How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

... whenever a castle was successfully stormed, the castle automatically got raized?

In SP, after a bit there's no point building castles, it's cheaper to let the AI build them and capture them!

It would make the attacker have to decide whether to spend the money, the time, and have to hang onto a province long enough to build, if he wants to rebuild.

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

Oh hey guys, now we've captured this castle, lets raze it to the ground! It's not like we need it or anything.

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

It really doesn't make any sense for this to be done, reduces how much capturing a fort is worth - and given how much of a pain it is to capture forts from actual players to begin with this isn't a good thing, along with a bunch of other problems.

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

This change would never happen at this late stage. This change would be very unlikely to happen within a future version since castles might be damaged during a siege and capture, but rarely razed to nothing throughout history.

If Dominions_4 is ever developed you could request a damage/repair phase where the victor needs to repair some of the castle to achieve maximum defense and bonuses on the province.

A total razing of a castle where the walls turn to ashes would only be some high_end late game spell which is very rare and should probably have its own casting limitations such as only being casted during the summer at the cost of the casters life.

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

Given that this is in a province already owned, that is pretty ridiculous. If you want to raze your fortress, giving a command seems the best way to do so.

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

OBVIOUSLY... my comment was for an enemy fortress not your own fortress. :re:

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

But see, you've taken the enemy fortress by the time this would be an option, meaning it is now your own fortress. Unless you are suggesting destroying the fortress entirely with the enemy still in it, which forces a fight.

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

When I posted this question, I sort of felt I got shouted at for mechanics/stupidity, but perhaps that's just my paranoia :)

I play SP only (I would suck at MP, and have no commitment time), latest game up to one notch below Impossible AI (will try that next time). I was reflecting that in my games, I don't think I've reached "End Game", I've won before then. In my games, I build a couple of forts in the "Early" Game. But in the "Mid" Game I just capture AI forts, and never bother having to build a fort again. I guess I was wondering about self-imposing a rule that I had to destroy any forts I captured, to make it more interesting to have to build forts again, or see how the dynamics would change if having to rebuild forts at fronts or rely on longer home rebuilds.

I'm sure there are other strategy games where when you "capture" and enemy land something like the fort gets destroyed, not handed over.(?)

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

It could make things more interesting, sure. From an in universe perspective though, it looks really dumb. And by mid game magic is prevalent enough that it doesn't really matter what you do with the forts, its not like anyone else half competent with magic is around when playing SP.

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

Regarding SP, the ai in Dom2 never built forts. It made them quite weaker, but also ment you had to build your own forts by yourself. Overall, the building of forts by ai is the single most significant and interesting change to the ai from dom2, from my point of view. If you're playing sp, you can always self-impose a rule of razing forts, but I think it's rather good to actually keep them, gameplay-wise.

Re: How hould it change the game if ... ?
 

My suggestion of destroying the fortress via a spell would not require a siege or capture of the fortress or even any friendly units in the province. It could be done across the map as a ritual spell where only a scout is walking past the fortress. I figured this would be obvious since "spells" can only be casted using a lab. ;)