So how do I go about gaining influence for building henchmen? I don't see any buildings that help towns gain any. Except for the occasional scenic spots or having the Heroic trait (which now costs 2 points), I see no other way. Am I missing something?
There's a building (missionary hall?) that a town can have that generates 1 influence per turn, but i believe it is a 1/faction limited.
Building a monument on a Prestigious Location generates influence. There are two faction traits which generate influence. Legacy of Serrane (Build-Your-Own-Capitar) And Heroic. If you are in a ditch you can always trade for it. Just to get started, and if need be.
There probably should be more ways to build influence, but right now I don't think its worth adding in traits and backgrounds for something reasonably small.
Guile trait doubles influence gains from structures.
Towns can also build embassies (lv4 level up bonus) that generates 1 influence per season.
I did see the mission hall in the tech tree which seemed absurdly low of just 1 per turn and only one bldg allowed per faction. I didn't know about the embassies, but jeez, need to wait until level 4?? I really don't want to have to take Heroic trait or any other trait just to generate henchmen. Already full up with Decalon (2 pts) and Enchanters.
They need to make it so that quests still generate some influence when you complete them, or offer more buildings that help generate influence.
The easiest (and cheapest) way is simply to build monuments on any prestigious location you can plop an outpost next to. You can literally build monuments on turn one if there's a loc next to your starting city and they don't require any tech advance. Of course, it's like any other resource - ya either gots it or ya don't.
Yeah, it seems like that's the only way to go until Stardock changes up the game mechanic (fingers crossed). Unfortunately that either leaves things up to chance where I may rarely, if ever, have the chance to use Henchmen or I will need to spam Cntl+N until I find a suitable location (which I don't want to do).
As for the embassy option, I looked into that and it isn't a building, but an upgrade of path of your town when you reach level 3 or 4. So that's out of the picture too because there are better choices.
I really hope Stardock notices this thread and realize that we need additional options to generate Influence. Heroic is fine, but I think completing quests without Heroic trait should still generate Influence albeit not as much as with the Heroic trait (so its value isn't cheapened). Additionally, Influence-generating buildings should be added to the mix so that monuments on prestigious locations isn't the only way to generate influence for the rest of us!
That's my $.02, I guess.
I think the point is that the ability to build henchmen is very powerful - immortal troops that if babysat for a few levels can outstrip most troops.
Influence is the limiting factor - if you have henchmen you probably should need to sacrifice those 2 points for Heroic AND probably another point for wanderlust for quest maps (unless you get lucky and get set near another civ that has wanderlust and can buy from them).
I've gotten away with not taking wanderlust, but not having heroic essentially made henchmen an afterthought. By the time you get 150 influence to get 3 - its relatively late in the game whereas they're most useful when you can get them early and level them up.
Note: I've only played henchmen a few times, once I got caught up in the quest loop process it was really fun but didn't seem that fun to keep playing it.
Actually choosing an Embassy some times is the perfect choice. If you don't see a monument you can take from someone else, and you do have a dragon lair just waiting for some influence to use, that would seem the best choice by far. If influence is important enough to need, having to make a choice against something else seems like a good game mechanic to me.
But then again, I am also one of the people who LOVE the random traits on character level up. I really enjoy not being able to plan the whole game from start to finish, and seeing what resources and other randomness can affect my game.
If you can gain influence for all those henchmens without picking heroic, then why in the world would anyone ever pick heroic? The choice is there, just like embassies, just because you don't want to choose it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Kalin, embassies only give you one point of influence per turn. and you can only have one in your entire faction. That's just not practical. People will pick heroic because it can be faster (40 influence per quest is pretty fast). I'm just asking for an in-between option. So far, it's pretty extreme difference. It's not really playing as a custom race if by choosing Men I'm pretty much forced to choose Heroic also to use one of the benefits of basing my custom on Men (vs say Kraxis or basing it on something else).
Um no... you can have as many embassies as you make towns. You just don't want to choose the option to build it.
I would like to see influence be earned by defeating enemy armies/cities in battle as well, especially if I force an enemy sov to flee the battlefield.
And if I make Verga my bitc... ummm, vassal, that should also cause meto earn 10-20 pts of respect...
Sorry Kalin, my mistake. I confused embassies with Missionary Halls which are limited to one per faction. But you're right, I still wouldn't want all my towns to be embassies.
Yes, Nayth, I too think we should have gain influence with certain events, like defeating enemies...or at least have the choice of Influence vs Gildar.
Maybe winning/losing battles caused a transfer of influence from one nation to the other.
As one hangs its head in shame and the other boasts about it on the diplomacy screen for gold.
There should be some other way to gain influence other than a 2 point trait and 1 building in a town that does 1 point per turn. Definitely need a middle ground.
No offense, but if there were easy ways, why would anyone choose the 2 point trait? Just the fact that it's a 2 point trait should tell you that it's suppose to be valuable.
Why does it have to be easy ways? Is there not a middle ground between 2 point trait and impossible?
Because it's not at impossible? Even if you can't find any monuments... getting a town to level 4 isn't hard at all... What are you talking about?
There is a sort of middle way, the faction trait Guile costs 1 point and it doubles any influence gained. So any monuments on prestigious locations and the Missionary Hall will give double the income and allow twice as many Henchmen.
Incidentally, Heroic was changed in the 1.1 patch and now only gives 20 influence per quest.
JJ
Legacy of Serrane also gives influence (3) everytime your caravan finishes a trip too I believe. If you like setting up trade treaties, you can get quite a bit of influence (depending on map size and # of opponents) with that 1 point trait.
Or you could just do quests from the quest maps in wanderlust (also 1 point), and eventually you'll get one of those quests that gives 40 influence as a reward.
There's a lot of ways to get it, I don't know why people are complaining...
Okay, now that I've played several games, I'm going to have to say I side with Kalin. I take it back. Gaining influence isn't difficult at all. There are plenty of prestigious resource locations on a balanced map. Current game (AI setting where they use full algorithms but no bonuses) I have an excess of 450 influence points and I'm owning the medium map against 4 AIs.
So yeah, forget my original post. I should have taken the time to understand the mechanics of the game more so. I was new and quick to rush without fully exploring my options.
I have no points in Wanderlust, Herioc, Guile, or Legacy of Serrane, etc. Of course, the sooner you can find a prestigious location the better. But there are plenty.
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