Overview
A general overview of influence plus the best way to farm it and spend it.
Influence, what is it? How do I gain it?
Whenever a decision needs to be made, you gotta spend influence. Who gets the castle? Who are you “giving” influence in exchange for favoritism? It’s the most important part of politics next to who likes you. And, unfortunately, not exactly clear cut on how to earn it. Let’s dive in.
As a Mercenary (Actions in the field)
When you’re a merc, on a daily basis, your influence will be drained and turned into a paycheck. This can be as measly as 40-50 gold a day or over 500 gold a day, if you’re clever.
- Defeating opponents: This is easy but has little yield. Maybe 1 or 2 influence unless you’re defeating lords, or large bandit camps, in which you may earn closer to 10.
- Donating prisoners: A dozen looters donated to your local castle/keep dungeon can yield 8-9 influence. If you ransom them instead, you’ get 60 gold. As influence boosters, you’ll be netting closer to 200-300 at the end of the day for the same thing. Prisoners give more influence if they’re a higher tier. Lords seem very all over the place as to how much influence they’ll give you if you donate them as a prisoner. This may be the time you would want to ransom instead. Definitely a good source of influence after a large field battle with many prisoners, a lot of 40 troops of varying tiers has netted me 50 influence before.
- Donating garrison troops: A dozen Battanian volunteers (tier 1) donated to the garrison yields about 8 influence. 240 gold turns into 8 influence, or as a mercenary paycheck, 400 or so, roughly.
As a Vassal or King (Perks and Policies)
As a vassal, influence is not converted into money. You’re on the kingdom’s payroll. BUT you qualify for more ways to increase or decrease influence score. Policies can drain or give you influence on the daily. I’ll list what’s good for your influence or perhaps bad. There are other effects from policies that are not listed as this guide isn’t about that. In the policies list, you can propose a policy for 50 influence and then pay more to influence the decision. The same goes for disavowing, or calling for a vote to stop a policy.
Prominence, which is currently broken without modding[www.nexusmods.com] (Stewardship 50) is supposed to give 1 influence/day if you’re a vassal.
The best policy
Council of the Commons
Each notable yields 1 influence per day to the settlement’s owner clan.
Good Policies
- Senate: Tier 3 clans or better earn 1 influence/day
- Lawspeakers: Clans with leaders that have more than 80? Charm gain 1 influence/day.
- Noble Retinues: Tier 4+ clans earn 1 influence/day.
- Sacred Majesty: If you’re the ruling clan, earn 5 influence/day.
- Castle Charters: Each castle earns its owner 1 influence/day.
- Fuedal Inheritance: .2 influence/day multiplied by fiefs owned.
- Trial by Jury: Drains 1 influence/day. May be unpopular with your kingdom.
- Lawspeakers: Clans with leaders that less than 80? Charm drain 1 influence/day.
- Sacred Majesty: If you’re just a vassal, lose 1 influence/day.
There are more but generally have a smaller effect on influence.[mountandblade2bannerlord.wiki.fextralife.com]
Spending Influence
Influence is heavily weighed into a lot of decisions.
- Voting on the new owner of a castle that was defeated? Spend at least 50 influence to, you guessed it, influence the king to make a choice. Spending a hundred or three hundred will increase the votes in your favor.
- You can ask the king revoke and give a fief to another vassal for 200 influence, and then spend a further 50+ influence to help choose where it will go. And the current owner will hate you for it, so good luck.
- You can give a clan 50 influence in exchange for a small kickback in reputation.
- You can propose kicking a clan out of the kingdom for 200 base influence. You won’t be popular for it, however.
- If the king overruling everyone is getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying, consider proposing Peerage, which makes overruling the clans cost double…. but Tier 4+ clans have double say in decisions, so it’s a double edged sword.
- Fielding armies is expensive as far as influence goes, but if you’re attempting to steer your kingdom’s troops towards a target, is extremely beneficial. Though, no guarantee you’ll be on the list of names to who it goes to.
…And that’s the jist of influence. Hope this helped.