Downgrade castles?

[Weizen1988]

So i took over some land, but the castles so high level i cant support it without claiming more land, something i also cant presently afford to do, and i cant downgrade the castle it seems, or do i have to destroy all the buildings first?

[Harpuea]

I don't think you can downgrade castles, sadly.

[Ghadaro]

You can't downgrade castles so to provide for them you need other provinces with excess food.
To do this you need to build up the agricultural land in all provinces and specialise them ie. have a province with say a bowmaker or armoury take a higher level castle to train better troops but a province with no bonus can keep the castle as small as possible to simply provide food.

[Weizen1988]

Thats what ive been doing, but i didnt have a surplus built up to be able to deal with pretty much every single castle left on the map to be taken being high end (the AI seems to not have to do things like feed people or pay upkeep, so its land all seems to have huge castles and no apparent way it could be supporting it, maybe some of its lands further in are just food). Taking any land anywhere outside of what i currently have costs more food than can be supplied. So should i just stop expanding? I control the Shimazu start island (i know very little about the islands names, the most westward one), and the chosokabe (sp) island (the little one next to that). Since both of those islands are nothing but shoreline on all of them im always concerned i need to station troops all over and have atleast a half decent castle, but i usually dont go beyond having like 3 building slots and maxing out farming as early as i can afford to so i can support it and have a little extra.

[Ghadaro]

By the way they rotated the map by about 45 degrees (presumably to suit wider screen monitors) so north west as you look at the screen is west. Nothing like confusing everybody.

The AI is exempt from upkeep and some other areas but you'll probably find if they had large castles and poor agriculture the town wealth is very low as a result. Annoyingly that means less money from the provinces you capture.

Lowering tax rate can help offset the effects of low food if you can afford it.
Researching the right hand side of the tech tree helps as it will allow you to upgrade your farms. Also if you see a market that has been upgraded to rice exchange or higher tear it down as its costing extra food.

Best advice for expansion is to have a ninja perform a mission on the defending army. (Any agent works but ninjas will give more troop info) Then select the city and you can see what buildings they have.

If a city isn't a troop building city you don't need to upgrade the castle at all and shouldn't generally upgrade it more than once. A market gives money and growth (it also allows metsuke which can get more tax in a city), sake den gives gold and happiness, temple gives happiness and removes christianity.

When defending you have a few advantages that reduce the army you need to defend. Your walls, fight to the death bonus and your free garrison troops are there for any siege defence. The AI will usually only drop 1 stack for a coastal attack, it also takes a full turn to land a unit on a beach so you will get at least a turn to rush another ashigaru or 2 or move troops from 1 city to another before they can reach you.
Place coastal defending armies so that 1 army can run to 2 or 3 cities and you've just reduced the number of defending armies you need.
Its generally easier to defend a standard castle than an upgraded one. The reason being the fight to the death bonus. An upgraded castle consists of multiple walled sections, only the section that contains the keep gives units the fight to the death bonus.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Weizen1988:

So i took over some land, but the castles so high level i cant support it without claiming more land, something i also cant presently afford to do, and i cant downgrade the castle it seems, or do i have to destroy all the buildings first?

I remember wondering this when I first started playing.

I finally got to the point where I would wait for the AI to build up their farms before I went in and conquered, lol.

[Weizen1988]

Well decided not to give up when i was handed the pile of overdeveloped castles, claimed a huge chunk of main island basically to west edge of kyoto, all thats left is the Date, who control the whole other side of the map, and are currently my ally. Realm divide maxed out at -200, but they are still my ally for now, rushing my army to the border for the end game ridiculous war thats about to go down.


On a related note: Does the game end in 1600? or can i keep playing endlessly and stomp the ♥♥♥♥ out of the rest of the Date?

[ironskoblin]

Originally posted by Weizen1988:

On a related note: Does the game end in 1600? or can i keep playing endlessly and stomp the ♥♥♥♥ out of the rest of the Date?

You can go past 1600, you just need to have the victory provinces by then.

[Weizen1988]

Originally posted by ironskoblin:

Originally posted by Weizen1988:

On a related note: Does the game end in 1600? or can i keep playing endlessly and stomp the ♥♥♥♥ out of the rest of the Date?

You can go past 1600, you just need to have the victory provinces by then.

Nice, i do, but i took too long, i wanted to see the late tech tree and it took too much time.