Influence Range

So how far does an influence allow you to effect? Do your influences only effect individual cities, like York or Scarborough? Or do they stretch to entire region? I notice that the rules for network seem to indicate that influences are only useful in a given city, and then can be stretched to other cities via network.
If this is true, does network 3 cover the entire domain map, as that would be a small area, or do you need to get to 4 or even 5 to cover that large an area?

I can see it either way. Traditionally in modern nights you pretty much have influence in the entire game area, and only need to worry about expanding it when you travel to another city or want to do something on a statewide level. But I enjoy the idea that you may need to buy the same influence in several places due to the nature of communications in the dark ages, or buy the Network background.

The dynamics of how influence are used and how often they can be applied to a given problem will change dramatically depending on how we do this. I like the idea of regions being totally wild because no one has claimed them and therefore no one has any influence in that area. However, it also means that PvP combat will happen less often as we will be working in different areas entirely. STs have also mentioned that tops spots in influence are limited, but this seems to make less sense in a system where each city has its only set of influences.

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Network
• Level One: The Network covers two distinct cities.
• Level Two: The Network covers three distinct cities.
• Level Three: The Network covers a small geographical area or four distinct cities.
• Level Four: The Network covers a significant geographical area or five distinct cities.
• Level Five: The Network covers a large, diverse geographical area or six distinct cities.

My understanding was the influences covered the whole game region, but there are benefits from being able to act in other cities, as this game will involve extensive connections with the greater world (as has already been seen). That is where network comes in very handy.

If that is the cause, should network actually be covering countries, or is it truly only for a single city in an outlying region? Meaning if a foreign NPC wanted to use their influence here, would they have to focus on a specific area, like York, rather than the entire region?

First: network doesn't include influences That goes into fame.

However it does include a lot of useful things, like retainers who may have influences! And money, n stuff.

On topic though, my guess is that if this NPC (say he is from france) had 1 dot of network, they could select the City of York and do their work there through these minions. If they had 2 dots they would select York and Scarborough. If they then put 3 dots into this same area they could effect all of Yorkshire (small geographic area). If they kept putting all of their network into England they could probably effect significant parts of england by the time they had network 5.

Fame is not listed on the bakgrounds old and new section in the character creation boards. This may be an oversight, but I simply assumed Fame was not allowed. Can an ST correct this if it is not true.
However, after re reading the Network section I am surprised to find that it indeed does not include influences, but does include allies and contacts. This seems strange as allies and contacts are meant to work with influences, so their inclusion seems strange without influences. It becomes especially weird if you can somehow transfer retainers that also have influences. Is this an oversight? If not then I need to rethink the point of Network entirely.

Influence covers the entire playable area

Network covers cities not counties, but a county may be under the control of a city, this is case by case. If an NPC wanted to affect a region in York their network would only work on a particular city.

Fame is one of the backgrounds, it's an oversight that will be fixed. Network should include influences as well, I'll add it in.