Increasing the rulers influence

[Haccapelite]

I'm playing a campaing as the Serbs (early/normal/GA) and my game is going wonderfully, im holding most of the Balkans, except Constantinople, my financial situation is great and i've just recently reached year 1205 and i'm now producing all the quality troops that are available to the Serbs. There is only one minor problem that is preventing me to be fully happy with my current situation: my tzar only has three influence, and since i dont want to conquer too many provinces i'd like to know are there any other ways to gain more influence. (if i remember correctly you do get influence by conquering provinces, right?)

Well, thanks in advance.

[seireikhaan]

A couple of things you can do:

1) Influence when a new heir takes over can vary widely. If your heir has poor stats, he'll end up starting with 2 or 3 influence. If he has good stats(5 command, 4 acumen, etc...), he'll start off around 5. If he's got REALLY good stats(like 8 command, 7 acumen, etc...), he'll likely start off with 8 or 9 influence.

2) Take Constantinople. Maybe its just my imagination, but I swear that Constantinople is the magic province regarding heirs and such. Nearly every time, once I take Constantinople, my heirs just seem to get much better. Better heirs mean more influence for them when they take over as Czar.

[King of Bavaria]

Yes, you will gain influence by conquering provinces.
Another way to increase your influence are successful crusades. (But only with catholic nations, of course)
I don't know wether its the same with Djihads, cause I've never played Muslims yet.
And I believe that you loose influence if you attack your allies.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Haccapelite,
As greaterkhaan has said, conquering new territories is the most common and popular way of gathering influence. You gain one point for every two territories captured. You also, sadly, lose a point for every two territories lost. Sadly, in M:TW, I don't really think a faction can gain much influence without conquering territories, so you may have to participate in more military activities.

I also agree with him over Constantinople - for me, and several others, it seems to be the elite city. While I have owned it, my leaders always have seemed to gain better statistics. This included influence.

I'm sadly not too sure about successful crusades, but I understand that failed crusades lose the crusading faction a point of influence having made a fool of themselves on the world stage. It may be a wise idea to investigate the military might of these factions and the feasibility of the crusade before heading out against your heretical rivals.

I'm not too sure on this, but I don't think that influence is lost by attacking allies. I've done it multiple times, and cannot recall any loss of influence. Sadly though, some aspects of the experiment were not controlled and I may have maintained my influence through earning the territories I attacked. Sorry about my uncertainty.

Hope this helps, good luck with your influence, cheers!

[Tratorix]

You do gain influence for a successful crusade. I usually find my king gains around 1 to 2 crowns from a successful crusade. Also if you attack your allys, you will lose influence, though i'm not sure how much. I think there are other ways as well, as in a genoese campaign once, my ruler gained 3 crowns of influence while I was just sitting around building a trade netwrok. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[MJF]

i find an interesting way of maintaining high influence is to ally yourself with a small faction that neighbours your country. say spain allies with aragon. Then whenever, another faction invades that country (eg. france) and besieges the castle, you move an army into relieve the siege. Relieving allies from siege earns you influence points quickly (not sure about exact ratio).

As a word of caution though, if you also share a border with the attackign country then you may find yourself having to fight on two fronts (i.e. your own province and your allies province). so before starting this, it is best to make sure you have the military capabilities.

[Ironside]

I'm not too sure on this, but I don't think that influence is lost by attacking allies. I've done it multiple times, and cannot recall any loss of influence. Sadly though, some aspects of the experiment were not controlled and I may have maintained my influence through earning the territories I attacked. Sorry about my uncertainty.

You lose one influence by attacking an ally, that's why you occationally see a civil war when your (now former) ally attacked you. A fitting penalty to betray your alliance.

And Jihad spamming is the easiest way to get max influence. Overdoing it gives more random influence results though (at some point you get a wrap around and start at 0 influence again, but as you got more Jihads than that you'll get something between 0-9).

[Martok]

Ways to raise influence:

- Territorial expansion (1 point of influence for every 2 provinces taken). This includes gaining land through both conquest *and* bribery.

- A successful Crusade/Jihad. (Players may gain 2 influence from this if taking the "target" province gives you another pair of conquered territories.)

- Coming to the aid of any ally when they're under siege.

- Various special events give certain factions an influence boost.


Ways to lower influence:

- Losing territory (1 point of influence for every 2 provinces lost).

- A failed Crusade/Jihad.

- Attacking an ally. (Breaking off an alliance because you're forced to choose between two allies that have gone to war does *not* cost you any influence.)

- Excommunication.


Possible ways of raising influence (not confirmed):

- Receiving a message stating your faction has the greatest military/treasury/etc.

- Successfully completing certain goals if you're playing in GA mode. (Brave_Sir_Robin, this might be why your Counsel was increasing influence even though he was just "sitting around" -- it wouldn't surprise me if one of Genoa's goals was to establish trade routes to certain provinces.)