Just what are you suppose to influence with? Just any skill in influence or what? I've read both chelp and help files but they really don't help.

For village influencing depending on your city/commune rank you gain skills that allow you to sway a villager to your citys/communes cause. There are three skills per commune/city

And what if you're just a blow joe at CR 1?

Then you can't help with village influences, except by debating, diverting, analyzing denizens, and fighting.

So pretty much I'm useless for influencing...

Right now, yes. Analyze though is only 35 lessons into Influence if you want that.

Then you're stuck. Granted, you can outdebate opposing influencers, and the more skill you have in Influence, the better your 'attacks' are, (or so I've heard)... but there's a single vital skill in the Influence skillset, that can make you extremely useful, even at CR1.

Divert.

It stops a influence attempt on a denizen cold, forcing them to start over, giving those with the proper cityrank on your side the chance to start a influence attempt of their own.


(EDIT: My, a lot of people posted before I could. And I forgot about Analyze!)

Probably not really thought much of because those with the proper rank can just run around and trying to influence the villagers because if they arent influencable they will say who theyre for at the time and if theyre not well you start the influence battle. Also, no one pays attention really to those who do stand around analyzing, and plus analyze doesnt show who the villager is for, just that they are contemplating where their loyalties lie.

So you could analyze and tell your commune/city who it looks like the village is going to sway to? Gives a boost to the efforts, eh?

Analyze will only tell you if the person is uninfluenced, smug from winning a battle or if they are 'contimplating where their loyalties lie'. Doesnt say who theyre for, just that they are contemplating someone. You can of course keep an eye out for when they are laidback, but most people just run around trying to influence everyone and disregard the person standing there.

You can help in Influencing by doing Comm quests as well. They do help.

Oooh! Good point, forgot about that.

I wish I had seen this earlier, maybe I could have been some help in Southgard. I still don't completely understand how the system works.

Not true at ALL. The nice thing about influencing is just how useful people with no skills can be, especially if they are from a city, and especially if the influencing is peaceful. If you are from a city, offer to be someone's personal chanter. There's nothing easier than spamming chant on someone, and it's unbelievably useful. You just have to figure out how to stay with them - I leap/sprint too much (which loses followers) to have someone follow me, but I'm not from a city, so I don't really need someone following

The other really easy way is to stay with the village leader, who is 99% of the time in a sanctuary, and debate any enemy who enters. Other ways are to find an enemy who is holding a permanent sanctuary and sit there, either using the Analyze skill in influencing if you have it (only 16 lessons in), and tell your commune/city when the villager becomes 'laidback' or when the person you are with (or anyone else) to start influencing the villager. If the villager responds with their 'But I'm already thinking about (whatever org)!' message (already influenced), or the villager brushes off all attempts at conversation (villager won a battle), or the villager condescendingly pats the influencer on the head (villager uninfluenceable), the villager cannot be influenced. Otherwise, tell your city/commune immediately.

During peaceful village influencing, if you can analyze, you can run around looking for a villager that is 'laidback,' 'stubborn,' or 'willful.' These mean the villager can be influenced (second two mean someone already started influencing them). Finding villagers to influence is like, 80% of the work of swaying a village. Finding them and having them influenced before your opponents know is 10%, and actually winning the stupid divert / divert / divert / divert battles is the boring / stupid last 10%. If you don't want to keep running around randomly, you can stick with a single named villager, or stay in a single area full of lesser villagers, like one of the village's fields or a part of the village's mines.

Or you can do comm quests, or help with the fighting. Even a newbie has web/sleep to whore, or if you're a fighter, you can just stab them a lot. It doesn't take much skill to be useful for damage/deepwounds as a warrior.

Firstly, Shorlen.

Influencing, peaceful or not, is one of the biggest things that occur to which a novice can jump in and heavily help for their nation. While it's hard to win a debate against a big player as a low level (low ego) it IS possible and VERY helpful. Analyze, meanwhile, is an effective means of watching for villagers to see if they are availible. Bah, simply being a set of eyes to watch for enemy movements, new demesnes, group attacks, influence attempts, ext, can make or break a revolt and ALL of which can be done by a novice fresh from the portal.

The #1 BARNONE best thing to do is to be VOCAL!

I'll repeat that:

The #1 BARNONE best thing to do is to be VOCAL!

If you see an open villager, even if they are just a 'townsman' or 'farmer' then call out on CT IMMEDIATELY and tell them they're 'free' or 'laidback' and you're with them. If you're nation is active you should be getting teleports soon after.

If you see the enemy come in and start influencing someone call out on CT that 'such and such is being influenced where I am'. Also tell them if the villager was taken (when they realize they want X nation after all!). Even if you were slow it gives the city knowledge of what's going on.

Meanwhile learn the style of your nation. Learn the names of the major fighters, the major influencers, and the major leaders. Learn the lingo your nation uses and follow suit (until you know it, don't be silent: just say what you think works until you know). Even if you don't know WHAT'S going on, get in there and start trying to sort things out.

Oh yes, and, from what I've seen, asking "What should I do?" Actually doesn't bring much to bring you in. A MUCH better thing to do is to look at yourself and go "What CAN I do?". Yes.. there's always something you can do, even alone:

If you can organize, well, Organize.
If you aren't a leader, then Influence.
If you can't find a villager or too low a rank, Fight.
If you're not skilled, Debate.
If you are ego broken, Analyze.
If you don't have the skill or ran out of villagers, Chant.
If you can't Chant, Watch.
And EVERYONE can Watch and Learn.


Simply find yourself within that spectrum, go in the village, and do it. Yes, running around chanting any citymate influencing is a good thing overall. Yes, debating every non-ally you see (who's the enemy? Anyone attacking a city mate) is a good thing. Yes, constantly spewing out "SoandSo lost a debate!" and "The Farmer is laidback" is a Very Good Thing in the overall sense.

Eventually, your nation should take notice and SHOULD lead you to where you'll be most useful. Don't expect absolute kindness, since everyone's so busy they may forget their manners, though. A gruff "Chant this guy!" or a "leave them alone" may hurt but it's that person's way of bringing you into the team and showing you how to work with your nation. Follow suit, learn 'why' things are done that way, and keep at it. Eventually, you'll get the hang of the nation's ways and the nation will get the hang of having another member around.

Lastly, revolts are probably the #1 way of earning city rank, so the more useful you are, the more useful you'll become.

And with that, I'm done my babble.

This is true EVERYWHERE (as far as I know), since it's so insanely sensible. If you feel useless the first time you're at a village influencing despite helping in any way you can think of, well, you'll probably get a favour out of it. The second time? Maybe again. But the third time, you'll probably be CR2 (takes two favours), and then you can influence the easy denizens, and feel more useful.

To be honest though, finding influencable denizens for your major influencers is the most actually useful thing you can do, even though it doesn't feel like it.

Thanks for the info!! Next time there's a village up for influencing and I'm around, I'll remember what ya'll said.