HRE: Stagnating Influence

OK, so my newfound enthusiasm for the HRE has led to some awesome campaign time, but I've encountered a problem that I just can't seem to nut out.

In Glorious Achievements mode, I invariably want to establish an iron-clad empire with lots of infrastructure, rather than rolling across the map and being stuck with a large, unwieldy empire that has all its unharmed, teched-up provinces in the centre.

The problem that I am encountering is that my emperors are not improving over time. A green emperor needs to (1.) conquer/ (2.) crusade/ (3.) lift allies' sieges in order to gain influence, but this is not easy given my current situation.

1. Conquer: This I can do, and have done. I own everything from Brittany to Hungary to Saxony to Tuscany. This is largely a result of having warlike neighbours whose provinces I was forced to "appropriate" in order to weaken their ability to attack me (so that I could bloody well get on with building up my provinces). BUT, any influence my Emperor gains is lost as soon as he dies. I don't want to keep conquering, because if I wanted the whole screen to be black before 1205, I'd be playing in Conquest mode.

2. Crusade: This has been tough mainly because of the desertion rate (which is apparently NOT linked to the piety of one's monarch or crusade commander). I don't really want provinces in the Holy Land yet anyway, because I can't support the huge number of troops it would take to defend them against the Eggies (who are cashed-up and trading)...

3. Siege Lifting: I have no friends, largely because of my size and the fact that any alliances I forge get cancelled due to my bloody neighbours attacking me!! This option is therefore impossible.

So, I'm stuck with perpetually UNinfluential Emperors who just can't seem to get it together with other factions. I want to turtle now, but I need to conquer in order to get any influence at all.

I need your advice...

Sometimes Influence seems pretty random. I only just got my Emperor up to 7 Influence, and it happened so fast I don't know exactly what I did. The general situation was this:

(Playing Expert) My young, 4-Influence Emperor was excommunicated. I sent an army to the Papal States to wipe out the pope and rescind the excom; sent an army to Croatia and thence to Serbia to kick the Italians off the mainland. I like to turtle too, but I figured my survival chances were pretty slim if I didn't do at least this conquering. Other than that and the few HRE provinces I've taken, my empire looks basically like it does at the beginning of the Early game.

Somewhere along the line, then, my Emperor apparently gained 3 crowns. I don't know exactly *how* many Inf points you get for conquering, or how soon they are applied. There were other occasions during this game where I invaded a neighboring province (hungary or croatia, for example) without the intention of keeping it. I won the battle and therefore conquered the province, but my Influence didn't go up at those times.

Maybe it was killing the Pope and getting un-excommed that did it. Or maybe it was the defeat of 2 kings in rapid succession (Pope and then Italian king).

What is your current situation: allies, excom status? Are you getting any notifications about being the largest, richest, most advanced? What is the date? You're playing Expert, IIRC? I'm not sure if I can pin down exactly what's going on, but maybe someone else will. Until then, it sounds like you & me are playing pretty similar campaigns, so maybe you just need to wait it out.... ~:handball:

CountMRVHS

I wouldn't worry too much about influence especially as the HRE. Nobody is going to like you anyway. :D Now as far as crusades remember they dont "have" to be dirrected at the GA goal provinces. Those pagan and orthodox provinces to the north will work just as well.

(HRE/Hard/1134/2.01/GA)

Thanks Count.

I've had the following messages in the last 5 years:

- Richest
- Biggest army
- Advanced technology

I have zero allies.

I'm at war with the following:
- Hungary (This is a feud that dates back to 1096 :furious3:)
- Denmark (the silly bastard had a crack at Saxony with his 4 sons...)
- England (constantly trying to pop my ships)
- Turkey (due to Crusade)
- Egypt (due to Crusade)

I've eliminated France out of necessity. The two-front war was wreaking havok on my economy.

My status with the Church is OK, for now. The Papacy attack me intermittently, but they asked for a ceasefire, and I think we're pretty stable. No one will marry my daughters or sons...

I have quite a few trading ships in the North, and also the Mediterranean right up to the Black Sea.

My best units are Swabians and Bronze Royals.

Apart from my diplomatic status (which hurts my trading) and crap monarch & heirs (which hurt my influence and diplomacy), I'm doing really well.

My recently deceased HRE Emperor started off at about 4 on the scale but ended up at 8. I also noticed a big jump at one point but so many things were going on that it is similarly difficult to work out what caused it. I did think it was the successful completion of the Anjou crusade (against excommed English) which did it but there were some conquests (against rebels) in the mix too. His successor is back to being influence 4.

This rather put paid to my previous theory, in which I thought it was the strength of the faction, as a whole, which conferred influence on its leader. For instance, my incomplete Byz campaign saw a succession of Emperors potter around in Greece, warding off seaborne invasions and doing nothing much, personally, whilst high-starred generals did all the conquering. Not particularly rapid conquering but, then again, the influence started high and simply stayed there. Hence I end up thinking it's the faction activity which counts, not the leader's.

I've been compiling a chronology of my HRE game and I happen to have recorded the deaths of other faction kings as incidental info. I may go and check it again to see if the passing of other leaders moved my own leader 'up the chart', so to speak.

In other words, influence 9 means you are the top leader in the world, through various accumulated actions, number 2 leader is I:8 and so on down the line. I:4 is an 'average' place all fresh leaders start from and anything less than that signifies negative happenings, like loss of territory. The death of a king who was in the upper reaches of the chart introduces an I:4 successor and everyone behind him moves up a place.

I've seen kings die of illness in batches of three at a time on several occasions and need to check to see if something like this happened when my Emperor's influence jumped up several notches. Other than this kind of synchrony, lifespans should overlap in a way where one king has always achieved slightly more (or less) than his contemporaries, so discrete rankings will establish themselves naturally.

Another thing it could be (wild shot, this) is some kind of composite score of all the loyalty ratings of generals beneath him. My new leader has some generals still at L9 but a fair few down at L1. It may be the average comes out at 4 and it will take things like getting the 'Magnificent Builder' his predecessor had to increase his rating. I've observed that involvement in battles and conquests, generally, do wonders for the loyalty of the iffy generals. Upping this hypothetical average loyalty increases the influence.

Common sense says that Influence is your standing in world affairs, so loyalty of unit leaders should have nothing to do with it. I'm just throwing in theories for people to pick over.

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Now as far as crusades remember they dont "have" to be dirrected at the GA goal provinces. Those pagan and orthodox provinces to the north will work just as well.

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Influence and piety can be raised by successfully crusading to your (non-holy land) homeland/GA goals like Pomerania or Livonia. You get the GA points for your "Drive to the East" and the influence/piety for your completed crusade.

My favorite way to raise influence is to relieve sieges of allies on far away shores. If you don't have a border with the beseiging army then you can relieve the seige, back off for a turn or two, and then when neutrality is forced upon your relations with that country you move your ships back and start trading again.

mfberg

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Originally Posted by OlafTheBrave

I wouldn't worry too much about influence especially as the HRE. Nobody is going to like you anyway. :D Now as far as crusades remember they dont "have" to be dirrected at the GA goal provinces. Those pagan and orthodox provinces to the north will work just as well.

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I never thought of this until you posted it previously :embarassed: , what
a magnificant stategy ~:cheers: . Gets you the desired provinces, plus
very good troops that are not usually available early in the game ~:cool: .

Thanks again for the tip.

I agree with the crusading close to home idea. It may seem like a lot of work for something “Right There” easily within reach but the little extra benefits you get are worth it, like influence, cool troops, and crusades can help the pope like you. ~:)

In GA I found that my leaders influence rises if i complete a GA goal. Mainly the homelands goal. I have had a 4 influence king before the year where the GA homeland points are counted, and a 7 influence king after it.

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Originally Posted by yesdachi

I agree with the crusading close to home idea. It may seem like a lot of work for something “Right There” easily within reach but the little extra benefits you get are worth it, like influence, cool troops, and crusades can help the pope like you. ~:)

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Absolutely!! Just recently (Sicily/early/hard VI2.01), I sent a bunch of Inquisitors into HRE to raise zeal, whilst I trained a crusade and a few troops. Trained the crusade in Sicly,then I launched it toward the last province egypt was holding at the time, Bulgaria - not too far away at all.

However, I sent the crusade up through HRE - starting in Provence, then Burgandy, Tyrolia, and Austria (ALL HRE holdings ATM). - soaking up their units and leaving provinces weaker.. heh heh (I had other nasty things going on too - moving emissaries all through the HRE empre and bribing lots of small armies *grin*).

Egypt awaiting it's destiny in Bulgaria, my crusade is going to make one more stop, in Hungary, and then they will be finished.

I think I will have nearly 2K additional troops I hoovered from HRE by the time the Eggys are gone.

Anway, crusade nearby - many benefits. ~;)

DE

Hmmm, I had thought that there was a thing which inhibited Crusades from moving more distant from their target than the province where they start off but, if it let you move from Sicily to Provence (west) then maybe I was wrong about that.

Perhaps it was a move made by ship and that confused it?

So did I - and in fact when preparing for this - I had Inquisitors in other possible targets more to the east - croatia, serbia, austria JUST in case. But on the first move of the crusade, it let me go to Provence... so I did.

Yes it was with a ship. I think perhaps using a ship it is not so constrained - at least on the first move - not sure. But if I recall, I could have even gone WAY around to Flanders and Frieslande even - if I wanted to...

I did end up with about 2K more troops. The eggys retreated, so I brought in a stack of catapaults, added them to the crusade and they are attacking the keep/castle - so next turn....

I don't feel to cheesy about doing this - several times the AI has used crusades, wandering around my provinces not heading directly to it's target and sucked up troops - turn about feels good. *grin*

DE