Bankrupt

[meyeroldmaan64]

Need help please. Am new to game and no matter which clan I play and how much I do the studying for the farming or build buildings that help income I seem to go bankrupt. Any help would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

[easytarget]

At a first guess I'd say it's likely you're fielding larger armies than you have the income to support.

[Miquinei]

Yeah, my guess is that you probably spend to much on your army. Try looking at your finance tab and see what costs you the most and try balancing it out. As for getting more income, try ensuring that you hold key villigages with important resources and make sure you trade with everybody you can. You can also invest into your navy and trade ships and occupy trading spots but you need to be careful with that - they're easy to lose if you're not in control of your waters.

[Jester]

Trade, trade and more trade. send those trade ships to the nodes fast, 1 each just to grab it. send ship out to scout the coast and meet your potential trade partners. grab province bordering multiple clans so you can make land trades.

[$tealth A$$a$$iN]

Upgrade roads and make trade agreements with other clans, put trade ships on the overseas trading spots, most are to the west, or you can loot/sack other settlements you capture (this will dishonour your diamyo and have much unrest in the settlement) it will give you a cash sum there and then if you really need it. Shimazu clan is prob the easiest clan to start off with, most of the sea trade spots are right next to it and no enemies to the west.

[noodle]

Yeah finance screen is handy for trying to work out where your money is going. Trade is also important, both with other clans and by the trade nodes. Try not to overspend on naval commitments when trying to capture the trade nodes however.

Building wise Farms, Roads, Ports and Markets are pretty important. Farms give a little money depending on region soil quality and drive growth in your towns. Roads drive growth, unit replenishment, army speed (I think they also have multipliers on trade revenue? Not sure). Ports increase the number of trade agreements you can handle by sea. Markets give the most money and allow recruitment of Metsuke, which are basically your medieval Japanese secret police.

Once a Metsuke levels up they can gain access to a skill that increases Tax revenue in a province they administer. In addition they learn skills related to bribing enemy armies and settlements as well as catching and killing enemy agents.

[rory.b.p]

Sounds like fielding to expensive armies and or you are exempting lots of provinces from tax and forgetting to tax em later.
Also despite what people are saying it is not great to trade with everyone, get good trade with close allies and don't rely to much on general trade, once realm divides hit and all the randoms break off trade with you, then your finances take a massive hit.
Now if like to rapid expand with certain clans like the Oda and you know you can trigger RD by turn like 40 if you wanted to then by all means trade with everyone, stockpile cash from turn 40 to turn 50 or so and then even if you go in the negatives you have a stockpile to last you a solid few turns.

I was -1.7k for like 6-7 turns after RD in my recent Oda campaign yet I was still upgrading buildings because I had stockpiled the cash, but yes if you are inexperienced just trading with everyone could bite you in the bum financially once RD hits and the vast majority of those trade agreements dissapear (although on easy difficulty the trade agreements themselfs may delay the RD rage from the AI factions your trading with for a turn or two I guess).

[Raveneye]

I'm with Rory on the trade thing, don't rely on it too much for the majority of your income, since RD completely negates it. That said, don't neglect it either as it can help you build specalty buildings sooner and with less cost in the long run then waging a war for it in addition to the extra cashflow. I tend to trade with everyone near me that I don't plan on fighting any time soon so I can get the most money possible, then break them off as I turn my war machine in their direction to avoid any diplomatic penalties.

One thing I don't see much of in the above comments are about the tech paths. Focusing too much on the Bushido tree, while making you pretty badass in the field, will eventually make you suffer terribly in the later game when the majority of the fighting has died down to only a handful of clans still standing and you will need samurai-heavy armies to keep up. I tend to start with the first Bushido tech to help the ashigaru fight better, then switch over to the Chi tree for Todofuken to get the roads and Zen for monks and the happiness, then go back to Bushido for Heaven and Earth to heal your armies up faster and give you encampments to get better and cheaper units so you can spend more money on making even more money with markets and sake dens in all your non-important troop producing provences.

Hope this helps you out.