Use 2 PC to increase might by 2.
Send a letter to the King of Primeria asking if they would like to make a defensive alliance in case the Jarls come down to raid us.
Edit: I also use my 4 unassigned Influence to increase the clout of the Technocrats by 1.
(I would still like to know exactly how much Influence is needed to make an AI nation friendlier to me.)
I'll do an action post in a few minutes, going to answer questions first.
Emral: There's no need to increase the Clout of the Technocrats just yet because currently the Technocrats control 100% of the non-ruler Clout in your faction! Huzzah! This is an action you'll only need to take once other power bases start appearing in your faction (happens by event). In other words I'm going to leave these unassigned and let you change the action. You can technically use this to create a new power base in your or another's faction, though (they'll start with 1 Clout, stolen from whatever the primary power base is).
Improving attitudes of NPC nations involves adjusting the favour of their primary power bases. We can assume for the moment that all NPC nations have homogenous power bases (i.e. there is only one power base and it composes 100% of their non-ruler Clout). This may change as the game progresses. It costs Influence * the total Clout of the
power base to change that power base's opinion of you up a step.
For instance, the Conclave of Sitra is a Theocratic Bureaucracy with 6 Infrastructure (pre-razing) and therefore a total of 6 Clout. As a bureaucracy, 20% of the Clout belongs to the ruler (1.2) and 80% to the Theocrats (4.8 ). It therefore takes 4.8 Influence to bring Sitra's theocracy power base up a notch to being
Pleased with you. Another 4.8 Influence will take them up to
Friendly, the prerequisite stage for an alliance offer. This accrues over multiple turns and stops once the power base's relations hit
Fanatic, so if you use 2 Influence/turn on them they'll go up a relation stage on turn 3.
Given this, I'm going to
enable partial Influence spending (using partial PC spending) in the same way that one can do partial spending of Wealth. This will have an effect on the NPC nation of Sitra (who have Influence bonuses from their govt choices).
Secret plots and backstabbing are, Diplomacy-like, all part of the game. Unlike Diplomacy I slightly prefer having people post their actions non-simultaneously because that simply encourages you to make threats before you take actions. I will accept secret orders and negotiations by PM, though they will generally cease to be secret once acted upon.
And yeah, 1 Might maps well to 1000 spearmen. Feel free to adjust it up or down by how 'elite' the troops are.