Building temples (noob question)

[Sheap]

I think some players build too many temples, obviously you can never have too many, but you can build some pretty cool units for the amount of money some players spend on extra temples.

As far as temples in castles or not, now that castles cost a fortune, it makes sense to leave temples out in the open. Back when castles cost less than temples did it was reasonable to give every temple its own castle. Now I think of it more like giving every castle its own temple. But with the high cost of castles, even if you lose some temples to raids, it's still cheaper than trying to protect them all with castles. This is especially true if your nation has a discount on temples.

The effect of temples on preaching is more than just one level higher. It's double, plus one, and the odds of successfully preaching are also increased. Plus you get the automatic temple check. Still, IMO players build too many temples.

[Saxon]

Winning by straight dominion takes a long time and when I was fiddling with it in a game yesterday (I had the day off) it seemed that I would have won the game faster by spending the money on troops. Of course, dominating the dominion situation helped by troops a lot, but having a temple in every province was overkill. However, I was surprised at how long it took, given the money I had sunk into it.

In other words, pushing dominion is tough and slow. I agree with the poster who said that money spent on temples is money not spent on troops and you can go too far down the temple road. Striking the balance is the tough part.

I also tried the mobile squad of priests. It did help quite a bit in beating down the enemy dominion. In particular, they help take down “dominion walls” in newly conquered areas. However, it was the temples which then push into enemy territory. You need both if you want to ever fight in your own dominion on the offensive. Otherwise the priests just clean up nasty dominion effects in your territory.