Shogun 2: Total War Message Board  

I'm probably the worst Daimyo ever. For the good of my empire's interest (not the people) I have -9 food surplus and the people aren't even getting mad, because I have repression EVERYWHERE!

Well the heavy hand of government is the easier road to take.

Just avoid building castles in every provinces and upgrade lots farms. If you have done so you should have +40ish food surplus when controlling half of Japan.

I control 20 provinces and still steady at -26 to -30 food shortages. Of course the problem is the game somehow crashes every time I reach the halfway point, or having that many food shortages..

lol, is there a way to downgrade a castle? Every time I took a province I would upgrade the castle to max and I was all confused as to why they never have enough food. Would of been nice if the advisory told me that building a larger castle requires more food >_>

Nope. Select an area of about 5 provinces that you can max stats military-wise. What do i mean by that? Select encampment, not merchant when it comes up for build options when that slot becomes available, if not available select either sword/archer/yari etc etc dojos. You can max out your unit types between them all while upgrading to keep rice in check. Using encampment will give all units created in that province a bonus for whatever you choose:
Marksmanship - All missle units
Melee- All edge weapons
Charge- All cavalry units-naginata samurai too!!
Armor- All units
Morale-All units (helps a lot with lower units)
Now if you happen to have a province that has a natural bonus that will add to your units. Buzen, for example has crafts which will let you make a bow master dojo. With this type you can have 2 bonuses for that province. My set up for that province is this:
Citadel -to get the last construction type being it is a great province.
Bow Dojo-For Bow samurai
Famous temple- For monks and Buddist archers (best archers for range)
Bajutsu master dojo-Bow/yari/light cavalry
Arsenal-Fire throwers,fire mangonels,fire rockets,matchlock samarai.
Master armory- +2 for armor all units!! (from encampment)
Master Bowmaker- +20 marksmanship for all misile units!!!

So as you can see, you now have a super Missile making province with 2 bonuses for those units, so being you have the 1 turn unit build model and the infinite movement model available to you via the trainer, why build any other missile/missile cav building anywhere if you wanted to build other things (notice no ninja/ sword units/metsuke/geisha mentioned). But with onne province you have close to half the units available. Use your head when making provinces, being that sword units wouldn't benefit at all from the marksmenship bonus that naturally occurs in thes province. That's why I made it an all (mostly) missile province.
Hope that long winded tutorial helps anyone.

[Edited by Gamejunky, 3/28/2011 7:10:59 AM]

It does actually, if you look at the description of the castle that you want to upgrade , it will state that it consumes 1 rice. Every castle upgrade takes 1 rice away from you, but you get more retainers for that province (free upkeep/ but not elite units btw). Same thing goes with rice exchange, that eats up 1 rice per turn as well but if you like having metsuke around rice exchange will upgrade those units. This is why people are having trouble with food, they are upgrading without reading, it's not a race people, ENJOY the game, I, for one, are on . I loved Shogun, this game is just ten times better!!!

[Edited by tarus77, 3/28/2011 2:47:20 PM]