If I play relaxing, no bandits, no AI, can you expand to new regions still?

[Olav Grey]

I prefer the relaxing nature of the city building over dealing with the less than ideal combat system. But I haven't found a way to gain influence to purchase new land yet outside combat. Are you able to do that without bandits or the enemy AI?

[SPAMbuca]

you can ask for church tithes in your manor to get influence but it's a slow process

[Yippie21]

set tithing to your church. I went up to 10% for several seasons. 20% on taxes too.... but.. I found out the hard way, tithing and property taxes don't hurt morale badly enough, but kill your cash flow, so

[Blackzone]

Pay Taxes to church, but its very slow. It would be cool if in relax mode would be bandits but they would not attack you. So there would be option to attack them first.

[Plorp]

Yes. For the current state of the game, this is the best way to play anyway. The main hurdle will be RNG based on where on the map you are and what fertility is like for your crops.

The Trade building and Livestock Trader are the keys. Once you start getting money to roll in, you can buy what you need to upgrade. The most difficult part of expansion is growing your settlement until you have enough influence to claim another territory.

A couple things can make you all the money you need:
1. Breed sheep and sell them.
2. Make a lot of houses with large expansions for vegetable gardens. Vegetables eventually become a massive source of both food and money. I'm 3 hours into a settlement and it produces about 2000 units of vegetables a year. For any houses with small expansions, first load up on chickens. After eggs are pouring in, go to goats. Turn the hides into leather.
3. Establish self-sustaining forestry. If you get the balance right between logging camps, woodcutters' and forestry huts, you will have endless resources to build. You can also sell excess planks early which speeds up your vegetable gardening and egg production.

[Olav Grey]

Originally posted by Blackzone:

Pay Taxes to church, but its very slow. It would be cool if in relax mode would be bandits but they would not attack you. So there would be option to attack them first.

Agreed, I figured that's how it would work with "Raider Frequency" set to none but random bandit camps set to 3. The bandit camps would show up, but you wouldn't be raided.

Wish the influence was balanced a bit better, or maybe you could pay for new land financially to balance out the relaxed play. Not dealing with fighting means you can focus way more on city income growth and general city growth, which would mean out growing you current land quicker.

[SPAMbuca]

Breeding sheep is nerfed compared to early access though. in the restoring the peace mode the baron keeps capturing all territory before year 4 and I don't see a way yet to make enough money to get mercs before year 4.