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Regional Influence is an automatically-generated measure of how powerful your nation is in your region. It is only relevant in a gameplay sense, and has no impact on roleplay. Influence was created in 2006 in response to the ability of players to eject large numbers of other nations and password regions unchecked. These actions contributed to the total destruction of many regions, an act known as "griefing." Influence, at its core, is designed to protect regions from this fate.

2. How do I get influence?

Influence is gained by every nation at every update, provided that nation has logged in at least once in the last week. If the nation is more than one week inactive, influence remains constant. For most nations, influence increases at a rate of one Soft Power Disbursement Rating (SPDR) point per update. For a WA nation, the influence gain is one plus its endorsement count, every update. For example, a WA nation with three endorsements would gain eight influence points per day, whereas a non-WA nation or a WA nation with no endorsements would gain only two influence points per day.

3. What can I use influence for?

Influence can be used to eject and ban nations or password regions. A nation's influence also protects it (to an extent) from ejection or banning by a delegate or Regional Officer. There are no other uses for influence.

4. Who can use influence?

Delegates and Regional Officers with Border Control authority can use influence. It costs a delegate one half of the target nation's influence to eject and ban them, and one third of the target nation's influence to simply eject them. The cost for Regional Officers is twice as high as the cost for delegates, so it costs a BC-enabled Regional Officer all of the target nation's influence to eject and ban them, and two thirds to simply eject them.

Nations with Border Control authority can also use influence to password regions. To set a visible password, a delegate or Regional Officer must spend 20 points per nation in the region, with a minimum of 200 points. To set an invisible password, the cost is 40 points per nation in the region, with a minimum of 400 points. Removing a password requires no influence.

Founders can eject, ban, and password at no cost to their influence.

I thought I had enough influence to eject/ban/password, but I ran out! Why? Skip to #11 for a possible explanation.

5. What do the ratings mean?

The ratings are as follows, from lowest to highest.

These are a measure of relative influence. In other words, they show how much influence you have compared to the total influence present in the region. A nation residing in a very small region might have very little influence, but have a high rating. Conversely, a nation residing in an extremely large region might have a great deal of influence, but have a very low rating, because they have a very small portion of the overall influence pie.

Before a region passes its first major update, all resident nations will be displayed as Hermits.

6. How much influence do I have?

The easiest way to check your absolute (non-relative) influence value is to go to your Rank page and click on the link for Influence. This number represents the exact amount of influence you have in all regions combined. It is possible to have influence in multiple regions at once, but generally speaking, the vast majority or all of your influence will be from one region.

7. What is Regional Power?

A region's Regional Power rating is a measure of the total influence present in the region, relative to the sum of all influence in the world (496M points as of July 22, 2021). The ratings, along with percentages of the world's influence and an estimation of their absolute influence values, are as follows.

0% to 0.01% (roughly 0 to 50k points): Low
0.01% to 0.05% (roughly 50k to 250k points): Moderate
0.05% to 0.2% (roughly 250k to 1M points): High
0.2% to 1% (roughly 1M to 5M points): Very High
1% and up (roughly 5M points or more): Extremely High

Regional Power is not displayed in regions with a Low rating.

It usually takes many years to achieve a rating of Extremely High, and only a small number of regions have ever reached that point, including some of the game-created Feeder and Sinker regions. As time passes and the cumulative value of the world's influence increases, achieving higher Regional Power ratings grows more difficult, and some regions fall to lower ratings. Over the course of 2020 alone, the nominal threshold for Very High increased by 200k points, or 28%.

8. How much influence does my region have?

The easiest way to determine a region's absolute influence is by going to any nation's Influence census page, clicking the "Other" link at the bottom, and adding the region to the chart. This will tell you the average influence of all its nations. Multiply that number by the region's population to find the total influence. The population number used for this calculation must be the nation count at 0335 EST / EDT. When finding total influence retroactively, population numbers on regional History pages can be used.

On rare occasions, there will be a region with more influence than its Regional Power rating would suggest. This happens when high-influence nations move in from other regions and bring up the average. A region's Regional Power rating only takes into account influence from that particular region. However, the average influence number includes any influence left over from resident's past regions. The effect of this is usually negligible.

9. Can I use my influence in other regions?

No, your influence in one region cannot be used to eject, ban, or password in another region. However, there is some amount of carry-over. If you have influence in one region, then move to another permanently, you will have more influence in the second region than you would had you started from scratch. This is especially the case if you have more endorsements in the new region than you did in the old one (ie, your influence gain is higher than it was).

10. Why am I losing influence?

There are four possible reasons for this:

a) You ceased to exist. Nations deleted for inactivity immediately begin to lose influence rapidly (though not as fast as nations that leave their regions). Additionally, when a nation ceases to exist, all influence it holds from other regions is instantly erased. Thus, if a high-influence nation is ejected from Region A, ceases to exist in The Rejected Realms, and is revived the next day, it will have no influence left from Region A.

b) You left your region for at least one update. Leaving a region briefly does not cost you influence, but if you leave the region when it updates, you begin to lose influence. If you are gone for a long time, you will probably lose all your influence in that region. Influence decay following a permanent move is calculated as follows: four points lost after the first day (two updates), nine points after the second day, and fourteen after the third. From then on, the day-to-day loss increases by eight points per day. For example, a nation that left its region two weeks ago will have lost 705 points, provided it had that much to begin with. Meanwhile, it will have begun to accumulate influence in its new region.

c) You are in a Feeder or Sinker. These include the five Pacifics, Lazarus, Osiris, Balder, and The Rejected Realms. Influence in these regions expires after roughly six months, so after spending half a year there, your influence may flatline. If you have more endorsements than you did when you arrived, it may continue to increase for a while. If you have fewer endorsements, your influence will begin to fall. The exact formula for influence decay in feeders and sinkers is unknown.

The influence of a nation residing in a feeder or sinker will not decay below 4015 points, which is the influence accumulated in half a year by a nation with ten endorsements. A nation with ten endorsements or fewer may accumulate this much influence before plateauing.

d) You spent influence without realizing it. If you are a delegate or Regional Officer and you ejected or banned a nation by accident (or on purpose), it cost you influence. The cost does not show up until after the next update.

11. Why did my influence change between updates? or, Why did I run out of influence for Border Control actions?

Both of these phenomena are due to the "influence advance." The amount of influence displayed for a nation after it updates is actually the amount of influence it will have after the next update, provided nothing changes before then. In other words, a nation's true influence level is the displayed value, minus its endorsement count, minus one. If that nation's endorsement count increases before its next update, its displayed influence will as well. Conversely, if the endorsement count drops, or the nation resigns from the WA and resets its count to zero, it will lose as many influence points as it had endorsements. A nation's influence level at one update is not "locked in" until after the next update.

For most players, the influence advance is inconsequential. However, it can have serious effects for regional officials and military gameplayers. If a twenty-endorsement delegate has an influence score of 100 and wants to eject a nation with a score of 300, they should be able to do so. Once the influence advance is taken into account, that delegate's true influence score is only 79, and they will not be able to eject any nation with a score of over 237.

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