How to deal with the food problem?

[Mieko]

Hey there guys and other daimyo

Does anyone of you know how to deal with the food problem?
It's a pain in the ass: The farm building gives you only +4 food in the end while the citadel castle requires 5 and the biggest market requires 2. So you eventually die from starvation:

+4
-5
-2
= -3

Don't want to miss 3 food in every region. Is there anything I can do about? Don't want to miss the citadel castles, and besides, don't want to miss the big market too. Is one forced to miss either the citadel or the big market, or is there a way to max out all three buildings and get at least +/-0 food this way?

Thanks for your answers!

[JohnLukeG]

Personally, I only ever upgrade my border castles past "Fortress" status. Everything else is just a host for markets or whatever specialty the town has.

[TdM]

As the man says - only upgrade the castles that are likely to get hit. Also reduce the amount of rice exchanges you have if you are having food issues. It's better to balance your economy than have mass revolts.

The game wouldn't be any fun if you could just build the best of everything without consequence.

[Mieko]

I'm Date shogun yet and own all provinces - so, it's not a matter of being hit
Well that means, if I have few cities with citadels (-1 food), I need an equal amount of less developed cities even without a city castle? Phew...

[I WUB PUGS]

There is almost no reason to upgrade all of your castles. You need to develop exclusively economic provinces; basically a low level castle with a fully upgraded market and a fully upgraded farm. Also research chonindo*? because it gives you 2 food supply.

Note: markets eat up food too, but only a max of 2.

The economic value of a province is pre-arranged by the game, building larger castles only gives you access to building slots and only the market offers economic incentive.

This is different from previous titles where upgrading your city was an absolute necessity to advance and grow your economy.

[Mieko]

So this means that only important regions, like the ones with specialities (horses, ship building, holy place) and those with, for example, gold mining, are worth upgrading them, while a castle/citadel is important in strategically important provinces where you set your army spots?

Dont think of me, I just try to get the different gameplay. In past TW games I always just maxed out all my cities' economies and built tons of the best soldiers I had so far from conquering cities where enemies had built military structures I didn't build.

The problem has disappeared now I own all of Japan and get enough money so I don't need markets anymore. I wanted to max out the castles in order to "max out Japan"

[TdM]

Upgraded castles do have SOME economic benefit - sort of. They increase suppression, in tight spots it allows you to crank your taxes up high and milk your population for all they are worth without having to leave your entire army at home.

However, that doesn't outweigh the pitfalls of upgrading in every province.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Like M2TW you should specialize your regions. Most regions can become economic regions to earn money. For the training of units you need some specialized regions. You need one region to train katana units and spear units, a region to train archers and a region to train cavalry. Regions with a blacksmith are very good in producing excellent mêlée units. An economic region will only consume 3 food unless you want to build a temple or a Sake den there, which means that you have to upgrade your castle to tier 2. Only in strategic regions and in your army training regions should you upgrade you castles.

[Mieko]

I now gave half of the provinces a fortress which means 3 spots, and built the latter in all of them:
- epic temple
- smuggler's cartel
- master sword school

In the other half I built citadels, with the following:
- epic temple
- smuggler's cartel
- master sword school
- master yari school
- master gunpowder school

Exceptions are all provinces which feature horse training as speciality, in those I built citadels with:
- epic temple
- smuggler's cartel
- master sword school
- master yari school
- master bajutsu dojo

And in Kyoto I built the legendary bajutsu, legendary sojutsu and legendary kenjutsu dojo + arsenal, while Iga is the only province with a ninja clan fortress instead of buraku village in all other ninja speciality provinces, and in Iga you can find my Mizu Shobai.

It was just for fun Maxing out all provinces' capability.
And btw, I didn't need markets anymore for I got around 80k a round.

[Thefallenhun]

I always make my capital a citadel, just to be prestigious and all.

[JohnLukeG]

Playing far past the victory eh? What, are you eventually going to crank up your taxes to the max and bring back half the factions to play with the higher level toys? That sounds fun.

[Thefallenhun]

Create a utopia japan, disband all millitary units, exempt all regions from taxes, and max out all trade nodes.

[Dodge]

I haven't seen any flood problems, I know they were there in Rome and Medieval 2 because I seen them.