This post is focused on how to quickly and efficiently create a power structure of mortal influence, allowing you to have more sway with Downtime Actions, as well as interact with plot and work against other characters.
The first choice is what areas of influence you want to have your fingers in (examples will be provided in a future post). The second is if you're going to be using Allies and/or Retainers to represent your web of influence. The second question is often the easiest to determine, if you happen to be Carthian or Invictus, as they both receive one of them at half-price.
Allies have the benefit of being a nebulous group of individuals, making them slightly more difficult to counter, and extremely difficult to remove your sway over. Their main drawback is that they require a Social Challenge (Manipulation + Persuasion + Allies) in order to do anything that is considered an "unreasonable request" (MET WoD, p.139). This pool is capped by your Humanity (MET Requiem, p.265), which means that influential Carthians need to maintain a higher Humanity.
Retainers, on the other hand, have the benefit of doing what you ask of them without much question. However, they suffer from only being a lone individual, easier to counter or remove.
The Three Month XP Route
This step-by-step is for all characters, and does not factor in the half-cost benefit of certain Covenants. Those Covenants could effectively double-purchase what is presented here. In the Camarilla Global Chronicle (of which I've been a member for several years), each month your character is in play, you can earn up to 8 xp with the attendance of two games and using Downtime actions (which should be your bread-and-butter for building your power base).
Month One-
The first month, assuming that you begin play with no previous mortal pawns, is just to get the ball rolling, and starting small. For 8 xp, you can buy four One-dot Retainers or Allies (2 xp each), giving you a range of areas that you are capable of utilizing. There are benefits to both spreading them out over a number of areas and also collecting them in a single facet of mortal influence, however, you will probably wish to cast your net as wide as possible, and worm your fingers into as many aspects as possible.
Month Two-
Focus on two of your previously purchased Retainers or Allies, and boost them to a Two-dot version, for 4 xp each.
Month Three-
Repeat the process of Month Two, giving you a stable base of four Two-dot Retainers or Allies, either representing a diverse capacity to influence mortal events, or giving you a stable "power bloc" in one or two areas of mortal society.
After the third month, you should have a fairly tangible idea on where you want to expand or strengthen your control over mortal affairs.
On Combat Retainers
Many players have a notion that they can spend a quantity of xp and get a cheap "goon squad" which they can then push at another PC and eliminate them through violence, such as by spending 10 xp and getting five One-dot Retainers with little more on their sheets than combat skills.
Whereas this is effective in certain instances, Requiem has far too many variables for this to work as often or as well as one would hope. A few common Disciplines (Obfuscate: Cloak of Night springs to mind) would render your "goon squad" ineffective, and only serve to bring you to getting caught for an attempted assassination. There is also a section in the MET World of Darkness rulebook that further addresses "Downtime Kills" (p.174).
Also, players shouldn't be writing the sheets of their Retainers, either their Storytellers should create them, or they should be taken from the list of Stock NPC Retainers to accurately represent believable characters.
However, such a cadre is quite efficient at dealing with NPC threats, eliminating the Merit NPC's of a rival, or safeguarding your Haven, providing additional security beyond what is provided with the Haven Security Merit.
Next up... "Areas of Influence"
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