Quote Originally Posted by Zarky View Post
The point of my post wasn't pro-castle or pro-market, my point was summarized in the last phrase: Most likely you'll end up with very little food surplus. It's true that I went to negative food and would have been at positive if I hadn't upgraded markets, but on the other hand this was largely because of my rapid expansion west as Takeda, to provinces with rice exchanges (that I destroyed) and huge castles.

"Don't ever upgrade markets" is just as foolish order as "always upgrade markets."
If you don't end up with a food surplus (and have upgraded some markets) does that not mean that you would be having a surplus if you would not have upgraded the markets?

I did not really think about this before, but this thread really put it in perspective. I think it might very well be a good idea to not build the rice exchanges if you get enough provinces so the growth from farms outstrips the growth bonus from the market.

I do suspect that a good tactic might be a mix, and perhaps even one where you scrap some rice exchanges later in the game when you get more provinces.

Perhaps the rice exchange+ buildings need another balancing factor? What if you linked their growth to your global food surplus, so that having some market upgrades and some surplus food would be favorable? Like for instance, rice exchange would give growth equal to your surplus food on top of a fixed growth bonus?

Or, the growth bonus from surplus food should be limited to some fixed amount, or perhaps it could reduce the growth factor in steps (e.g. first 5 surplus gives 5 growth, next 10 surplus gives only 5, the next 20 would give 5 more etc.)