[Yvelina]

Speaking as someone who, by turn 50, tries to have a castle in every province she ownes, I do not see why people complain, and why something should be done about it.

First, let me make clear that I play exactly one race, and it is the penultimate raiding race - Vanheim. I use sneaking armies, I use remote anonymous spells, and I most certainly use teleport attacks. If I follow the reasoning of the most vocal opponents of ubiquitous castles, I should hate them... but I do not.

If someone can afford the castles, they deserve to be safe from my raids. If they go overboard with them, and spend too much, they may have a hard time fighting me off.

So can someone please explain why we should not have them? By the way, I study in Strasbourg, and I have probably seen twenty castles or ruins in a radius of twenty miles. I would not be surprised if there are twenty others I do not know about. Castles worked in history, and castles work in Dominions II. Watchtowers serve as an answer to raiders, Castles and Fortified Cities help with ressources and income... I do not think anything is wrong.

And yes, I have fought people who make tons of castles. In my present game, I eliminated Cohen, and had to take five castles before turn twenty to do so. I think that he should have invested in mages, rather than in castles. Later in the same game, I took out Caelum. They had one of the stronger castles, but they took exactly as long as Abysia's, because I had shakers and cleavers. Part of the game, why should we change it?