Contribution points (CPs) are the very key to unlock useful functions throughout the gameplay. They are kind of action- or ability-points on the worldmap and can be primarily spend there. If you redo your decision of investing them, the full amount will be restored - there is no way to loose CPs completely.

Contribution Points are counted familywise, so every character of one account has access to whole CPs earned so far.

The CPs are shown in the upper left next to a characters level with the simplified symbol of a medal:


First you have the combat skill points and their exp bar. Followed by the energy with it's actual charwise amount.
At last the avaible amount from the actual maximum of CPs with the exp-progressbar.
In this example we already invested 55 CPs elsewhere and 1 CP is left for possible usage.

Here the maximum amount is 406, while only 2 CPs are available (updated HUD).


Hint: Hovering the mouse over this small icon would give you at least a vague information about, where ou already spent your CPs in.

CPs are used for the following:


To unlock buildings in a town's map to increase storageroom, unlock crafting-facilities, increase lodging to hire more npc-workers, increase the stable for storing more horses or even rent a residence you can enter, store furniture and crafting utensiles into.

You can only invest in buildings on starting positions of rows at first.
Each building has at least one floor, up to three floors and each floor provides multiple and different functions. So you have to plan, in which building you invest your CPs to unlock the next building in a row in order to invest into this one also.
Some functions come with a different maximum of possible levels. With a level 5 armory you can craft more and better armors than with a level 2 one.

On the top right within the town's map you can filter for functions and levels of buldings.




To activate nodes starting from a town to build up a net of linked nodes, so you can further unlock ressources at them, from which you can let hired npc-worker gather them directly into their hometown's storage or to get a tradebonus within those net.



At some npcs you can rent items in exchange of CPs:

• armor, weapon, accessory, musket for hunting
  
• different sized fences (for farming)
  
• container (to get access to the storage within your own residence)

If returning a rent item or erase the investment in a node you always get the full amount of CPs back.

Since the game itself lacks on those information completely, the community had to find out by counting the earned amount together by the time.

Here is a small list, how much contribution exp are needed for each point (updated 2018-03):

Contribution Point - Exp needed per CP (cexp)

• 1 - 30 - 100 cexp
  
• 31 - 45 - 150 cexp
  
• 46 - 60 - 200 cexp
  
• 61 - 75 - 250 cexp
  
• 76 - 90 - 300 cexp
  
• 91 - 100 - 450 cexp
  
• 101 - 120 - 600 cexp
  
• 121 - 150 - 800 cexp
  
• 151 - 250 - 1000 cexp
  
• 251 - 275 - 1500 cexp
  
• 276 - 300 - 4500 cexp
  
• 301 - 325 - 8100 cexp
  
• 326 - 350 - 16,140 cexp
  
• 351 - 400 - 58,330 cexp
  
• 401 - 425 - 174,960 cexp
  
• 426 - 450 - 262,440 cexp
  
• 451 - 500 - 472,400 cexp
  
• 501+ - 606,060 cexp

As an example:
You would need
307,000 cexp for 300 CPs
3,585,250 cexp for 400 CPs and
38,140,250 contribution exp in total to achieve an amount of 500 CPs.


As you can see as well with that list, there are some extreme breakpoints in progress after reaching CP 350, 400, 450 and 500:



Some players call this "softcaps", but those aren't by definition. Those are just points of diminishing output and not really caps which means, the curve of progress gets more flat from that points on, since there are no caps for CPs so far - neither soft nor hard.
And the amount in absolute numbers of CP exp (CEP) you earn through quests or turn-ins doesn't change as well later on - you just need more of them in the late brackets.

There are different technics to get high amounts of CPs through the time.
For raising your CPs you need to earn "contribution exp" with at least one the following methods:
1) doing lots of quests/dailies
2) doing special lifeskills, which provide some byproducts to be exchanged at some npcs for
3) turning in basic ressources at some npcs like weeds, logs or rough stones
4) fighting raiders who attack some gateways at nighttime to loot "Defense Tokens" which can be turned into very small amounts of contribution exp by some npcs (you need to spent energy each turn also)
(examples below)

Byproducts are kind of additional loot and have a chance of occuring within every single process in cooking, alchemy and farming.
Which and how many byproducts to get is completely random and can't be influced by the sort or quality of process.

There are 5 different byproducts for cooking, 5 for alchemy, 5 for farming and 10 for fishing. Each is exchanged at another npc, which is shown, if you rightclick it and choose "NPC Location" to find the corresponding npc's location.
So one sort of byproduct would give you 3000 silver per stack of 5, one will give you exp for the required lifeskill, one is for some ingredients, one for consumable item and the very last is for getting some contribution exp.

Each stack of 5 of the following byproducts turned in, gives the amount of 50 contribution exp in return.


Mutant Plant
through performing "Plant Breeding" while farming, exhange them at "Villager" (Costa Farm).


Dish with Poorly Prepared Ingredients (replaced old version)
once through cooking any kind of food/drink/ingredient, exchange old stocks at "Beekeeper" (Alejandro's Farm) or "Villager" (Calpheon).


Witch's Delicacy (new version)
through cooking any kind of food/drink/ingredient, exchange them at "Nadia Rowen" (Olvia, Innkeeper).


Weakened Reagent (replaced old version)
once through alchemy of any kind of recipe, exchange old stocks at "Villager" (Heidel) or "Villager" (Florin).


Mysterious Catalyst (new version)
through alchemy of any kind of recipe, exchanged from "Bofin" (Olvia, near the storage keeper).



Fertilizer Sack
through fishing in Calpheon territory e.g., exchanged from "Camellia Loggia" (Loggia Farm).


Broken Trade Box
through fishing, exchanged from "Bahar" (Velia).

In my experience so far it doesn't count, what you produce and getting additional byproducts is purely random.

There is a big list of possible quests that can be repeated mostly on a daily base. I listed about more than 250 so far, which would be about more than 22,000 contribution exp together each day only trough quests.

Here some examples:
(contribution exp = cexp)
"Cat on the roof" - Mariano in Velia wants to get her cat back. (+50 cexp)
"Bothersome Rabbit" - Catch Lebyos from Heidel some rabbit outside the town. (+50 cexp)
"Lost Weehol/Maum/Toya" - Take this kids back to Lara in Heidel. (each +100 cexp)
"Back to Glish" - Take Eleanor Broshu to Glish. (+100 cexp)
"Balm Cart Drive" - Get Kuniteah of Shakatu a nearby Cart of Balm. (+150 cexp)
"Danio's trade Secret" - Fisher Danio in City of Valencia wants you to deliver one of the Fish Crates nearby to one of the merchants. (+200 cexp)
"[Daily] Must-Have for Desert Travelers" - Stable Keeper Nassr of City fo Valencia wants you to gather some water, thinning it and brew some Star Anise Tea with it. (+300 cexp)

Some additional hints:

• You must be very into doing quests again and again for this to be rewarding.
  
• Look closely on the quests' description's end to know, when it will be reset.
  
• Some quests are repeatable not on daily base, but every 36 hrs.
  
• Some quests may have their timer reset at 00:00, others may reset after a specific amount of hours after finished them.
  
• Some quests maybe done once per family (account) and some may be repeatable each for every char (like chimney cleaning, milking cows or carrying crates/sacks).
  
• Some dailies must be unlocked first via amity at the npc or by doing some onetime questlines before.
  
• Some dailies also provide a small amount of exp for strength, health, stamina or even exp for some special lifeskills.

You need the stacks of the basic ressources in your inventory to get the option for turning them in at some npcs to get contribution exp each stack as payout:


300 Weeds for 30 cexp
to turn in at Alustin (Velia), Lara (Heidel) or Ahr (Calpheon).


100 Rough Stone for 50 cexp
to turn in at Tranan Underfoe (Velia), Techthon (Heidel) or Ronatz (Calpheon).


100 Log for 50 cexp
to turn in at Sealus (Velia), Lebyos (Heidel) or Philiberto LiPonti (Calpheon).

During nighttime some camps or outposts are attacked from groups of raiders repeatingly from time to time. The can be defeated easily and the only loot to get are so called regional "defense tokens". Those tokens can be exchanged at some npcs in the corresponding region. Each exchange requires 3 Tokens and needs the additional investment of 3 energy for turning into 5 contribution exp.


Balenos Defense Token
Can be earned at the Western Camp (Steel Imps). Exchange them at Captain Cliff in the Western Camp.


Serendia Defense Token
Can be earned at the Northwestern Gateway (Swamp Nagas), Southwestern Gateway (Red Orcs), Southern Guard Camp (Fogans, Cultists), Eastern Gateway (Fogans, Al Rhundis) and Western Guard Camp (Swamp Nagas).
Take them to Cruhorn Wyrmsbane in Heidel or Ceasar in Glish.


Calpheon Defense Token
Can be earned at Khuruto Cave (Khurutos) and Trina Fort (Saunils) even during daytime.
Take them to Karcenov, the commander of the punitive mission against the Khurutos.

There are some milestone-quests for CPs given by the Black Spirit if you meet at least one of the following requirements:

• Finished quest: Mrs. Leight’s Letter of Introductionor (from Norma Leight at Northern Wheat Plantation)
  
• Finished quest: Choir Supporters Requestor (from Choir Leader in Calpheon)
  
• Reaching Level 36

After achieving one of this, the Black Spirit gives a quest for the first of many milestones reaching determined amounts of CP. If some of these milestones already has been reached before getting those quests, the rewards can be taken directly one after another as long as the requirements are met.

(Questname - Conditions. (Reward))
Exalted Character I - Reach 40 Contribution Points. (2x Gold Ingot 1G)
Exalted Character II - Reach 60 Contribution Points. (5x Gold Ingot 1G)
Exalted Character III - Reach 100 Contribution Points. (1x Gold Ingot 10G)
Exalted Character IV - Reach 140 Contribution Points. (3x Gold Ingot 10G)
Exalted Character V - Reach 180 Contribution Points. (5x Gold Ingot 10G)
Exalted Character VI - Reach 220 Contribution Points. (1x Gold Ingot 100G)
Exalted Character VII - Reach 260 Contribution Points. (2x Gold Ingot 100G)
Exalted Character VIII - Reach 300 Contribution Points. (3x Gold Ingot 100G)

The very last of these milestones were added just with the "Valencia" content-upgrade, which means, there can be additional milestones added in future upgrades as well.

Here a list of titles achieved through reaching determined amounts of contribution points:

(title - condition)
Helping Hand - 5 Contribution Points achieved
Sincere Contributor - 10 Contribution Points achieved
Dedicated Volunteer - 21 Contribution points achieved
Joyful Contributor - 34 Contribution points achieved
Territorially Acknowledged - 44 Contribution points achieved
Recognized by All - 51 Contribution points achieved
Acknowledged by All - 67 Contribution points achieved
Lord's Trusted - 79 Contribution points achieved
Officially Good - 85 Contribution points achieved
Best of the Virtuous - 112 Contribution points achieved
Wind Runner - 130 contribution points achieved
Poverty in Abundance - 150 contribution points achieved
Holder of the Kalis Medal - 180 contribution points achieved
Getting Treated Everywhere - 220 contribution points achieved
On the VIP List - 250 contribution points achieved

(Titles can be de-/activated through the character's journal opened by pressing the "P"-key.)