Influence as mercenary drops too quickly

[Panta Rhei]

Like, it's not even worth being a mercenary, you will hardly build up more than 20 influence and then it will drop in a mather of days. Ofc you can stablish caravans and play as merc for the fun, but not as a main income source, not now.

[Lunar Shower]

Honestly, just playing Mercenary with the new changes and saving up for a workshop has been probably one of the most profitable ways to make it through the early game. Just find a faction on the weaker side that's at war, get 100-300 gold payments/bonuses for defeating the 'enemy' in battle or something equivalent. This includes looters at that btw, so you can basically farm looters, bandits, and more, and just donate prisoners/rescued prisoners like peasants to dungeons/garrisons for extra influence on top of what you'll be gaining through just beating down on looters constantly, something you can do pretty easily solo with ranged, or even with just a few units simulating. Basically found myself netting 100-150 or so gold at times just for the battles/influence gold conversions, combine that with how much gold you can make from smithing weapons and selling wrought iron for 100+g in places like Chaikand/Myzea, and Crude Iron for around 50-60g+ in the said same places, and looters/bandits give plenty of weapons that give hardwood/wrought iron/crude iron, you've got a really easy/solid way of making gold, and farming stats in the early game overall. Plus, no penalties now relationship wise really for leaving a kingdom as a mercenary at that.

[GamingWithSilvertail]

You're a merc.

You want proper influence> Pledge yourself as a vassal.

Mercs shouldnt get high influence and imho shouldnt get influence at all.

[Panta Rhei]

Originally posted by Lunar Shower:

Plus, no penalties now relationship wise really for leaving a kingdom as a mercenary at that.

I tested it just now, it still gave me the penalty.

Also maybe I'm doing something wrong then, because I find it really hard to make money as merc, I usually just do quests and hunt bandits for doing 3 or 4 caravans and buying workshops.
Still, my main point is that it doesn't really get lucrative being a mercenary because this influence drop is too much of a pain in the ass.

Also I didn't knew that donating trops and prisoners to garisons made your influence higher, I'll test with that later.

[Panta Rhei]

Originally posted by NaliWarcow:

You're a merc.

You want proper influence> Pledge yourself as a vassal.

Mercs shouldnt get high influence and imho shouldnt get influence at all.

imo rn the influence system is kinda messed up. You will lose it if you get out of your faction, and being a merc should also be more balanced as being an actual option to play the game, not just a step on the social ladder.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Panta Rhei:

Originally posted by Lunar Shower:

Plus, no penalties now relationship wise really for leaving a kingdom as a mercenary at that.

Also I didn't knew that donating trops and prisoners to garisons made your influence higher, I'll test with that later.

I've found it to be pretty useful early on, I had around 30 influence with -5 (or a day) with 400 as a daily merc payment. All funded by harassing looters.

[Tenshin51]

Just farm looters then dump them to your contractor castle viola you gain influence. You can also dump some enemy lords to gain influence but the game doesn't give a damnn what quality unit are there. The game values quantity capture a bunch of looters and you will gain more influence.

W/ merc influence it only increase your merc payment. This is a good way to train your army then gain influence with looter.

Influence increase it's value if you are vassal or a lord of an independent kingdom w/ Merc it's ok to loose influence unless you are dependent on merc payment.

[JaugerPlays]

I am trying to figure out why influence as a merc is even important. Yes it drops fast but a merc cannot spend influence to gather armies or propose/support anything in the kingdoms. I like having the extra money as a merc. What is influence even used for as a merc? Am I missing something?

[VoiD]

It doesn't drop at all.

You don't get to use influence, influence is money, each point = the amount you agreed, the faster it "depletes" the faster you're getting paid.

[Jo (Val)]

Being a merc is not all that profittable, unless you go all out to war along with the faction you merc for & defeat their enemies. Cashed some nice Denars that way. What annoys me personally, is that we can't form Armies as mercs - as forming Armies is the main way how to raise Leadership skill in an efficient way. (Aside of keeping morale above 70; used to be 80 after the game's release). Even if you could form the Armies from your companions only, it'd still be something.

Imo, mercing could be a nice way for the player to try their hands on wars, without pledging as a vassal to someone & then being forced to break said pledge, once they decide to form their own Kingdom. But as it is now - too limited.

[Bananaedmonkey]

the idea is that as a merc influence converts to cash.

[Tempered]

I've made over 200,000 as a merc just helping the southern empire fight against the Aeseri in about 2 hours of game play. Go into enemy territory and pick off the small groups of enemies that are running around recruiting new troops. You can usually find groups of 60 or less.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by Jan (jodarkrider):

Being a merc is not all that profittable, unless you go all out to war along with the faction you merc for & defeat their enemies. Cashed some nice Denars that way. What annoys me personally, is that we can't form Armies as mercs - as forming Armies is the main way how to raise Leadership skill in an efficient way. (Aside of keeping morale above 70; used to be 80 after the game's release). Even if you could form the Armies from your companions only, it'd still be something.

Imo, mercing could be a nice way for the player to try their hands on wars, without pledging as a vassal to someone & then being forced to break said pledge, once they decide to form their own Kingdom. But as it is now - too limited.

It's hands down the best way to make money in the game besides owning several towns or exploiting infinite cash in some way.

Got a 230 contract with battania the moment I hit the first clan level in my current playthrough, they were at war with 3 factions, I went from being broke and struggling to get 3k to start trading to 150k in no time, every time I delivered a haul of prisoners I'd get over 7k daily wages, plus all the loot and lord ransom, trading, fighting and opening workshops/caravans pale in comparisson.

The next level I became a vassal and I never felt poorer in this game.

[Jo (Val)]

Originally posted by VoiD:

It's hands down the best way to make money in the game besides owning several towns or exploiting infinite cash in some way.

Got a 230 contract with battania the moment I hit the first clan level in my current playthrough, they were at war with 3 factions, I went from being broke and struggling to get 3k to start trading to 150k in no time, every time I delivered a haul of prisoners I'd get over 7k daily wages, plus all the loot and lord ransom, trading, fighting and opening workshops/caravans pale in comparisson.

The next level I became a vassal and I never felt poorer in this game.

Yeah, as I said, when you go out warring while mercing (ie. you defeat the enemy lords and get your sweet sweet loot), that nets some nice money. It's how I made my first million, then went off to make my own Kingdom. It's really more on the side of not being able to call Armies (even if it was only made from your own companions) while mercing, to get that Leadership skill high, that I see as an issue & unnecessary limitation of the merc functionality.

[JaugerPlays]

Right, I knew that it is converted to money and the more influence you have = more money. but keeping influence is a waste of time for a merc. Kingdoms don't want to pay mercs that sit around doing nothing. I think the mechanic is perfect the way it is. Sure, you lose influence fast but think about it from their point of view. A merc that likes fighting looters rather than raiding and battling their enemy will make less money. I should have added up the amount of cash I made in the last in-game 3 months. I had over 50 influence for at least a couple weeks making 2000/day after paying my units, usually catching nobles and donating them and their units to strong castles for extra influence. I even switched to different empires once they made peace. The benefits of a vassal are great, but I like getting my party over 100 units before joining an empire. I also like to jump around the map a bit helping the west, then north, then south gaining a healthy mixture of troops while getting paid for it.

[madracc00n]

It is broken u can make way too much gold way too fast if u donate prisoners for influence.