Innovations and Policy

[ChrisX]

I just defeated the Takeda as Tokugawa. And all of the sudden, my Innovation drops a lot that I have to forego my Neutral stance and become Conservative.

I'd like to get back to Neutral stance, so how do I raise my Innovations at this point? Do I have to build lots of Cathedrals or sorts?

[Sr.Keitaro]

Yes, either that or change any of the innivation lowering buildings you probably got from the Takeda.

[trueancestor]

expel your conservative officers if they are less than useful and accumulate more neutral officers

[TheSaboteur]

Build teahouses, churches, and dismantle any buildings that lower innovation. Alternatively, if your clan stance is Neutral the auto council will do all that for you.

[ChrisX]

Actually, what are the advantages or disadvantages of the 3 Stances? I'd like to know so I can decide which one's better.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by ChrisX:

Actually, what are the advantages or disadvantages of the 3 Stances? I'd like to know so I can decide which one's better.

Well, each stance has different policies to enact. Also, it has an effect on your officiers loyalty.
If you have for example a lot of officers who are conservative and try to build up your Innovation, their loyalty will decrease. The opposite is of course also true, it raises loyalty if you try to match your stance to the majority of your officers.

[mrdragonrider]

Originally posted by ChrisX:

Actually, what are the advantages or disadvantages of the 3 Stances? I'd like to know so I can decide which one's better.

hmmm... 3 tenets can get really complicated to explain since it actually affects not only policies but also distrct development, expansion planning, resource and human resource management, tribal management, and more. In other words, depending on which tenet you plan to play and which policies you are going to enact, it fundamentally changes the way you plan, execute, and expand in the game. For now, I will try to limit my discussion to Policy aspects.

In SOI, the policies are rebalanced since PROG used to have a huge advantage in comparison to other tenets. However, even with this new balancing, PROG still has the better policy combination. For me, I look to gain in general from policies in order of priority 1) max popularity increase 2) population increase boost 3) gold income boost 4) merchandise price reduction.

Max popularity is important because it has an immediate and large impact on militia number. Population increase is important because it affects many important elements such as max militia number, available labor, and available distrcts to expand and develop.

Gold income boost is really available only to PROG tenet. Other tenets have crop increase policies instead. Merchadise price reduction is available to PROG and NTRL tenets.

In general, you can gain +30 (NTRL) to +35 (PROG and CNSV) max popularity from policies. For PROG, Easy Commerce (+10), Western Saction (+10), Remove Barrier (+5), Fixed Society (+5), and Post Horse System (+5) to make it +35. Fixed Society is +10 but has the prerequisite of Land and Arms Order that is -5 so the net effect is +5. It used to be +15 net effect in the previous version which made it mandatory. But now with rebalancing, it becomes more of an option. Post Horse System is an universal policy available to all tenets so it applies to other tenets as well.

Easy Commerce and Western Sanction are big income boosting policies with big popularity boost. Remove Barrier is the higher population increase policy than the similar policies available to other tenets. The primary reason why I still consider PROG has the better policy options.

For NTRL, Suggestion Box (+10), Coin Bias Ban (+5), Low Land Taxation (+10), and Post Horse System (+5) to make it +30. I ususally consider NTRL to be really good at early going because 2 core policies (Suggestion Box and Coin Bias Ban) are the cheapest policies there is and immediately available without restriction as long as the tenet is NTRL. Combined with Post Horse System, another very cheap policy, You can gain +20 Max Popularity fairly quickly.

Since this is getting way longer than I'd like, I will skip CNSV and other priorities but you can check them in the similar way. Instead I will explain the core policy range restrictions for 3 tenets. What I mean by that is to have all the essential policies for each tenet, you have to maintain your innovation at certain range. For CNSV, you must remain below 200 to have Fief Assurance policy, a must policy and below 150 if you want Foster System which is an option depends on the game circumstances. For NTRL, you must remain 450-550 to have Low Land Taxation and Retainer Assembly policies. For PROG, you must maintain above 850 to have Easy Commerce, a must policy, and above 900 if you want Fixed Society.

This policy range restriction has a big implication on the way you develop distrcts. For example, not having the option of developing Cathedral in military distrcts, due to its effect of raising innovation, takes away the easiest way to raise conscript numbers. That means that your army is more reliant on militia for military strength and that in turn changes the priority in distrct planning and building planning altogether.

Sometimes, I change tenet from NTRL to PROG by building temple complexes and then building cathedrals. Then at certain point, I eliminate all the temple complexes to reach 850 innovation very quickly so that I can enact all the core PROG policies very soon after changing tenets.