What kind of castles do you choose?

I can't see the use of these 10 Admin Forts. Sloth 3 is more attractive than a 10 Admin Fort that will provide me, more or less, the same production value and gold loss AFAIK.

I remember playing my first few games of the Demo and attempting to field any sort of army with the default tower and feeling like a complete idiot later when I changed it up to a Castle or Wiz Tower.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I have been using the 40 admin castles that cost 80 development points.

But I'm actually considering moving up to higher defense after having some of my forts seiged by an AI supercombatant pretender...a wyrm.

Looks like 2 turns for any decent sized army to tear down my walls. Or is that just Ry'leh?

[Gandalf Parker]

Game size of course means something also. Well actually I guess any scale or setting might have some point in the decision.

But a small map pretty much orders me to invest in strong walls and high admin. A large map makes a strong argument for going with cheap fast builds

[Jasper]

I have to admit that in practice I typically use the 40 admin castle too, with only the wizard tower being seriously in contention. I _want_ to like the Hill fort, but in the end I never quite take it.

[Jasper]

Actually, I think the fortress system would be improved if they simply all had the same administration, and were instead simply differentiated by their point cost, expense, independent time to build, and defensive features.

[LordArioch]

What's so great about administration anyway? 20 administration difference is, IIRC, a 10% difference and income and supposing 50-100 resources worth of surrounding provinces, there's a 10 resource difference, so taking the castle over the mausoleum gets you an astounding 10% more gold at certain provinces (except for your capitol most forts have low income)...and +10-20 resources per fort. The resources is nice but so is a 150 gold discount on fort cost.

The wizard tower on the other hand, costs over 2 scales more than the mausoleum for 5% more gold at fort provinces and +5-10 resources...I'd rather take an order scale and a production scale.
I can see the benefit of the 40 point castle for early troop production, but unless I missed something, I don't see what the expensive forts offer late-game.

Well you have to consider that an initial province attack and hold; fort construction and domination of control of provinces for both gem and army production makes a massive difference.

If you could make double the money and production from turn 4 to turn 12 (Just for the early game expansion) then youll have a massive advantage in any field you choose as you have much more options to spend your valuable gold on.

Take an example of Pythium.

If you could build an Extra Temple that pumps A communicant every turn from an initial conquest of 2 provinces before a player playing a 20 Admin province, you suddenly have yourself a drastic advantage when armies collide because of abusive Communions.