[Tuidjy]

Frankly I do not understand what the problem with
castle spamming is. I play Vans. If you go to
war with me, you will lose every single
unfortified temple in, oh, about five turns.

There are some people on this thread who are
familiar with the experience. At least one
of them has taken up castling religiously, so
now instead of burninating his empire, I
am besieging three castles, and gambling on his
Vampire Queen not being called up from the dead
too quickly.

Do you honestly propose that we start using rules
that _enforce_ leaving your provinces
vulnerable? Or do you accuse people building a
castle in each province of playing a cheap game?

Personally I do not build castles extensively.
Not because I am ashamed of it, or because I do
not think it is a good idea. Mostly, it is
because I cannot afford it, or because I am
hoping that I can get away with it unless I am
facing Vanheim, Man, Ulm, Pangea, Caelum, ...
you know, what, nevermind! :-)

Once the game gets going, and supercombatants
raise their ugly heads, having provinces without
a castle is a waste of your 200 gold coins, and
of most of the income you can get from the
province.

So lets see. Why do people whine about castling?
1. Because they do not like micromanaging, and
want to deny others the benefits of doing it?
2. Because they like their administration bonus,
and do not want to give it up?
3. Because they have trouble to keep supply
adequate without a fortified city?
4. Because their strategy is not able to support
the expense of castling?
5. Because they like being able to raid
indiscriminately?
6. Because they need something to whine about?

Guys, castling is not only the one in-game answer
to raiding, it is also perfectly realistic. I am
from Europe. In most places, it is enough to
look at the highest place in sight, and you will
see a castle. This is certainly the case in
France, Germany and Spain. Why? Because building
a castle that allows you to protect your villagers
and lifestock, and strike at the invaders, should
they separate for pillaging, WORKS!

Now, people are proposing solutions to alleviate
the need of castling. I'm all for that! Make
temples take a turn to demolish. Make it
impossible to bump taxes unless you have held the
province for a whole turn. Make it a bit easy to
intercept a moving army. Fine! Thank you very
much! I do not want to pay 500 coins for my
temple. I could use some ressources. But the
problem is not castling. The problem is the
wack-a-mole approach to handling an army moving
in your lands.

My way of handling this? Introduce loyalty in
provinces. Make those who move between loyal
provinces move first, as opposed to those moving
between occupied provinces. This simulates the
army supported by the population having access to
better logistics, better recon, and not being
harrassed by loyalists. Hell, introduce a new
command 'move while intercepting' that will
deflect the path of the army to coincide with the
targeted invader's destination.

Of course this is complex, and will not happen in
a patch. But do NOT cripple castling without
coming up with an answer to raiding first, or the
next whine fest will be:

So his IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE Vans slaughtered my 400
coins strong PD, burned my 200 coins temple,
jacked the taxes to net 200 coins, and then left
me with 50% unrest. Oh, they hid on the next
turn, so there WAS NOTHING I COULD DO!

WHAAAAAAH!'