Influence & Claims
The answer
Formula
~350 influence per camp; claims cost 1,000 (neutral) / 2,000 (enemy). Milestones add 100 per level.
Influence is the currency of expansion, and it has exactly one thing it buys: the right to claim another region. This calculator converts bandit camps cleared into influence earned, and prices that against what a claim actually costs.
The two numbers that matter
A neutral region costs about 1,000 influence to claim; an enemy region about 2,000. Clearing a bandit camp pays roughly 350 per group, which puts a neutral claim at about three camps and an enemy claim at six.
That ratio is why early militia is one of the best investments in the game rather than a defensive expense. A spear militia costs one iron ore per man and, fought properly from a defensive stance, clears camps without casualties. Bandit camps are a renewable influence deposit that also removes a raiding threat.
The other sources
Influence got noticeably cheaper to farm in the current Beta. Settlement-level milestones grant 100 influence and scale as you level, and a Wooden Church grants 100 on completion. Neither requires a fight, and both are things a growing settlement was going to do anyway. The calculator's camp figure is a floor, not a ceiling.
There is also a stone-church trick worth knowing: a small stone church run on high maintenance converts rubble stone into influence, which turns a surplus building material into expansion currency.
Spending it well
Timing: settle new regions in February or March, never September. A settlement founded in autumn arrives with no growing season ahead of it and spends its first year on the back foot. If your treasury allows, paying 500–750 for extra starting resources and settling in January is the strongest opening a second region can get.
Placement: site new settlements for defence and reinforcement routes, not purely for resources. A rich region you cannot reinforce is a region you will eventually lose, and a region that loses all of its population is gone for the rest of the campaign. There is no rebuilding it.
Strategy: sometimes the correct claim is not the best region but the one that blocks the AI from a cluster of bandit camps, denying them the same influence engine you are using. And you do not always have to pay: winning a contested battle for a region can seize it outright, without the usual influence cost.
Two follow-through rules once a region is yours: garrison it immediately, and do not let your home region's iron mine run dry before the new territory can cover the shortfall.
A plan for your second region
Working backwards from the numbers gives you a schedule rather than a hope. A neutral claim wants 1,000 influence: call that three bandit camps, or two camps plus a Wooden Church and a settlement milestone you were going to hit regardless. Militia capable of clearing a camp without losses wants iron, spears and a defensive stance. None of it is expensive. All of it takes a season to assemble.
So the realistic sequence runs like this. Secure the first winter. Mine whatever iron the starting region has, arm a spear regiment, and clear camps through the following summer. Claim in February or March of the next year, with the extra starting resources bought if the treasury allows. That is a two-year plan on a normal map, and settlements that try to compress it usually end up claiming a region they cannot defend or feed.
What influence cannot buy
A large banked surplus catches people out here: influence claims territory and nothing else. It does not hire mercenaries, settle the region once claimed, or pay for the buildings that go on it. Those come from your treasury, a separate pot filled by taxation and trade.
A claim you cannot afford to actually settle is worse than no claim, because an unpopulated or under-defended region is a liability you now have to garrison. Check the treasury before you spend the influence, not after.
