Ideas to stop mass castle building for DOM_3

[NTJedi]

I've seen lots of Posts complaining about the mad castling strategy or mass castle strategy. Here are some ideas for developers on stopping the mass castle building for games:

1) Have a percentage of provinces where no castle-types can be built because of the land. Example= some provinces near the sea, swamp provinces, and some mountain provinces. Also waste provinces take longer building time. This idea is realistic as well.

2) Have each castle-type built cost more gold then the one previously built. Not realistic but effective.

3) Have each player only able to build X amount of castles. X determined by the number of provinces on the map divided by 20. Examples=
70 provinces would be 4 castles.
400 provinces would be 20 castles.

4) Have each player only able to build one castle for every 5 provinces owned. So by turn 15 and a player owns 15 provinces that player can only build 3 castle-types.

5) Have spells which can destroy the land so no castle-type can be built. Such as: Level_5 Alteration (5 water)(10 water gems) Adds the swamp characteristic to a province where castle-types cannot be built.

These are just ideas since it shouldn't be possible to build a castle-type just anywhere... unless MAYBE magic is used. Also by having castle building limited means castle locations will be more strategic instead of mass building cheap castle-types. Hope this helps.

[Turin]

6) Make it so that mass castling isn´t necessary, because of useless pd and cheap raiding spells like horde from hell and ghost riders.

[NTJedi]

YES Ghost Riders is way too powerful... hopefully adjusted with Dominions_3. This spell is Banned for the multiplayer games I've been doing. Also I witnessed Ermor max out research and still not cast this spell.

I also agree about province defense... I'll make a post within the "The Dominions 3: "Wishlist" " sticky for improving province defense.

[Turin]

Well I just wanted to point out that in a game where raiding isn´t so effective, building mass castles would be a stupid strategy. Right now every province with a temple, 3+ gem income or more than 50 gold/turn needs a castle once conjuration 9 is researched.

In a regular war mass castling doesn´t help much. You won´t be able to man all castles and it just takes one more turn for the attacker to grab the castle.
In a way mass castling without enough troops makes you an attractive target, because the attacker has much more to gain.

[deccan]

Yeah, I don't see why mad castling is considered a problem at all. It's an effective defense against powerful raiding spells, but you still need manpower to defend them against significant enemy forces.

[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?

[CUnknown]

Yvelina--

It would be nice if Castles weren't as necessary, that's all.

I think province defense should be doubled in effectiveness, and the more expensive castle types (mountain fortress, citadel, fortified city) should be made much better and/or slightly cheaper. In this way, people might actually choose those types of castles, and castles would be naturally limited due to the cost.

[ioticus]

Is castle building that much of a problem? I never build more than about 5 castles in my games. I always need the gold for more important things.

[quantum_mechani]

I don't think the cheap castles are overpowered so much as the more expensive ones underpowered. I think a good solution would be to give special bonus to each of the less used castles. Dark Citadel could spawn skeletons, normal Citadel could recruit two commanders per turn, Fortified City could draw population from other provinces, ect..

[Chazar]

quantum_mechani said:
I don't think the cheap castles are overpowered so much as the more expensive ones underpowered. I think a good solution would be to give special bonus to each of the less used castles. Dark Citadel could spawn skeletons, normal Citadel could recruit two commanders per turn, Fortified City could draw population from other provinces, ect..

That is a good suggestion, although I wonder why population draining is a good thing. Maybe an additional growth bonus would also do...