How to get influence in Manor Lords
Raising your influence is key to claiming new regions and territories, and here's how you do it.
Influence in Manor Lords is a necessity if you want to expand your empire and claim new regions, but doing so isn't quite as straightforward as you may think. Acquiring a new region costs 1000 Influence, which is a hefty amount, especially when you're just starting out.
You can't conquer the whole map without earning enough Influence first, and while the game does mention how to get more of it, it can be tricky to know exactly how it all works. So here's the lowdown on Influence in Manor Lords and how to get more of it to claim new regions.
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How to get Influence in Manor Lords
Manor Lords has a lot of different metrics in play, and Influence is one of them. There are four ways of earning Influence:
- Building Churches
- Building Manors
- Enact tithes
- Clearing bandit camps
Churches are a great way to raise your Influence, because every time you upgrade a Wooden Church to a Stone Church, you earn 250 Influence.
Building a church to begin with costs 5x timber, 20x planks, and 10x stone, and you'll want to build one as soon as possible because it contributes to levelling up Burgage Plots.
Once you have a Wooden Church, upgrading it to a Stone Church requires another 5x timber, 10x planks, 20x stone, and 10x rooftiles. You can also follow our guide on how to trade if you want to import any resources you're missing.
Manors and tithes go hand in hand, because you need a Manor to enact a tithe. Firstly, to build a Manor, you need 5x timber, 20x planks, and 15x stone, and much like a Wooden Church, building a Manor grants you 250 Influence right out of the gate.
Once built, select your Manor and go to the Taxes tab, then look at Tithe. This will exchange a percentage of surplus food for Influence. To begin with, you don't want to go overboard with this as you don't want to accidentally exhaust your remaining food reserves. But eventually - and by following our guide on how to get food and farm effectively - you can increase this considerably. My settlement is at the Large Town level and I have tithe set to 50%.
Then there are Bandit Camps. Of course, you need to ensure you're not playing on the Rise to Prosperity scenario as this disables combat and raiders. In the Restoring the Peace and On the Edge scenarios, however, combat is a regular occurrence, and clearing bandits will earn you 20 Influence per bandit you defeat. That's for each individual bandit, not just per camp. So if you defeat 10 bandits, you get 200 Influence.
Bear in mind, though, that while fighting bandits can be the fastest way to earn Influence quickly, it does take a little while to build up sufficient forces to take them on. First, you need your own soldiers. Any male villagers can moonlight as fighters for you, but you also need to create weapons for them, which requires workshops in the backyards of Level 2 Burgage Plots.
A Blacksmith's Workshop will allow you to create spears and sidearms, a Bowyer's Workshop will make Warbows, an Armorer's Workshop will make helmets, mail armor, and plate armor (once the necessary development points are unlocked), and a Joiner's Workshop will make shields. Note that building these will automatically convert the residents into artisans, and don't forget you can also import weapons via your Trading Post if you need to fast-track them.
How to claim regions
To claim a new region, zoom all the way out on the map, then select the area you want and click "Claim with Influence".
If the region is unowned, this will cost 1000 Influence, or 2000 if it's already owned by someone else. Starting a claim will begin a progress bar which allows other rulers to contest your claim, which will result in a fight if this does happen. The winner takes the region.
Once you have a new region, you'll need 250 treasury to start all over again and build a Settler Camp.
Make sure you also build a build a Pack Station, because then you can ferry goods and resources over from your already flourishing settlement.
Struggling to grow your first settlement? Read our guide on how to increase your settlement level. Similarly, for more help getting started in Manor Lords, find out what to do first in our beginner's tips and tricks guide, as well as the best development points to unlock first, how to trade goods and animals to bolster your town further.