STW 1.1 Recurring Poor Harvest problem

[EatYerGreens]

Hi all,

I'm almost embarassed to admit this but I gave up on STW (with/without the 1.1 patch) some years ago, in sheer frustration with the problem of recurring poor/terrible harvests as these left me totally hamstrung (nil or negative income) in the early phase of the game, with armies too small to mount feasible conquests on neigbouring clans, yet the armies they sent in my direction were comfortably 3:1 in excess of what I could afford to maintain. So I couldn't even properly defend what little I had long enough to improve it. Not even loading a previous game-save would fix this (sometimes made it even worse as the previous bad koku total would simply carry forward, only to be followed by yet another poor harvest). This is probably the only game I have ever described (out loud) as "you *&^$ing cheating s!£mbag". ~;)

I had no problem winning full campaigns as each of the six clans, at the 'Easy' difficulty level but this was both something of a false dawn and, more than likely, a poor preparation for the higher levels. I have won several battles at 'Normal' level, with the only perceivable difference being that my side's kill ratio isn't as good as it was at 'Easy'. Provided I can get the finances sorted, I know it's do-able, just that it will be a longer slog than before.

The 'Hojo horde' problem is as bad, or worse, than it was before. On occasion, they mysteriously get wiped out fairly early on in the game but that poses an even worse problem - the side which secures those high income provinces up that end of the map will wipe the floor with the rest of them, in next to no time. This is usually the point where I abandon the game as being an exercise in futility.

So, what exactly am I doing wrong?
1) To what extent does high province loyalty ratings cause average/good/excellent harvests to happen on a consistent basis?
2) Would it help me to raise garrison sizes to a level which my initial income would not seem to support, in order to achieve this high loyalty?
3) Should I increase taxes after high loyalty is established, or set it high right at the start of the campaign and hope I can restore it with troop numbers within the first few years?
4) Is it just coincidence, or does the latest lot of land improvements reaching completion sometimes trigger a bad harvest?

I'd appreciate your views and hints and am looking forward to being able to enjoy this game once again.

[KukriKhan]

Konnichiwa EatYerGreens, welcome to the .Org!


For the best coverage, answering your gameplay dilemma, I'm copying your post to the Sword Dojo forum - sadly, my Shogun:TotalWar experience lead me to a different type of play: I used the campaign map as a mere excuse to generate battles, caring little for the subtler nuances of trade and income building. The folks in the Sword Dojo will be able and willing to 'point-by-point' your strategy.

p.s. Love the username. Relative of Popeye?

[R'as al Ghul]

Hi EYG,

I'm sure it won't be long until someone posts a consicive guide for you.
Until then,
Try to play Uesugi. They have their back to the ocean and sit on very rich Provinces. If you manage to outtake Hojo very early, you can get hold of some of the richest provinces in Japan. Mori on the contrary sits on very poor lands and is more difficult to play.
The most furtile provinces are were Imagawa, Hojo and Uesugi meet.
So, a good starting position is important.
When building up your provinces, concentrate on income first. Build farming upgrades in the rich (300+) Provinces and build ports. Ports will get you a fixed amount of Koku every year. It's independent from harvest and you need no ships like in MTW.
Specialize your Provinces. One builds yari, the other Archers. Don't build all buildings in all Provinces.
Don't hesitate to disband ashis you once build to maintain loyalty. The upkeep costs for garrisons can add to a high amount.
Be careful not to build more troops than you can afford. Control this frequently. Use Shinobi and border forts to keep Provinces calm where taxes are high. They don't cost any upkeep and are very efficient.

When attacking, attack several adjacent provinces at a time to make the enemy split his defense forces. Call of the fake attacks and capture that single Province you want. :frog:

That's it for starters.

R'as

P.S.: Before I forget, the harvest messages are randomized. Nothing you can do to influence harvest.

[Maeda Toshiie]

Hi EYG,

I'm sure it won't be long until someone posts a consicive guide for you.
Until then,
Try to play Uesugi. They have their back to the ocean and sit on very rich Provinces. If you manage to outtake Hojo very early, you can get hold of some of the richest provinces in Japan. Mori on the contrary sits on very poor lands and is more difficult to play.
The most furtile provinces are were Imagawa, Hojo and Uesugi meet.
So, a good starting position is important.
When building up your provinces, concentrate on income first. Build farming upgrades in the rich (300+) Provinces and build ports. Ports will get you a fixed amount of Koku every year. It's independent from harvest and you need no ships like in MTW.
Specialize your Provinces. One builds yari, the other Archers. Don't build all buildings in all Provinces.
Don't hesitate to disband ashis you once build to maintain loyalty. The upkeep costs for garrisons can add to a high amount.
Be careful not to build more troops than you can afford. Control this frequently. Use Shinobi and border forts to keep Provinces calm where taxes are high. They don't cost any upkeep and are very efficient.

When attacking, attack several adjacent provinces at a time to make the enemy split his defense forces. Call of the fake attacks and capture that single Province you want. :frog:

That's it for starters.

R'as

P.S.: Before I forget, the harvest messages are randomized. Nothing you can do to influence harvest.


I never use any ashis for garrison. They get to serve on the field and die for their lord (usually Lord Oda). A pair (or more if your taxes are high) of shinobis are enough to keep the peasants quiet, even if you convert to christianity.

As a western clan, ports would provide more cash than those crappy farmlands. Also, rapid expansion is exceedingly important for the Shimazu and Mori.


Final point: Try getting the expansion. Building costs are halved and hence playing is much less difficult. Plus the Hojo horde gets time slipped and appears as the mongols instead.

[EatYerGreens]

Hi EYG,

I'm sure it won't be long until someone posts a consicive guide for you.
Until then,
Try to play Uesugi. They have their back to the ocean and sit on very rich Provinces. If you manage to outtake Hojo very early, you can get hold of some of the richest provinces in Japan. Mori on the contrary sits on very poor lands and is more difficult to play.
The most furtile provinces are were Imagawa, Hojo and Uesugi meet.
So, a good starting position is important.



Hi R'as,

I've never been particularly keen on Uesugi's starting position, back to the sea or not. While playing as Oda or Hojo, I usually get to witness the Imagawa taking over Shinano in the second or third turn of the game! Seems every side wants to break into there at some stage of the game. It's all too easy to get your forces cut in two. Even if you can re-take a lost province, your developments get degraded or lost totally, in the process. By comparison, Hojo has two starting provinces which are not on the front line, and can develop the tech levels in safety, without the years of delay imposed by increasing farmland output.

Also, possessing rich provinces can be as much of a curse as a blessing - they attract attacks from the opposition. If you've spent the money to develop them, only for them to reap the benefits (because they've spent the equivalent on more trrops instead), it usually means you'll never have the strength of numbers required to get them back.

I tend to err on the side of defensive play, so I end up raising large armies but rarely get to see an opportunity to use them to attack because the AI somehow always has the resources to create forces which at least match or, more often, exceed what I can afford to maintain. Mutsu borders three Hojo provinces so, by the time it's matched my defensive force in all three of those provinces, it has a 3:1 advantage on me and can invade with a good chance of success. Dewa is bound to follow soon after that. End of story.

Part of the reason for starting this thread was to point out that the AI never seem to suffer the same financial setbacks that the player has to face. Hence I was wondering about factors like population loyalty affecting harvests. You get one bad one, so you put the taxes up as 'punishment', loyalty goes down and subsequent ones get worse, rather than better.

Then again, I can shoot a hole in that theory because where I've started off by lowering the taxes, sure the loyalty goes up but, if you give them an easy time, as the guy says "the peasants are lazy...". ~:rolleyes:

As a matter of fact, you have to watch it when raising taxes in response to a bad harvest, since population loyalty goes down in response to the poor harvest, even before you've altered the tax rate.

You're probably right that the harvests are random but I started yet another Oda campaign, soon after starting this thread and had just one 'average' and one 'good' harvest in the first ten years of the campaign. So I still beg to differ... ~;)

I gave up on that one, started again and had better luck but gave up again when the Hojo took over Kaga at the first attempt (Uesugi usually takes three or four attempts, with a lot of casualties each time), with two full army stacks, one made up entirely of Cavalry units. Money to burn, that lot. Oh, and about 4 army stacks seigeing in Shinano. Game over.

I'm currently having a little more success (at 'normal' difficulty level) as Hojo. Can't say I can afford to raise 'the horde' myself but I've got as far as 1557 with only one or two poor harvests so far.

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

I think harvest amounts are effected by loyalty, a constant recurrence makes me think you need a few more men in each province. I know it's been said, but add a few ashi's in each province, they're cheap to sustain and they'll get you more money in the long run. It's a waste to send ashi's into battles - yes they may die for honour but they prove more valuable by garrisoning your own lands.

[EatYerGreens]

Mori on the contrary sits on very poor lands and is more difficult to play.

I tend to think Oda is even more tricky. Even with better lands, you have to stack up enough defences to keep Mori, Uesugi and Imagawa at bay, whilst having enough forces left over to deal with all those WM rebels in the early stages of the game. I've had games where I've gone in with a minimum of 600 YS & SA against 360 (3WM, 3SA) and still been massacred. In other campaigns I've simply forestalled the attack until I've developed Naginata to tackle them but, having won Yamashiro and Ise, I don't get a lot of time to develop them before the Hojo horde is knocking at the door...

Mori's lands are poor and the lands where he can invade generally bring in less per year than the cost of armies required to capture them and garrison them afterwards. However, the same argument goes for Oda and the AI will preferentially make him attack the rebels in his midst, then head eastward at first. Similarly, the Shimazu will generally agree to keep out of your way if you don't provoke them. If you can hold onto Harima, you have a mine and can build a port cheaply. Equally cheap port in Bizen. Sanuki is worth heading for at an early stage and improving the lands.

If you can succeed in knocking out the three Takeda provinces before he builds up numbers there, you have another ready-made port plus another mine in Aki and Bitchu's farm output may be worth boosting. Once that's been achived, it's possible to just sit tight, save up the koku and build additional ports whenever you could afford them. A similar approach can pay off for Shimazu but maintainance on defensive forces usually means the annual profit margin is so small that it could be a decade or more before you have enough to build each new castle+port combination.

Interesting you mentioned the 300+ farmland output as the threshold for being worth improvement. Soon after starting the game, some years ago, I did myself a spreadsheet, to work out the breakeven point (in terms of years you would need to retain the province and including the cumulative construction time) for all the various income boosters and the conclusion I came to was round about the same figure.

If you think about it, starting from a bare province, the breakeven period for a port is 13.5 years. 1 year for the castle, 2.5 years for the port, 2000 koku spent, 200 per year coming in, so 3.5 yrs to build and ten years recouping the investment. This doesn't account for expenditure on troops required to stop the province being captured and I don't think 180 Samurai or 360 Ashigaru would be particularly off-putting.

In the early game, I tend to see ports as a luxury - the outlay would easily eat half of the amount I usually have to play with after each years harvest and other things always have to take priority, so I'm perpetually waiting to build them. In the later stages of a game, where you have provinces far out of reach of any opponents, so they won't need a garrison and koku coming out of your ears, then by all means build them and get even richer. Better still, build trading posts at all the ones you've built or captured so far, to double their income, before you start opening new ports as the trading posts are cheaper than starting from scratch.

I would only build a port in preference to a TP for strategic reasons. For instance, if it was a case of needing to get my troops to the frontline faster, such as the nearest port being 3-4 season's land-travel distant from where they're needed.

[EatYerGreens]

Specialize your Provinces. One builds yari, the other Archers. Don't build all buildings in all Provinces.
Don't hesitate to disband ashis you once build to maintain loyalty. The upkeep costs for garrisons can add to a high amount.
Be careful not to build more troops than you can afford. Control this frequently. Use Shinobi and border forts to keep Provinces calm where taxes are high. They don't cost any upkeep and are very efficient.


Hi R'as, me again ~:rolleyes:

I don't think building all buildings in all provinces is a likely prospect anyway, given the money problems. ~:joker: The real problem I find is going to the other extreme. Having gone to the outlay for large castle, fortress etc, I tend to want to build all the other types in that one place, so I can advance them to famous/legendary level later on.

The hazards of doing that are that sometimes you find you've successfully defended against an attack but suffered casualties in the hundreds and need to recover troop numbers fast. Even if you inflicted heavier casualties, one unit per season won't cut it if they're raising 2 or 3. For comfort, I'd like to have at least three troop training centres at the ready, even if two of them are honour 0 level, only to be used in emergencies. Even so, the expense of creating those just as a precaution is a pain, since it delays the progress of my more advanced dojos.

Also, if you put your Tea House & Ninja House in the same province where you're raising your advanced-level troops, perhaps with the ultimate aim of being able to raise Geishas there, long periods of mobilisation or replacing casualties means you can't deploy these strategic units when you want to.

So, in the early stage of the game I'll generally end up with 2, or 3 - if I've been lucky with the harvests - troop centres and 1 other which only raises Ninja and Shinobi. If I ever reach the stage of having a citadel and have advanced the troop dojos within it as far as is possible (or as far as seems required by the quality of opposition) then I will consider going to the expense of duplicating the Tea/Ninja houses in that province, as prerequisites of the Geisha House, rather than attempting to advance the castle at the original spy centre to Citadel status. It's either quicker or cheaper, or both...


Disbanding Ashis?

Something I'd love to be able to do. However, I'm still running V1.11 and the only way you can de-mobilize units (of any kind) is by using them as arrow-fodder or sending them on suicide missions. I gather this is something which can be done with the expansion pack. That's something else I need to ask about. I doubt it's available in the shops anymore but, if it's a downloadable thing, I'd have a chance of getting hold of it.

Border Watch Towers/Forts

Again I see them as an expensive luxury in the early game and, for the money, I'd rather go for a Tea House and enough Shinobis to cover my home territories in preference to one or two lots of Towers. Perhaps an early experience where constructing towers only served to provoke an attack which smashed them caused this. Similarly, I'd rather get the Ninja House than spend the same amount on BFs. The exception to this rule is where I want to seal off the province where all my most advanced buildings are being built. Even then, they're not totally impenetrable. Honour 3 Shinobis of mine seem to have survived them and there are Emissaries, of course. The AI Ems will actually tend to camp in these places, in the hope that no low-level Ninjas will survive to get them!

In past campaigns where I went on to win, I reached a stage where I had no shortage of cash and started building things just for the heck of it, so I'd splash out on setting up border forts from coast-to-coast where this could be done using just 2 or 3 provinces, plus additional BFs at each province with a port, in case they tried getting in that way.

However, I take your point about them maintaining loyalty level in lieu of a garrison force and will consider trying that in future. The ability to send all units to the frontline, instead of having them spread all over the map may actually help bring the campaign to a conclusion that bit quicker. Thanks.