How does influence work?

[Dennemi³]

I know that bordering a nation, encircling them even, and building railways/factories in them steadily, slowly increases your influence, but is there any better way to grow your influence?

Somehow AI Prussia took Saxony from my sphere in 4 years or so even though when I play as Prussia increasing relations, allying, and investing a ton of pounds into them brings my influence up by like 0.3/month, help

And later in game using those methods it took me a solid 30 years to get Egypt into my sphere as Austria Hungary by essentially industrializing their entire country

[ShinyCarman]

There is an meter you can use to gain influence way faster in the political tab.

[Dennemi³]

Originally posted by ShinyCarman:

There is an meter you can use to gain influence way faster in the political tab.

Specify? I haven't noticed it

[ShinyCarman]

Go to the Diplomacy tab

[whatamidoing]

Diplomacy, not politics. In the country listing in the bottom left, you can click on the boxes in the column labeled "Prio" (influence priority) to set the priority for influence. If you don't set any, then your influence will be split over every single eligible country, which is very slow, to say the least. If your influence with a country is at 100, then any priority you put to it will use your influence to reduce the influence of other countries. It won't use any if there's nothing to reduce, either, so it's a good idea to set all your spherelings to a high priority.

[ShinyCarman]

you should see the 8 great powers and then below are little countries, next to there names you should see a blue bar. If you click on the bar it will add one yellow piece to it and then if you max out the bar it will max out the influence you are adding.

[bri]

It works poorly and is the primary reason I barely ever play the game...

[ShinyCarman]

?

[whatamidoing]

Originally posted by bri:

It works poorly and is the primary reason I barely ever play the game...

It works for me, what's your problem with it?

[ShinyCarman]

I think he only presses on it once so it is really slow to gain influence

[Dennemi³]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

Originally posted by bri:

It works poorly and is the primary reason I barely ever play the game...

It works for me, what's your problem with it?

Maybe he thinks the system isn't in-depth enough

[bri]

Originally posted by Dennemi³:

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

It works for me, what's your problem with it?

Maybe he thinks the system isn't in-depth enough

It's tedious and not fun micromanagement.

[a.k.a DMDonahue]

Originally posted by bri:

Originally posted by Dennemi³:

Maybe he thinks the system isn't in-depth enough

It's tedious and not fun micromanagement.

not everything is meant to be fun, it is a form of soft power.

[bri]

Originally posted by a.k.a DMDonahue:

Originally posted by bri:

It's tedious and not fun micromanagement.

not everything is meant to be fun, it is a form of soft power.

I understand what it is, I just find the system so unenjoyable that I quit the game as soon as I'm forced to deal with it because I play games to relax and enjoy myself. One reason I quit WoW all those years ago was them turning it into a daily task list instead of the original open sandbox of do what you feel like doing that particular day.

[whatamidoing]

The only time I find influence kind of micromanagey is the start of a Germany run. Usually it's just set to a high priority and forget.

[a.k.a DMDonahue]

Originally posted by bri:

Originally posted by a.k.a DMDonahue:

not everything is meant to be fun, it is a form of soft power.

I understand what it is, I just find the system so unenjoyable that I quit the game as soon as I'm forced to deal with it because I play games to relax and enjoy myself. One reason I quit WoW all those years ago was them turning it into a daily task list instead of the original open sandbox of do what you feel like doing that particular day.

no country besides Germany is forced to deal with spheres though