I think we pretty much agree on the market thing. Im being a bit vague in my argumentation - the reason I prefer merchant guilds fast (as Choso and only as Choso) is that rushing them on your island is 100% safe and 100% effortless as you dont need any samurai structures to take your island and commence building a fleet to secure the entire southwestern trade profits. That means they're ready to spit out their (commerce*tax%) right when you invade the Shimazu island and have to start developing military cities (Buzen and Satsuma usually) and the 3 rich provinces (if you invade "early"). The +town growth and super early metsute just mean that its less ineffective - obviously a richer province will spit out more revenue than a poor one as town growth only really takes off in merchant guild cities that arent being flattened by high taxes. Its a timing thing and what I wanted to throw in was that optimal development isnt necessarily the optimal choice, even discarding playstyles. I dont advocate doing it because its my style of play but because I honestly think its the most effective way of going about winning the game.

Quote Originally Posted by Maltz View Post

And the Ashigaru argument... I guess play style also matters. Let me try to make a similar comparison:

(1) Use more Ashigaru if you
- Like to finish the game as soon as possible
- Use agents to reduce enemy's morale
- Only fight a battle where you can win, avoid all battles you cannot win
- Exploit AI's battlefield weakness (bait and trap, etc.)

(2) Use more Samurai if you
- Like to take things as slowly as possible
- Do not use agents frequently
- Often fight battles at a disadvantage and hope for a heroic victory
- Charge AI head-on

But the bottom line is whatever works.
Absolutely. Whatever works works, this is also true on Legendary especially with an easy faction like Chosokabe. What I mean is the OP sounds like he's struggling with being overwhelmed by superior numbers of superior troop quality. If he starts fielding Ashigaru from distant provinces my claim is this will be counterproductive to combat this problem. Thats not to say that Ashigaru are total garbage. In fact you could argue that if you play an Ashigaru-heavy style (Oda is again the prime example) a good counter to hordes is to simply outmanouver them with twice the stacks of well-equipped Ashigaru and simply starve the enemy out by taking his provinces or isolating his stacks etc etc. Its a playstyle choice, but my questioning was related directly to the OPs concern and not so much to the effectiveness of Ashigaru in general (though I still claim that people grossly underestimate the punitive upkeep cost on Legendary when it comes to lategame stack-vs-stack races on the whole map). I made this mistake when playing as Ikko the first time and grossly underestimated the absurd value of Loan Swords and Yari Ronins. Playing as Hattori will teach you about upkeep the hard way (aka you pretty much have to rely on monks in the middlegame).
- Only fight a battle where you can win, avoid all battles you cannot win
Ashigaru's primary strength comes from A. Cheap initial cost and B. Fieldable from any province in the game. Dont be afraid to lose Ashigaru units or stacks - thats exactly what they're good at. Dying and being replenished.

I might sound like Im trying to get in the way, but what I am concerned with is fixation on simple concepts like "never upgrade markets outside provinces x" and "always rely on unit y". Its good to have a solid handbook, but with certain specific problems I believe in searching for solutions in any way possible. Even if it means +5 armor Ashigaru, I guess they make excellent cannon fodder ;)