Manor Lords: How to raise influence

How to increase influence in Manor Lords is something you want to figure out pretty quickly, regardless of which game mode you’re playing. You need influence to claim new territory, and you need new territory to supply your settlement and increase your status with rival lords. Manor Lords is happy to let you just guess at how influence works, though, with no clear guidance for how to increase it.

Our Manor Lords influence guide breaks down how to get more influence and the best ways to do it quickly.

What is influence in Manor Lords?

Influence is something you accrue through specific actions and spend to claim new lands. It sounds like some kind of status indicator, but it has no influence over anything other than what lands you can bring under your influence. There’s no negative side to spending influence, so you don’t need to hoard it or dole it out with prudence.

Claiming a new bit of territory costs 1,000 influence if it’s unowned and 2,000 if another ruler has it, though you’ll undoubtedly run into conflict in the latter scenario as well.

Unlocked development points apply to all your settlements in a playthrough, so you won't have to go through unlocking them all again.

How to get influence in Manor Lords

Slavic Magic’s strategy game gives you several avenues for earning influence, but only a few of them are actually worth your time. Enacting policies boosts your influence, but only by a few dozen points. The early access launch version only has a few policies, which aren’t especially helpful, so don’t waste your time with those.

The best ways to get influence are tied to your church and your manor, but there is another useful method.

Defeat bandits

One reliable way to get influence is to defeat bands of roving bandits. They’ll set up camp in neighboring territories and demolish resources, and you get about 20 influence for defeating them. You’ll need a fairly decent army to stand a chance, so aim for taking a squad of at least 10 people with you, just to be safe.

If you have extra wealth, consider hiring mercenaries to do the job for you.

Build a manor

Constructing a manor gives you about 100 influence. You can only have one in each region under your control, so it’s not a constant or repeatable source of influence. It is vital to another, better form, though.

Build a church

It might seem like “build a church” is the solution to everything in Manor Lords, but it is a medieval Europe simulator after all. Building a church gives you a decent influence boost outright, but after you build your manor, it also lets you do something else.

Establish tithes

With a manor and church, you can open the tax menu and implement a tithe. This is you paying to the church – not you getting resources in return. Once per month, you’ll send a set amount of your surplus food to the church and get influence in return. You’ll want to adjust the amount depending on how prosperous you are in a given month, and I don’t recommend tithing much in your first winter. With no available food resources during that period, it’s easy to accidentally run out.

You can also game the system a bit, if your approval is high enough. Enact the fasting policy to reduce how much food people need, then pump that extra food into your tithes to get more influence.

Once you get a new bit of territory, repeat the manor and church routine to start recouping some of your spent influence.

For more Manor Lords help, check out our beginner's guide, how to raise your settlement level, and recommendations for what to build first in the city-building strategy game.