Build Markets in military prefectures?

[Imhotep]

Do you build Markets, or other civilian buildings, in military prefectures?

For example, take Iwate, the Date clan's starting prefecture. It has Smithing speciality, so it can build a Master Armourer or Master Weaponsmith - I choose Master Weaponsmith - making it a great recruitment hub.

It will have four building slots, since the fifth needs a late-game art to be researched.

So these could be:

- Sword School
- Yari Drill Yard
- Armoury (Encampment building, which will give Armour bonus in addition to the Melee Attack bonus provided by the Weaponsmith)

So that leaves one slot, which could be a Stables to provide quality cavalry. Or it could be a civilian building like a Market, as Iwate has fertile soil.

What would you do?

Similar situation with an Artisans province:

- Archery Dojo
- Siege Engineer's Workshop
- Hunting Lodge (Encampment building).

The fourth building slot could be used to build a Stables, to allow recruitment of Bow Cavalry. But what if it was a fertile or very fertile soil prefecture?

[StrangeLittleMan]

Why not build a monastery for warrior/bow monks with the provided bonuses?

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by StrangeLittleMan:

Why not build a monastery for warrior/bow monks with the provided bonuses?

That's a possibility.

I haven't been building warrior monks unless they're in a Holy Site prefecture. Although they would get the bonuses from the Master Weaponsmith and Armoury, they wouldn't get any bonus promotions, unlike Samurai which get bonus promotions from higher-level sword/spear buildings, and ashigaru, which would get bonus promotions from the higher levels of castle.

[EoNightcore]

For Melee Military Settlements, I like to go
-Sword Dojo
-Spear Dojo
-Armoury or Jujutsu Dojo

For Ranged Military Settlements, I go
-Bow Dojo
-Gunsmith
-Hunting Lodge
-Stables (For Bow Cavalry)

For Cavalry Military Settlements, I go
-Spear Dojo
-Stables
-Proving Grounds

Assuming I'm playing as a christian clan or the Ikko Ikki, I'll build a religious building as the fourth slot, and a Market as the fifth; otherwise i plop down a Market, then an Inn and call it a day.

[EoNightcore]

In terms of Warrior Monks, I've never used them often myself (besides Bow Monks due to their extra range making them outrange even towers).

From their stats though, Naginata Warrior Monks offer extra offensive power and melee defense in exchange for being weak to missiles (could recruit them in a region with a Master Armourer (+3 armour) to shore up their armor to 5, and a Armoury (+2 armour) to make it 7); while Bow Warrior Monks offer better and longer ranged attacks in exchange for being a tad bit weaker in melee and more expensive.

[Björn]

why even build up to lvl 4 when it isn´t needed?? save some food to upgrade a market somewhere.

[Eddie G]

I have considered building a sake den in Iwate, early on when i was short on cash. With the idea of having kisho ninja with the armor/melee attack bonus. But, lol if I'm short on cash as the Date and in need of a sake den early on. Then I am struggling to get ugo. Not a good situation. Usually because the Honma beat me to it, and I don't want to pick a fight with the Hatakeyama, yet. This would be my second slot, as I do not build a yari dojo in Iwate. I wait until I have Uzen and build towards warrior monks their.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Imhotep:

Do you build Markets, or other civilian buildings, in military prefectures?

For example, take Iwate, the Date clan's starting prefecture. It has Smithing speciality, so it can build a Master Armourer or Master Weaponsmith - I choose Master Weaponsmith - making it a great recruitment hub.

It will have four building slots, since the fifth needs a late-game art to be researched.

So these could be:

- Sword School
- Yari Drill Yard
- Armoury (Encampment building, which will give Armour bonus in addition to the Melee Attack bonus provided by the Weaponsmith)

So that leaves one slot, which could be a Stables to provide quality cavalry. Or it could be a civilian building like a Market, as Iwate has fertile soil.

What would you do?

Similar situation with an Artisans province:

- Archery Dojo
- Siege Engineer's Workshop
- Hunting Lodge (Encampment building).

The fourth building slot could be used to build a Stables, to allow recruitment of Bow Cavalry. But what if it was a fertile or very fertile soil prefecture?

Market really has nothing to do with how fertile the soil is: that's for farmland chain.

Markets boost growth and town wealth regardless where they're at.

Early game, your capital will usually be your military center, since it has two recruit slots even at first level.

As you expand, you'll want to move recruit centers to strategic areas near significant crossroads or mountain passes, and the capital will usually be converted to a economic hub.

As others have said, don't expand castles past level 1 (fort) if you can: most provinces will not need anything beyond a fort or stronghold, and not upgrading them saves both money and the Koku food surplus.

It follows that in a larger realm, most of your provinces will only have one or two build slots, and you can't go wrong putting a Market in them. Having a Market in every non-troop-mustering center will boost wealth significantly. It also provides a network of Metsuke recruiting throughout your realm, so if a Metsuke is lost, a replacement can be gotten quickly to where he needs to be.

The soil fertility relates to farms. When you are a smaller realm, and trying to save more money, it is more efficient to upgrade farms in the higher fertility areas first. Eventually though, you'll end up upgrading all farms throughout the provinces, even lower fertility ones.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by EoNightcore:

In terms of Warrior Monks, I've never used them often myself (besides Bow Monks due to their extra range making them outrange even towers).

From their stats though, Naginata Warrior Monks offer extra offensive power and melee defense in exchange for being weak to missiles (could recruit them in a region with a Master Armourer (+3 armour) to shore up their armor to 5, and a Armoury (+2 armour) to make it 7); while Bow Warrior Monks offer better and longer ranged attacks in exchange for being a tad bit weaker in melee and more expensive.

Naginata Warrior Monks are good to send into the biggest melee, and then they can use their Warcry ability to demoralize multiple enemy units.

The best Encampment upgrade for Naginata Warrior Monks would probably be the Melee attack one, and for the Bow Warrior Monks it would be Accuracy. As a compromise, in a Holy Site recruiting province in which I can only choose one, I usually go for the Armoury encampment building, as it's of moderate use to both units.

Warrior Monks recruited in a province with a Master Armourer would not get any promotions from buildings. I think Naginata Warrior Monks can get one or two levels of promotion from arts researched. I don't think Bow Warrior Monks would get any.

A Fortified Monastery gives four levels of promotion to Naginata Warrior Monks, so with the two levels from research, they would start off at level 6.

So I think the bonuses would be:

Naginata Warrior Monk recruited at Master Armourer and Armoury: +2 promotions, Exceptional or Legendary armour
Bow Warrior Monk recruited at Master Armoury: +0 promotions, Exceptional or Legendary armour

Naginata Warrior Monk recruited at Fortified Monastery and Armoury: +6 promotions, Superior armour
Bow Warrior Monk Fortified Monastery and Armoury: +4 promotions, Superior armour

Bow Warrior Monks recruited at Master Bowmaker province with a Hunting Lodge would also be an option. They'd start with no promotions, but have Exceptional Accuracy.

Originally posted by Björn:

why even build up to lvl 4 when it isn´t needed?? save some food to upgrade a market somewhere.

Firstly, so that as many unit types as possible can benefit from the Master Weaponsmith and Armoury encampment buildings. With regard to saving food, building cavalry in a different prefecture would require having to build extra Yari Drill Yard and Sword School buildings there, which would consume food.

Secondly, the higher-level castle buildings give bonus promotions to Ashigaru units (Fortress +1, Castle +2, Citadel +3). A Castle in a Master Weaponsmith prefecture with an Armoury encampment building in mid-game would be able to recruit Yari Ashigaru with four levels of promotion (+2 from Castle, +2 from arts researched), Superior Melee attack and Superior Armour, which would make them a pretty decent unit.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

Market really has nothing to do with how fertile the soil is: that's for farmland chain.

Markets boost growth and town wealth regardless where they're at.

Yes, it's right that Markets give flat bonuses. The Metsuke gives percentage-based bonuses, though, making high soil fertility prefectures likely destinations for them.

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

Early game, your capital will usually be your military center, since it has two recruit slots even at first level.

As you expand, you'll want to move recruit centers to strategic areas near significant crossroads or mountain passes, and the capital will usually be converted to a economic hub.

I like to focus on quality, so that can mean long treks to get units to the front line.

I think I'll probably go the all-military route for Iwate prefecture and build Sword School, Yari Drill Yard, Stables and Armoury encampment building, which will cover most of my military needs.

There's a danger, though, in that, with only three recruitment slots, it'll be slower to churn out troops in times of need. There's a prefecture with iron next to Iwate. If/when I capture that, I might build a Barracks, which, with the Iron Mining Complex, would recruit units at only 50% cost. This prefecture could therefore produce cheap non-high quality units in times of need that could be disbanded afterwards.

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

As others have said, don't expand castles past level 1 (fort) if you can: most provinces will not need anything beyond a fort or stronghold, and not upgrading them saves both money and the Koku food surplus.

I'm aware of the line of thought that one should not spend food and instead let it build prosperity, but I'm not sure that's how things were intended. So I use up food while retaining a small surplus. All of my prefectures will eventually get to at least level 2. For civilian cities, it will typically be a Market building and either Sake Den or Buddhist Temple. I like all cities to have the improved happiness of the latter two buildings. Military prefectures don't need them since higher-level castles provide higher repression.

[markeason]

As Date, I would go either/or for the sword school/yari dojo in Iwate and, since their speciality is No-Dachi that really means sword school. Add an armoury (encampment chain) and that is it.

The army is yari ashigaru, bow ashigaru and katana / no-dachi samurai.

Holy site province (Uzen?) I develop to maximise Monk boost, not military units.

When I get to Hitachi, it gets foot archery range, hunting lodge, Monastery for bow samurai and/or bow warrior monks.

Kai province will be where I consider adding some cavalry for flavour, yari dojo, warhorse stables, proving ground.

Kaga and/or Sagami provinces offer the opportunity to diversify into naginata units to supercede the yari ashigaru.

I don't think I have built a castle since my first game in which, needless to say, I ran into food shortages and decided to learn to play the game.

Building a castle for a market really doesn't add up. The cost of the castle will never be recouped by the market and the loss of growth from food will outweigh the market contribution over time. While there may be a case for having a market as first build in Iwate for early income / access to metsuke, I would replace it with the final military building, rather than build a castle to accommodate it.

The better (more cost effective) option for me is to upgrade Ugo to stronghold and have market and sake den chains there.

[BastardSword]

You can build a market in those military provinces but it should be a much much lower priority than building the hiring buildings you want (sword school, archery dojo etc) and the appropriate upgraded encampment.

I try to avoid upgrading my castles so I can save food, but I always upgrade my blacksmith and bowmaker provinces to max, just so I can hire three units a turn with them (unless they're the home province where you can hire 4).

Assuming you don't have any religious conversion woes, a buddhist monastery building is only really useful in a military province if you want to hire monk units. Monk bows and naginata warriors are very effective offensively but quite weak defensively. Sometimes I like using them, sometimes I don't. I think that katana samurai and bow samurai serve the same purposes for a lower cost.

Sake dens are pretty worthless for making money because they don't increase growth, but I'll build them and upgrade them if I have a spare slot. They're more useful in the early game when you need to raise happiness quickly.

[Sn3z]

I think the Sake den is useful to open on but in the end is of great benefit because the quicker you reach mitigating the public order modifiers you could reliably raise tax threshold to the next level, the question then becomes about trying to level out the growth issues which you incur when raising taxes. I haven't played this game in a long time so still experimenting.

Opening on markets is immediate income but I not convinced yet is better then the Sake den because its very easy to stagnate economy and conquering more settlements doesn't greatly increase your income in this game but the expenses needed to get settlements going is also very high, the sake den at least does give you a way to prevent a stagnating economy.

So in short I think your final building should be Sake den.