Rise to power: How I learned to stop worrying and love Realm Divide

[Monk]

lol,how do you master the encomy,its hard for me,the only I way I do it is by looting provinces.They gain a lot of money,and tis helpful for me

Welcome to the org Takeda Shogunate.

I find lots of level 1 markets is the way to go for a basic economic foundation. When i can, I also make sure to upgrade my farms, since trade won't last forever. I typically dont upgrade my castles until i'm really rolling in terms of conquest, since i find them a serious waste of money inside the first 20 turns or so.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

hmm..what you do is wise.

I bow to you aslo.

[econ21]

I'm teetering on the edge of my first realm divide at the moment and wondering when to take the plunge. What conditions do people wait for before provoking the confrontation?

I've pretty much developed my lands as I would like, but don't have much of an army or bank balance. I suspect the smart thing might be to enjoy the fat years, building up a large war chest (a few hundred thousand?) and at the end, have a modernised army ready to march on Kyoto with defensive forces elsewhere. Is that what others do?

But I am not sure I can be that patient. And I fear that waiting my allow rivals to consolidate and lead to the natural death of my first daimyo (with a fall in honour negatively impacting on the already dire post-RD diplomacy).

[Monk]

I'd definitely say two things are needed in regards to your economy

The first: I would secure a vassal/alliance by any means necessary (other than hostage). Once you hit realm divide, Japan will hear the call of the shogun. Any trade relations you have going will go right down the drain. If you have a vassal or an ally with some good standing, you can keep trading for a while.

Secondly: You need to be self-reliant. That means farm upgrades. lots of farm upgrades. When i neared RD, i started teching up. I had a level 3 farm in every province, two trade nodes and two vassals, and barely managed to break even (with a two full modernized stacks). As i secured more territory and expanded my trade dominance, this margin quickly increased. But those first years? Don't be surprised if you make -2k a turn. You might find yourself disbanding a lot just to keep yourself afloat.

[Dead Guy]

I think there's a lot going for taking a few years to tech up to land consolidation.

Right before Realm Divide, you'll have 20 or so regions in a long campaign? Build Land consolidation in all of them and that'll be another 20 food surplus, giving an additional +20 taxable income in every region per turn. Just waiting a while letting that town wealth grow might give you enough to pay for another army eventually.

[Leptomeninges]

Is land consolidation really worth it? I thought I read that you won't make back the return on investment -- not counting the opportunity cost of researching the tech. Haven't crunched the numbers myself.

I personally handle it differently than Monk. I turtle at the maximal number of provinces and then pick a few provinces to conquer simultaneously as I trigger realm divide. It's easy to find some that can be liberated and turned into vassals. The problem with having vassals before divide is that they count against your Clan Fame conquest cap that triggers realm divide. I'd rather develop the big infrastructure around the maximal number of provinces (all owned by me) and then create vassals afterwards. I agree on creating at least one strong ally.

I also spend a lot of time looking at my finance screen and deciding if I'm solvent at a given level of military maintenance if I remove trade from the picture.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

I say,just loot.

Its useful when you're bankrupt.