New Player with Economy/Build Order Questions!

[Leptomeninges]

Hello Folks,

Long time gamer here who dabbled in the Total War series in the past (primarily the Rome version.) The Civ series was always more my cup of tea, but given the terrible state that CivV is in compared with the relative polish of Shogun2, I'm spending more of my time in feudal Japan. To give you an idea of my general progress with the game, I've had the game for about a week and won a normal/short campaign as Shimazu, but suspect I'm losing my current campaign on Shimazu hard/long although the jury is still out.

I've read several threads on these forums and a few others about building priority and synergy. Looking for more information or references. Specifically, I've read things like:

- Farms are your first and most important economic upgrade priority.
- Never expand your castle just to build a market.
- Upgrading your market to rice exchange is usually a bad idea.

Curious if everyone agrees. I'm looking for more similar tips on synergistic buildings to put in the same castle. For instance, what's the ideal city to put a Sake Den? Does it matter? If I have an open slot in a newly conquered city (and don't need anything particularly) what should I put in the open spot? Does anyone want to take a stab at weighing the benefits of a market versus the tech from a temple? Are the tech benefits from the temple/monestary line of buildings additive or multiplicative with a library? Is it worth expanding a castle to put a temple in a province with a library? At what point (from an economic perspective) should I be thinking about investing in my roads?

I'm aware of my general ignorance of this game and may not be asking the right questions so any advice is welcome.

Thanks!

[Monk]

Welcome to the org Leptomeninges!

We had a great discussion going last week on this very issue in this thread. From about post 16 onward the discussion, led by MCM, helped shed some light on some of the basic aspects of the economic game. I highly recommend giving it a look.

Personally I find that markets are a must have in the early game and only have one or two "military" towns that pump out my samurai units, but overall castles are just too expensive in the first turns for my tastes. I don't even think about upgrading a castle until i've secured my starting position and am nearing 4-5 provinces. Anything before that, i feel like i'm wasting money.

[HopAlongBunny]

This is my (likely mistaken) take on things.

The specific upgrades you mention all consume food; food contributes to growth (clan-wide) and rarely is the boost in income a market provides worth the growth hit.

Exceptions might be a very rich or troublesome province; in both cases the market is nice but its the Metsuke you really want.

I have no clue about the synergies involved with combining temples/libraries and the like. I follow the "If I have cash to burn, build it" philosophy. This is probably sub-optimal; when realm divide hits all those koku you spent on something other than units could come back to haunt you.

I don't know if the mechanics in this game are as transparent as RTW. The econ guides for that game were as about as thorough as you are ever likely to see.

[MCM]

I also got Shogun 2 after becoming disillusioned with Civ 5, after swearing I'd never play another Total War after Empire. (heh)

edit: whoops, hit post too fast.

Curious if everyone agrees. I'm looking for more similar tips on synergistic buildings to put in the same castle. For instance, what's the ideal city to put a Sake Den? Does it matter? If I have an open slot in a newly conquered city (and don't need anything particularly) what should I put in the open spot? Does anyone want to take a stab at weighing the benefits of a market versus the tech from a temple? Are the tech benefits from the temple/monestary line of buildings additive or multiplicative with a library? Is it worth expanding a castle to put a temple in a province with a library? At what point (from an economic perspective) should I be thinking about investing in my roads?

Well, there's a few different province scenarios you generally run into.

Sake Dens - actually one of the best building chains, because of the +wealth (though it does take a long time to pay for itself), but also the +happiness. The top-end of the Sake Den chain has one of the best money producing buildings, but you can only build one (the Infamous Mizo Subai District (sp)). You'll want one of these in your best money district, with either a gold mine resource or the "philosophical tradition" resource. The tax boost from the IMSD is huge, so it probably make it worth it to expand the castle just to get this. Also probably worth it to put a top-end market chain here. Also, if possible, stack a Nanban Trade Quarter here too - that's another massive town boost. (You can hold down the Christians with some ashigaru garrisons - it's worth that much. Also because of access to Nanban Trade Ships).

I wouldn't expand a castle to build a sake den otherwise (unless we're talking about the special ninja resource provinces). It can be useful for happiness like I mentioned above, but that's a question of paying for happiness, not expanding your econ. If it's really just a single-slot province in the middle of nowhere, market is more worthwhile. However, you are going to want 5 sake dens SOMEWHERE to get 5 ninjas (1 per sake den, hard cap of 5).

Markets are you bread and butter building to put in a single-slot province. If you capture a province from the AI, and it's got 1 slot taken up by, say, a Yari Drill Yard, just tear it down and build a Market (assuming you don't need a Yari Drill Yard for some reason).

The tech upgrades just aren't that good, because it takes so many of them with such a huge combined construction cost to get you anywhere. Sad to say but there's really only a few key techs in Shogun 2 and it's not hard to get most of them with few upgrades or bonuses. The bonuses are all additive. (two provinces with +3% = 6% bonus). Heaven and Earth is probably one of the few arts I consider "mandatory", and maybe ninjutsu mastery.

As for roads, I'd only invest in them in physically large provinces. The econ bonuses are minuscule compared to the costs. The replenishment bonus is one thing, but that's really only viable for a crossroads province. Roads are good for really, really large provinces, like the northeast or possibly Kyushu (the westernmost island).

[Leptomeninges]

Thanks all for the replies. It's much appreciated. I was starting to get the idea that (unlike Civ) tech is less important in Shogun, and I appreciate the comment on fewer mandatory techs. Does happiness have any benefit (economic or otherwise) aside from preventing revolts? Apologies for my ignorance!

[Monk]

Thanks all for the replies. It's much appreciated. I was starting to get the idea that (unlike Civ) tech is less important in Shogun, and I appreciate the comment on fewer mandatory techs. Does happiness have any benefit (economic or otherwise) aside from preventing revolts? Apologies for my ignorance!

I'm not sure about direct increases to your income but, obviously, the higher your happiness the higher you can crank up the taxes in the finance screen.

[Zarky]

I personally am a sucker for roads. Moving fast through my territories is a key factor in my success, as I send reinforcements from behind the lines from my good recruitment centers. This of course is slightly obsolete if you rely on your navy to do your transporting.

I start using sake dens more as I get more territories, being able to leave a province to exploit enemy weakness without having to exempt taxes from previously captured province or worrying about revolts is a great thing. But if you decide to invest some money in sake dens, researching the 1st ninja tech that allows you to build the next level in the building line is couple turns well spent.

[Rothe]

I'm not sure about direct increases to your income but, obviously, the higher your happiness the higher you can crank up the taxes in the finance screen.

Still, I think the max reasonable target is the "normal level" of tax. After that, it just starts to be too much unrest to keep up with, even with tech and building upgrades. You are still likely to have provinces with very minimal upgrades and very little reason to invest or to garrison in the mid to late game - it is better if they keep content with a temple IMO.

Overall, I think the tactic that seems to work really well is to try and grow your food surplus if you can. Only build what you really need and what the OP said about the market chain is true. Some people startplaying with a zero food situation in mind and they quickly find that it leads to big trouble when you go beyond the realm divide - the AI does not max out farms, but it may build big castles. That is why it is better to always have surplus, so wehn you conquer you never go into negatives and have time to build up the farms. Also, the growth explodes when you start having 20+ provinces and 25+ surplus. In my Chosokabe campaign my tax collection goes up by around 800 koku every year (29 provinces x 30 surplus x 0.2 tax, plus the metsuke), which means that I can recruit a samurai unit every turn to my already powerful armies (I have 3-4 mainly samurai stacks and some defensive ones).