However, the VP score for a new region is worked out on a sliding scale, and is less than 1 VP per space. A region with an insufficient knight force will be picked apart by its rapacious neighbours for a net loss of VPs. Of course, if you can create a region including about half the board just before the game ends, you will do well. One popular tactic is to cut a region in half, creating a neutral regions which is subtracted from the victim's VP total. This is actually less painful than simply substracting a VP for each cut off space would have been.
Political cards can be very powerful.
The lucky winner can look through one of the two stacks of political cards and choose the one he likes. There are cards giving you gold, victory points, a treaty or a traitor. When played, at the moment you choose which phase to go for, a treaty puts two adjacent regions at peace. It might be worthwhile, even at that price. The traitor card is the most powerful, in my opinion, causing an opponent's knight to change sides, at the moment you choose phase, moving to an adjacent area you control.