Metsuke's Town Management

[Maltz]

From limited experience I think there is a very simple linear relationship between Metsuke's stars in Town Management versus their bonus in base tax rate:

Agent (Metsuke) Bonus = 5% x Town Management Level

For example, if a Metsuke has 6 stars in Town Management, he brings 5% x 6 = 30% extra tax to the province that he supervises. But this bonus is subject to Administration cost, which is related to the number of provinces we have.

For example, at 10 provinces, the admin cost is 36.9%. This means that the above Metsuke only brings a bonus tax rate of 30% x (1-36.9%) = 18.9%.

If this Metsuke is stationed in a province that produces 3000 koku per turn, he in effect makes a profit of 3000 x 18.9% = 568 koku, which is really not bad.

Metsuke's Specialization

Since Metsuke could potentially makes us a lot of money, it is a good idea to make very specialized Metsuke just for town management. We can quickly build Metsuke into a very good town manager, thanks to their early access to Town Management in their skill tree. There are also retainers that affects Town Management by +1. Below we have a list of the maximal attainable Town Management by Metsuke's level.

1-star Metsuke: max. Lv 1 in Town Management (1 basic)
2-star Metsuke: max. Lv 4 in Town Management (2 basic, 1 skill, 1 retainer)
3-star Metsuke: max. Lv 6 in Town Management (3 basic, 2 skill, 1 retainer)
4-star Metsuke: max. Lv 11 in Town Management (4 basic, 5 skill, 2 retainers)
5-star Metsuke: max. Lv 12 in Town Management (5 basic, 5 skill, 2 retainers)
6-star Metsuke: max. Lv 14 in Town Management (6 basic, 5 skill, 3 retainers)

Since we have obtained data on the relationship of Admin Cost and number of provinces, we can easily plot Metsuke's effectiveness (extra % of tax rate) vs. number of provinces.



Let's see how to read this graph. If we have a level-4 Metsuke with 11 stars in Town Management, at 21 provines they bring us 28.4% extra effective tax rate in the province they supervise.

Here is a real example:



This provinces generates 5591 koku per season. With a level-4 Metsuke with 11 stars in Town Management, at 21 provinces, they should bring me 28.4% extra tax rate. Let's see if it is true!

28.4% x 5591 = 1588
Now in-game number tells us that we make (2776-1186) = 1590

The chart actually works! Woohoo! We can blame the minor discrepancies on round up/downs.

Practical Applications

(1) It is easy to get a level 3 Metsuke and train him to level 4. Find a province that has school (Tsukushi, Settsu, Suruga etc.) Upgrade the school, not along the "increase research path", but along the "level 3 Metsuke path". Hire all your Metsukes from it. With luck or persistence, you can get the right retainer (Yakuza, etc.) Throw them into some rich province!

(2) Deposit all but one of your level 3 Metsukes. Find a good source of enemy agents (such as Kyoto) and use the free Metsuke to arrest the target agent as soon as they are visible. Only four successful arrests is needed to promote a Metsuke from level 3 to level 4.

(3) With high-level markets, such as a Merchant Guild, and a strong food surplus, it is possible to see very rich provinces that generates wealth well over 5000. Along with a leve 4 Metsuke, we should be able to earn more than 2000 koku from those provinces per season! Now finally we have something comparable to the Chinese silk trade node (which earns 1500-3500 per season depending on trade situations)!

But trade nodes bring the full profit almost immediately; it will take a long time for a province to reach 10000+ wealth.