[Gandalf Parker]

OK Mort, Lets pin down castle tactics. Im just rambling out loud here...........

So you would have the AI maintain (a scout? priest? small army?) which moves seperate from his larger expansion army. When it finds a province that has (I forget what the formula players say whether its high resource or high gold). The province needs to have no bordering neighbors that are not owned by the AI (avoiding front line positions) and no bordering neighbor that already has a castle. That sounds good.

And by preference it should have 2 bordering provinces which are water or mountain? Im not sure how code would go about recognizing a chokepoint. Two water neighbors which dont also border on each other? It might be able to see that. The impenetrable mountain walls like on the Eye map Im not so sure about. That would be "a province which should be a neighbor but doesnt have a #neighbor statement" which is what really makes them impenetrable mountains. That extra-thick borderline is just for visiblity.

But even if it cant specifically recognize chokes (I dont know if it can or not) that might not be too bad . Mountain areas are supposed to represent a difficult terrain for movement in Dom2. And if the 2 water neighbors happen to be next to each other thats not so bad since I often discover a need for some coastline defense.

Hmmm but the formula so far would want me to own those 2 water provinces. And what about the water nations? Hmmmmm I think this formula is getting "smarter" than its worth.