Anyone use a Fortified City?

[The Panther]

Yvelina said:
I am not saying that I am one of the best players, but I will challenge anyone who dares to say that I am not!

I use only watchtowers, but it may be due to the fact that I play only Vanheim.

You might be one of the best players, and you might not. But how can you even remotely claim to be one of the best players and yet play only a single race? What happened to BF Ulm, which you used to play occasionally?

As for the castle selection, only the watchtower is a good selection for ANY race. Perhaps the others can be a good choice in selected situations, like the Hill Fort for Miasmi C'tis or the Fortified City for Tuatha Man or the castle for certain other playing styles, but no other choice can be used in any pretender design for any race.

If national troops were viable in the late game, then perhaps higher admin choices would be more useful. Or if MP games had victory conditions which prevented them from going on and on for so long, then other type castles would DEFINITELY be useful.

Perhaps the reason Petar says that the best players only use the watch tower is because it is difficult to win a long game unless you have a castle in every province. This means a cheap one that can be built quickly, like the watch tower. I have definitely noticed that the watch tower matches the playing style of most of the top players, which I am not among.

In fact, I am trying to recall if I have ever played a long MP game (>80 turns) where the winning player selected something besides the watch tower. And I cannot think of any such game right now...