Need help with Influence

This is a consistant problem I have encountered while playing with both England and the Danes.

Your King starts at 3-4 Influence. You war and fight with your king incessantly until he gets to the magic number 7. He finally spits out a heir thats worth something and life seems good. The King dies and when your very carefully bred heir comes to power his Influence is 4.

Now how is that possible? His father wreaked havoc across Europe crusading and conquering until his betters respected him. His son who is vastly superior than his father in every way. He has better stats, is a better general, and has no detrimental vices comes to power and he still gets the same lousy influence his father had to start.

This happened to me three times playing the Danes. First King 3 Influence. I conquered Norway, Sweden, and started conquering Eastern Europe. I stopped when he hit 7 Inf. His heir started with 4 so I kept conquering. I took all of E. Europe south to Khazar and West to Lithuania. The third king influence 4 so I conquered into Armenia, lesser armenia, edessa, etc until I hit 7 again. That king dies and what does the new heir get? 4 Influence. Right now I am by far and away the largest and most powerful country in the world. You would think my kings starting influence would be higher because of that reason alone.

All I am trying to do is get a dynasty going that's worthy of rule. Am I missing something? Why does my Influence drop so much during a shift? Does it have to do with the country I play. I mean the Byz start out with astronomically high Influence and it stays that way. :help:

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His son who is vastly superior than his father in every way. He has better stats, is a better general, and has no detrimental vices comes to power and he still gets the same lousy influence his father had to start.

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Well, YOU know that, but everyone else only knows what they've been told. A new head of state on the scene is an unknown, preceded by rumours and gossip at court and maybe some tales from vanquished foes. Who knows if he'll continue his father's policies? Who can tell how many of his father's men will follow the son? Which alliances will he maintain? Which allies will remain loyal, which will make a land grab?

Managing a succession can keep your nation's eyes off the outside world. There are loyalties to confirm, barons to reassure, landowners to appease.

It's a pain, but I think it does reflect the uncertainty of such transitions. As for the Byz, well the new guy may well be inbred, drunken and cowardly, but he IS still the Byzantine Emperor, drawing much of his "influence", not from the current state of his empire but its glorious past.

Of course, once the new chap settles in and he gets his ass properly on the throne, his influence will shoot back up.

Sigh too true. I guess your right, its just a pain. Maybe I've been playing the little uns too long. Started a new game with the Byz and I promise, I am having no problems with influence or star struck heirs. First Emp has 6 crowns and after a little disagreement with the turks over who rules rum my Emp went up to 7. I kept him there until he kicked off and after hunting down the right heir to take the throne. That heir skipped over his papa's 6 influence and started off at 8.

It was a pleasant surprise after playing the above mentioned games where I end up owning the world just after the Horde because I'm constantly trying to up my king's influence rating. About time that game gave me a little respect. ~;)

Influence is linked to the rest of the kings stats. A king with exellent stats starts of with much higher influence, usually around 6-8. Atleast my king does it, even as the Danes. Get 9 in influence with your king BTW. Influence got exellent side-effects, like better hiers, better random generals, extremly loyal generals, probably more influence for the son and I've probably missed a few more effects.

Just try win battles whit your king and try make war against factions. One Easy way to get influence is to help ally. For instance when playing whit Danes help English armys against France. If you take out Germans they will really need it. This is again one reason why navy is important.And always remember to have good agents ...You can kill unwanted heirs. I Once got 4star Heir to my 4star King After that I started using my new heir in battles and when he was made to king he was 7star king and same amount influence.
Acumen and dread can be harvested whit assassins "Sometimes".


Rebellions can be your friend=). :duel: :duel: :duel: :charge: ~:cheers:

Lifting a sieged ally is 1 point of influence and probably the easiest way to raise it especially as the Danes.

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Lifting a sieged ally is 1 point of influence and probably the easiest way to raise it especially as the Danes.

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Aaah! Thanks for that - I assumed all you got was a crummy parchment of thanks from your allies!!

simply engage your heir in glorious battles as a general. mory glory, more influence.
i think its the easiest and funniest way to increase any stats, including influence. you can turn many low-quality heirs into shining stars this way (if you have enough time and "training" possibilities) eg:
im playing as georgia (bkb supermod). i start with a single province and infuence 4. my heir would get this low influence too. however, i made him fight for an adjacent rebel province, several battles against major odds. he earned skilled last stand, field defence specialist, and three stars. plus if my heir is active this way, he very often earns the eloquent virtue thread too, thus increasing acumen and piety...to sum up, my new king, ruler of two petty provincies, got influence of 7.
i loaded and tried to make his father die a bit later, so that the prince could also defend one of my two provincies against mongols invasion in two battles..he earned another star, no mercy, butcher. when the time came, he became 8 influence king. not bad, i think :-) and its very rewarding to see, how that little secret pervert grew up to be a famous, well respected emperor..
so, in my opinion the most effective way to influence heir is to give him army to lead and enemy to crush.

I can confirm the King's stats play a major part in the influence score.

Doesn't matter how much land you own, it's the stats that count.
Which sucks because in my current game I don't have time/cash to build way for heirs to get better...:(
And there's no way in hell I'm going to let crappy generals like my heirs command (at the moment) crucial battles between succes or failure in European history...:)

The same thing happened to me ... Great father then bad son specially in influance . So , I tried some ways to get him better :
1. by war : use your son as the great commander of your armies .
2. try to bulid bulidings that don't spend a lot fo time and put all the generals that carry their titles in the army of your son so he will get Magnifitic bulider very fast .
3. try to bulid relegion bulidings so gain peuos .
all of these vices let people think that heir when role will be the greatest so I think he will gain more influance .