[Vynd]

Originally posted by Tris:
That's a really good point Vynd. You could argue that the unbalanced strategy is raiding, and castling is just the best way to defeat that.

There are actually two ways to see this:

Raiding is the problem [...]

Castling is the problem, because it does let you build lots of temples. This means the only way to fight the dominion of a castler is to have lots of temples yourself (because you can't destroy his easily). Raiding is needed when people build temples too close to borders, or too many temples. People shouldn't be able to build temples in every province and guard them. It's part of the game to intelligently choose where to invest in your 200gp worth of temple.

I hadn't really thought about it from this second angle, Tris, but it seems to me that you're right. One could call raiding the "solution" to the "problem" of too many temples, and thus see castling as a "problem" because it allows people to maintain too many temples too easily, despite raiding. However, I still think that raiding is a big part of what makes castling attractive, so if castling is a problem then raiding is part of it.

Also, it is a mistake to fixate on how raiding makes temples vulnerable, as if all raiders did was destroy 200 gold temples. For one thing, temples represent more than 200 gold, they also represent the time and effort involved in getting a priest over there and having him spend a turn building the temple. This, as Cainehill pointed out, is in contrast to the free, no action required, destruction of the temple. Furthermore, raiders do a lot more than destroy temples. They deprive you of income and gems, gain them for their owners, spread unrest in "your" territory, wipe out PD and/or isolated units, and require you to track them down with superior forces and destroy them if you want them to stop.