Fall of the Samurai early game economy

[dandinks]

I have gotten to the point where I can win any reasonable battle, my problem is the economy, unlike base shogun 2 where all you need is a market/sake den and the province is as good as its going to get, in fots you need both city and castle upgrades to avoid rebels and not be impoverished, the problem is that affording both an army to even just sustain rather than attacking is seemingly impossible as a city costs in the thousands while I make a pitiful amount per turn even with no units, any tips? should I just rush out expanding and fighting with a half stack, should I focus on wealth in the tech tree to try and improve my situation, how can I afford public order buildings while also being able to defend myself?

[Eddie G]

It's slow going at the start. You should be able to take the first province with the army you start with. Maybe adding 1 or 2 units if you feel the need. Focus on building and save your money rather than spending every turn. It takes a few turns to be able to afford the buildings, but once you get a couple of provinces you should be good to go. It's important to know the strength of your enemy so you don't over recruit. In other words don't recruit more than what you need. After you get a few provinces, you should be making at least 2-3,000 koku. I'll leave it at that, as there are people who probably have a lot more to say about it.

[BastardSword]

Well you have a lot of options. I don't know what clan you're playing as which can affect this a bit. Yes it can seem tricky to make any money in FOTS, everything seems very expensive at the start and it takes a while for growth and economic upgrades to set in. You just kind of have to keep soldiering on with it.

- main thing is build a lot of financial districts everywhere, they are decent earners. The gambling den upgrade path will increase happiness but won't give you as much money or growth in the long term.

- craft workshops are pretty much the only other generic moneymaking building, but they don't make a lot of money at first. Eventually you can upgrade them enough so they make decent money, but this takes a while, and you'll have to do something about the unhappiness they also create.

- upgrade farms whenever you can, even crappy ones will eventually give you decent money.

- put geishas in your richest provinces to give them even more growth (duh)

- upgrading a settlement (not its fortress) will give you more tax income, but more unhappiness. In general this is a pretty low priority but the extra tax income and extra building slot are useful in the long run.

- a police station is nice to deal with public order and allegiance in the short term, but in the long term it's a big waste of a building slot. I almost never build them unless I really feel like I need to, or if I take over a city that already has a lot of extra building slots. Plopping a shinsegumi or isshin shishi in an unhappy town is the best way to raise order. Once you are closer to 100% allegiance you can move them on.

- rush research to get kneel fire. Then you can win any battle with 10 line infantry. This will save you a LOT of money.

- really long term: prioritize getting all the research techs that give an economic bonus. A lot of the things you do to make money will raise unhappiness, so it's also important to get the techs that raise public order. There are two techs (can't remember the names) that each give you +2 to growth, I used to sleep on them but now I always get them and they allow me to make lots of money even fairly early on in a game.

- avoid getting sucked into the crappy naval side of the game, especially if you are playing on hard or very hard or legendary. You will waste way more money than it is worth constantly repairing ships and ports and coastal buildings. You can build a foreign trade port in Nagoya or Satsuma and blockade the entrance to the harbor with 3 kaiyo maru, and the AI won't be able to bombard your port endlessly. On normal you can deal with the AI's navy, but on hard it is an endless money sink you can never win.

- lastly, if you are a clan in the north like Sendai or Aizu or maybe even Jozai or Nagaoka, if you take over Hokkaido from Matsumae, and upgrade everything there, you will make tons of money. There are several coal mines and iron mines that will make you rich, and the AI will very rarely bother with sending ships to attack you there, even on hard. Matsumae will always flip to imperial and attack you, so you might as well get the drop on them.

[dandinks]

Originally posted by Eddie G:

It's slow going at the start. You should be able to take the first province with the army you start with. Maybe adding 1 or 2 units if you feel the need. Focus on building and save your money rather than spending every turn. It takes a few turns to be able to afford the buildings, but once you get a couple of provinces you should be good to go. It's important to know the strength of your enemy so you don't over recruit. In other words don't recruit more than what you need. After you get a few provinces, you should be making at least 2-3,000 koku. I'll leave it at that, as there are people who probably have a lot more to say about it.

I had tried going slow, with just a few provinces I started to make around 3500$ per turn (Unfortunately that's on very high tax + with no army), the issues started when the entire map became shogunate because every imperial faction turned on me or died, once I finally got enough money to be able to have decent settlements I got swarmed by enemy ships bombarding ports and due to the damaged settlements everyone rebelled, I went bankrupt, and as to be expected I lost the campaign, how would you beat the ships? navys are quite costly, and is turtling a bad strategy, if not then how many provinces should I grab before turtling down.

[dandinks]

Originally posted by BastardSword:

cut

My clan was the Satsuma

For financial districts vs gambling dens, the money is superior but how would you solve the public order problem without the slow to build and highly expensive fort upgrades, would putting garrisons in the settlement be cheaper till I have the funds for forts, same problem with craft workshops

For farm upgrades its thousands for not that much, is it worth getting them first over the financial districts

I assume Geisha are like Metsuke in base shogun 2

When upgrading a settlement, once again what building would you use to combat the negative public order

Police stations I agree make a good temporary building for dealing with shogunate support

Kneel fire is incredible, upgraded line infantry with kneel fire can easily dispatch elite infantry, definitely worth the time to research, I must ask how would you quickly get modernization to be able to research it

How late should the economic tech be researched, is it worth getting over progress to kneel fire ever

How would you defend your cities from naval bombardment without a navy, would the hms warrior be able to singlehandedly defend my coasts if i had spare income to spend on it?

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by belisarius:

For farm upgrades its thousands for not that much, is it worth getting them first over the financial districts

Don't be fooled by the tooltips for the farms, they don't show the modifier from the province's fertility. In more fertile regions they'll produce much more wealth than is shown by the tooltip.

Originally posted by belisarius:

Police stations I agree make a good temporary building for dealing with shogunate support

They're also good to have permanently for public order.

[MFD Suraj]

I always start with making 3 vassal first , this make a permanent + 2 happines on all provinces , also if later on you will lose them (or cause you use ishinshishi/shishengumi for create revolt ).
Farm are without any doubt the best income , kneel fire is great but you dont really need too soon (is a choice that worth anyway befor or after economy research), you should consider the situation (need scouting as Eddie G sayd ), and what will be you expansion plans for later turns.
For naval part , is more complicate , you must plan carefully.
First of all if you play at very high , avoid war with big faction till you are not ready for strike strongly , the best is to quicly concquer all province of the faction to avoid long terms battle on the see ( costly ).
isles are a good way to expand "undercover". ( for satsuma ) aim first at tsushima , but is not really necessary , the kyushu isle is very rich in farms.(keep the best for you , nad the other let for vassals you get this way also commerce at long terms without the need to defend naval routes.
For the unhappiness after first farm upgrade you need to develop at defences at fortress , more only if really needed.
You should remind that you get -3 happiness also from research long the way , so befor buil something the give unhappiness tink twice ( seasons , resistence you get for higher expansion etc ) ... try to maximize the first province you keep at lower resistence befor pass to higher fame.
those are the best for use commercial distric , all the rest better go the other way , with less gain and more happiness , the second slot cna be a industry with low unhappinesscoose carfully where to use +3 modernization (usually better in upgradin province preset building like mines ...you need very few if even you need, you will reach the maximum research capacity anyway sooner or later , if you not play legendary you can reload to get microscope as "assistent "for your generals.

[WalrusJones]

Alternating between very high taxes and whatever taxes keep people happy, lets you rush build very quickly early on, but taking regions prior to your core two regions being developed is difficult, unless the enemy attacks first and you are able to counter-attack.

That and using your starting gunboats and sailing them south (if imperial), or north (If shogunate) to find abundant trade partners.

- The two factories. (Silk builds faster, and because you can only have one of each there is no opportunity cost to building it.)

- The economics district.

- Tons of zaibatsu farms. (Most farms have a 30% bonus to their money output, others are nearly double.)

- Trade ports as needed.

- Once you hit development 4 its safe to build the yakuza den.

- Building the western trade port can sometimes cause everyone, your side and the enemies to turn on you, but its a very good building.

- Finally, once you have a lot of high economic growth buildings up, you can finally drop taxes and let the growth carry your economy.

- When you don't have growth buildings maximum taxes are a necessity as often as you can manage them, but when you have them you can drop taxes for faster conquests.

When your core economy regions develop, you generally want factories wherever possible for economy, but for your inn development you have a decent choice of financial districts (+260 wealth + 2 per turn over the majong parlor) or majong parlors (+3 happiness: an immense reduction in the garrisons needed to hold a prefecture.)

For frontier regions, the financial district is better since you need to garrison the region anyhow, and the repression pairs well with the extra money that slightly subsidizes the garrison cost, but for regions in safer locations the majong parlor is better for saving you an immense number of units in the local garrison.

Course, you want to do the bare minimum to make sure you don't get bombarded to death because this is famously bad for your economy, when the war starts picking up make sure to grab HE shells.

[MFD Suraj]

My advice is to choose one path , not a mix , if you go for honor , stay with normal taxes , otherway you better choose plunder when you conquer any new settlements , and kill revolt afterwards.

[Señor Robótico]

In the early game you can easily get by with just full stacks of spear levy. Just rush down and flood the early enemy gun units. They are super cheap, and the money you save you can invest in your economy to get going quicker.

[dandinks]

Originally posted by Señor Robótico:

In the early game you can easily get by with just full stacks of spear levy. Just rush down and flood the early enemy gun units. They are super cheap, and the money you save you can invest in your economy to get going quicker.

When I use them spear levy seem to get destroyed by everything, lines beat them in melee since they gun a third of the unit down, generals when dismounted destroy them (siege defense), cavalry they win but it's not by that much, they seem to be complete garbage compared to yari ashigaru only existing to waste the enemy's ammo, it only gets worse when the enemy has any samurai

[MFD Suraj]

Basically melee troops worth only for castle defence.

[Eddie G]

Originally posted by MFD Suraj:

Basically melee troops worth only for castle defence.

I disagree. I destroy larger armies with a lot of line infantry and levy infantry, and get heroic victories a lot by doing so. I just bum rush, but I use yari Kachi with my spear levy. It works for me. I use a few gun units to draw fire, and engage. But I am me, and you are you, so it might not work for you.

[MFD Suraj]

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Originally posted by MFD Suraj:

Basically melee troops worth only for castle defence.

I disagree. I destroy larger armies with a lot of line infantry and levy infantry, and get heroic victories a lot by doing so. I just bum rush, but I use yari Kachi with my spear levy. It works for me. I use a few gun units to draw fire, and engage. But I am me, and you are you, so it might not work for you.

I know you like to fight most battle in first person , it change a lot , when you can choose a specific tactict on the field many trooops can be used wisely , but mine was e general assessment , i personally find few battles worthing fight manually in Fots.

[YaFilthy]

There is not much you can do about econ on FOS almost everything from shogun 2 transfers over except the map is different with adjustments to stats & building placement...

spoiler
-only build econ cites that means dont go making them past 2 slots.
-fertile farms
-high low tax
-reduce army cost % stat
-unit management: type & number amount
-Bays offer the best naval hubs
-agent management: use there special ability when inside towns
-town management: usually have a specific # is the best option until mid game

Satsuma island modern day Kyushu is the worst and i considers it a challenge on FOS unlike Base game but it still has access to foreign trade so id say Shikoku is still the hardest which stayed the same from base game. Everything on the western coast of japan is consider legendary difficulty and id even through Hokkaido island at legendary as well.


Basically, your best bet for the most efficient economy would be something along the eastern shoreline of Honshu and trading with america....

[Eddie G]

Originally posted by MFD Suraj:

Originally posted by Eddie G:

I disagree. I destroy larger armies with a lot of line infantry and levy infantry, and get heroic victories a lot by doing so. I just bum rush, but I use yari Kachi with my spear levy. It works for me. I use a few gun units to draw fire, and engage. But I am me, and you are you, so it might not work for you.

I know you like to fight most battle in first person , it change a lot , when you can choose a specific tactict on the field many trooops can be used wisely , but mine was e general assessment , i personally find few battles worthing fight manually in Fots.

I did not know that, but yea, I would not still be playing total war if it wasn't for the battles. There are a plethora of Strategy war games that feature empire building with no battles, like Civilization, HOI, AOE etc. It's the battles that set total war apart. Believe it or not, pre Shogun 2 I exclusively auto resolved my battles in Med. 2 and Napoleon. Although Napoleon is OP on auto resolve, especially if your general is Mr Bonaparte.