Managing a settlement

[xjlxking]

Basically, I want people to post their strategies or ground plan to maintaining a healthy settlement. I just started like my 5th campaign since I played this bought this game. So far, I have always lost because of three reason.... 1) Not a big army 2) low income and 3) food Shortage

Basically, I can't keep my settlement happy, so they rebel, I have low income because of this, and constant lose of soldiers fighting in civil wars. With a low income, the army isn't as strong as it should be. Either way, it's a domino effect that hits me eventually. If it aint internally by the rebels (constant), then it's the enemy.

[Multiball]

Well early game, I build lots of ashigaru.... loads of ashigaru, no samuri early game, enough to allow myself to turtle if required.
and do research chi to alow me better farms and markets and buddist temples.
I make sure I build up all my farms and any money producing things like gold mines,
I then build metsuke and monks to manage my settlements if theirs any disorder. This frees up my armys to fight.
I only upgrade important castles past level 2 (and leave most on level 1) my capital and future border towns I make large when I know I need a military base.

Im not an amazing player but this seems to get me through the start on normal every time and hard most times, but I have to fight every single battle and reload a bad loss or phalic victory on hard(winning but losing most of your army) which is cheating to some people but I play for fun not for a sickening challenge.

[Cinnead]

I usually give my settlements specific functions.

Like for example: I have a settlement with a blacksmith (special building used for attack & defense bonus) in it, so I use this settlement for the recruitment of all my ground forces.
This settlement will not give me a lot of income since all building spaces are used by military buildings.
But I also have a lot of cities with only a market in it (and lvl1 fortifications), these are the backbone of my economy and are NEVER located on my borders.

[xjlxking]

Why do you not built anything else? Does it an a negative effect on your ecconomy if you build military building. My currect Campaign, im making like 4k in income and I cant seem to fix the food shortages

[FenrirGW]

Food shortages will be because you are probably building too many higher level castles compared to your farms, or your farms are being raided and you dont have a spare supply?

In terms of castle upgrades, in my current Date campaign (my first main one. Only Kyoto left until victory), I found the best stragegy was to plan around choke points. For instance, in my campaign, at first there was only one castle i put a lot of focus in to building up, which was the one to the south/west of the capital with the iron resource. This castle town is on the only main road to the others. The only other entrances are forests which take an extra 1-2 turns to navigate (more than it does to move armies from the main one)...

So, looking at this, and planning for a hard realm divide battle, I built this chokepoint castle up to be solely military due to the Iron (reduced unit cost). The 3 towns to the north only went up to stronghold at first, while i captured places further afield for more food. Eventually this one citadel town became capable of producing 5 of most units for cheap per turn.

Long story short, plan your castles and terrain for possible battles. Theres no point making a town completely out the way in to a military production town, due to troop movement times. As well as it is very risky to turn a frontier town in to a economy strongpoint as if you lose it, you lose your economy. And always, very important, make sure you have a 2-3 food surplus, incase of the possiblity of losing towns or having farms raided. Eventually with research though, this shouldnt be a problem.

[Grimstoned]

I only have 1 main settlement that builds troops the rest have markets and saki houses mainly. I try not to have too many castles late because of the food they need and as Hattori clan I pushed north right away and built ships for trade and took all trade nodes except one early and filled them. Also allied with the shogun and traded with everyone I could. I am supper rich. I research chi right away so I could have my farms making food.

[Multiball]

Why do you not built anything else? Does it an a negative effect on your ecconomy if you build military building. My currect Campaign, im making like 4k in income and I cant seem to fix the food shortages

Ok it sounds like your problem is food shortages not money specifically.

You need to stop expanding your castles so quickly you need the farms in place first to support higher level castles.

Farms give you food, Each level of a Castle uses more food and the second level market and above uses food to make money.

Because of your food shortages your getting rebbellions. You need to keep your castles sizes down and make sure you upgrade your farms and the required technologys for farms.

Military buildings are only for building troops they dont cost money but since they take a slot you can't have more money making buildings.

See your food levels in the bottom corner... only upgrade one market or castle when that number is plus two then you'll always have one surplus. and never get starvation rebbellions.

[Maleficus]

Basically, I want people to post their strategies or ground plan to maintaining a healthy settlement. I just started like my 5th campaign since I played this bought this game. So far, I have always lost because of three reason.... 1) Not a big army 2) low income and 3) food Shortage

1. Recruit mostly ashigaru (bow and spear) for the first couple of years at least. You'll need samurai after a few years, but try to avoid them for as long as you think you can get away with.

2. Build trade ships, lots of trade ships,and get to those trade nodes as fast as you can, they are worth a small fortune. Trade nodes occupied? Sit next to them... I've seen the AI abandon them for no apparent reason several times now. Oh and get as many trade agreements as you can early on. They really do make a difference and, unless I'm just doing something wrong, it seems to get a lot harder to convince other clans to agree to them after about 10 years.

3. Upgrade your farms faster than your castles, and try to build as few rice exchanges as possible. Markets don't consume food, Rice Exchanges and upwards do. That one caught me out at first

phalic victory

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phallic

You meant 'Pyrrhic', right?

[Multiball]

1. Recruit mostly ashigaru (bow and spear) for the first couple of years at least. You'll need samurai after a few years, but try to avoid them for as long as you think you can get away with.

2. Build trade ships, lots of trade ships,and get to those trade nodes as fast as you can, they are worth a small fortune. Trade nodes occupied? Sit next to them... I've seen the AI abandon them for no apparent reason several times now. Oh and get as many trade agreements as you can early on. They really do make a difference and, unless I'm just doing something wrong, it seems to get a lot harder to convince other clans to agree to them after about 10 years.

3. Upgrade your farms faster than your castles, and try to build as few rice exchanges as possible. Markets don't consume food, Rice Exchanges and upwards do. That one caught me out at first




http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phallic

You meant 'Pyrrhic', right?

thats the one LOL

[Datek]

1. Recruit mostly ashigaru (bow and spear) for the first couple of years at least. You'll need samurai after a few years, but try to avoid them for as long as you think you can get away with.

2. Build trade ships, lots of trade ships,and get to those trade nodes as fast as you can, they are worth a small fortune. Trade nodes occupied? Sit next to them... I've seen the AI abandon them for no apparent reason several times now. Oh and get as many trade agreements as you can early on. They really do make a difference and, unless I'm just doing something wrong, it seems to get a lot harder to convince other clans to agree to them after about 10 years.

3. Upgrade your farms faster than your castles, and try to build as few rice exchanges as possible. Markets don't consume food, Rice Exchanges and upwards do. That one caught me out at first




http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phallic

You meant 'Pyrrhic', right?

This is it. Rice is the key to a happy and productive empire. Food supply at 0 or above and everything is fine. If it goes -1 or lower there will be rebellions. There are other factors such as religion, garrisons, agents, but its really all about the food supply.

[Stil]

TL,DR version:

Farms, ports and regional special resources
Field ashigaru heavy armies, disband land and navy units not in use
Castles as low as you can get away with, though garrison requires no upkeep and offers repression bonus, so a few levels will save you money in the long run
Special production centres and good roads + encampments = better than every province trying to tech and pump units
Trade ships, trading rights - don't be afraid to bribe factions to sweeten the deal, you'll break even after a few turns
Invest in your 'money centres'

[Xatham]

Also it pays not to use up your food supply too fast, each surplus food is +1 to the wealth of all your provinces, every turn.

Create magistrate mesukes and put them in your highest income cities.

[Slaists]

3. Upgrade your farms faster than your castles, and try to build as few rice exchanges as possible. Markets don't consume food, Rice Exchanges and upwards do. That one caught me out at first

actually only the middle two levels of markets consume food (for the total of -2). the highest market level does not consume any extra food but gives a huge boost to the wealth.

my tip would be to try to run +5 and more food surplus at all times. you never know what new conquest will suddenly put you in food deficit...

[themichaelx]

TL,DR version:

Farms, ports and regional special resources
Field ashigaru heavy armies, disband land and navy units not in use
Castles as low as you can get away with, though garrison requires no upkeep and offers repression bonus, so a few levels will save you money in the long run
Special production centres and good roads + encampments = better than every province trying to tech and pump units
Trade ships, trading rights - don't be afraid to bribe factions to sweeten the deal, you'll break even after a few turns
Invest in your 'money centres'

Good advice here.

My clan's infrastructure has the highest priority.

Upgrade farms, ports and roads. Build sake dens and markets (money makers). Establish trade routes, raid other clans' routes.

Keep your armies and navies cheap until mid-late game.