wraparound bug again), and in 1161 it was 3.


Since I've never paid close attention to the Influence levels on a per-turn basis, the steady, continuous increase was something of a surprise. Again, I'm simply following GA goals, and have only conquered 3 provinces (all by Crusade: Tripoli, Palestine, Antioch). Of course, I *temporarily* captured lots of provinces on the way to getting those 3, as frequently I forced the Egyptians to retreat to a fort, etc., but I wouldn't think this would have an impact, since I'd lose those provinces the following turn anyway, so any Influence benefit would be immediately cancelled out.


It may be significant that this steady Influence growth only began once my first Crusade succeeded. My first king's reign, in which he accomplished nothing other than holding on to the starting provinces, didn't see any Influence increase. But maybe the game decides to drip-feed you Influence as long as you win, and maintain, a Crusade province? Possibly only the "red" ones in the Holy Land count for this purpose? It'd be interesting to see if a Crusade to, say, Almohad territory, or Russia, would have kick-started Influence growth.


Incidentally, I noticed something else for the first time in this playthrough. The English were recently excommunicated. When I got my 3rd Crusade ready to head to Antioch, I noticed that the (English-held) province of Aquitaine was glowing red, like the big 4 Crusade targets (Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli, Palestine). Aquitaine is one of my homelands at this point; I can't remember if Anjou & Normandy ( the other English-held provinces) are also my homelands. But regardless, it's interesting that Aquitaine is specially called out in this red highlighting - suggesting that perhaps it, too, is particularly important, possibly even granting auto-growing Influence?

Anyway, this is quite preliminary, and I'll update as events continue!

I'm not sure how GA goals affect influence, but in the grand campaign the official guide did have the modifiers listed:

• Losing two provinces, -1 influence
• Capturing two provinces, +1 influence
• Losing a crusade/jihad, -2 influence
• Successful crusade/jihad, +1 influence
• Relieving the siege on an ally, +1 influence
• Attacking an ally, -1 influence

Of course you also get vices/virtues modifiers. I'd be curious to know if there is a pattern on succession.

Is that in the strategy guide, or the manual? I have both, but don't remember seeing such specific info on Influence in either place. Or is there another official guide out there?

I also don't recall any V&Vs that impact Influence itself, but again could easily be missing something!

For succession, it's tough to tease out the pattern given all the potential factors (and this background of mysterious ever-increasing Influence). But so far I've had 3 successions. In the first case, there was interestingly zero change of Influence from my first to second king: Philippe I died with 4 Influence, and his son Philippe II took over the throne with 4 Influence (losing 2 a few years later when a Crusade failed).

When Philippe II died, he had 9 Influence; his heir Jean took over with 5. That seems like a bit hit - except that we have to remember the wraparound bug! Philippe II's max Influence was looping back around, so from that perspective Jean's 5 doesn't look so bad.

Jean himself died with 9 Influence, and his heir Charles took over with 6. Again, it's hard to tell what direction the Influence score was going: was it dropping from 9 because of the new king, or raising again after the wraparound bug? I'm inclined to think the latter, given how the first succession went (4 Inf king dies and is succeeded by a 4 Inf king). If true, that means succession doesn't have much, if any, impact on Influence ... but again, this is just one campaign's data.

A little more data as I'm now into the High period.

One of my kings happened to die right at 1204/5, and his heir took over with what seems to be the standard 4 Influence.

However, unlike what had happened for the past hundred turns, this time my new king's Influence did *not* increase steadily. Sure, my new king wasn't conquering, but my previous kings had been quite slow to conquer as well, and ever since my first crusading, my kings had always steadily grown in Influence, wrapping around to 0 and then increasing again, with the only movement down the scale occurring when I failed a Crusade a couple of times.

I was thinking I'd be stuck with 4 Inf forever, until I successfully completed the Notre Dame GA objective. After that, Influence began to rise to 9. It stayed there for quite some time, however, instead of immediately wrapping around to 0 or 1 or 2.

So what this seems to indicate is that there's something about the Crusade GA objectives that encourages that continuous rise and even wrap-around effect, whereas other GA goals encourage some growth but tend not to lead to wraparound.

It'll be interesting to see if this is also the case for other Catholic factions. The French have probably the most GA goals of anyone, to the point where in the 1170s their GA screen is actually rather scrunched. So possibly they're benefiting more from ever-increasing Influence than, say, the Aragonese would.

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Originally Posted by CountMRVHS

Is that in the strategy guide, or the manual? I have both, but don't remember seeing such specific info on Influence in either place. Or is there another official guide out there?

I also don't recall any V&Vs that impact Influence itself, but again could easily be missing something!

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I assume I got those numbers from the strategy guide, but it could be from the old numerology thread. Which appears to be gone now. ~:mecry:

Looked through the VnVs, you are right, none of them affect influence.

I wonder if your ranking in GA points affects influence. Have you noticed changes at the homelands/conquest point dates (every 25 years or era change)?

There don't seem to be any notable changes when hitting those homelands/conquest dates, no. For example, in 1174 my king had 9 Influence. In 1175, he took Aragon but lost Normandy; in 1176, his Influence was still 9. It's a bit hard to separate out the factors, of course: 1150 happened to be the year of a Crusade success, and in that year Inf. rose by 1 point as expected. Other years coincided with a new king's crowning, which seems usually to reset Inf. to around 4. But at least I haven't seen any *patterns* I can recognize between those dates and a jump in Influence.

Maybe indeed being the GA points leader accounts for the steady rise. I think I've been leading in points for most of the campaign... will try to remember to check that aspect.

I believe I saw the numerology thread reproduced in some form at the .Com recently - yeah, here it is: https://forums.totalwar.com/discussi...war-numerology

A quick way to build influence (especially with a new king) is to earn the builder traits - this powers up off number of buildings completed, so your king benefits more by building lots of low-level structures rather than any high-level ones. Sometimes it's even worthwhile to cancel all your higher upgrades to fill your build queues with basic items that complete in a few turns, at least until the new reign is secured.