Can I get some cheese with that...

[Master Shake]

My own sugestion us that the movement rules be tweaked such that it is possible to intercept an enemy army in the space that it starts the turn in, even if it has orders to move somewhere else. In other words, make it possible to catch raiders.

You CAN intercept raiders as the game is now. If a raiding army is moving to another one of your provinces, you move in before he moves out if you army is faster or smaller. In addition, you can cast distant summons (ghost riders, call of the winds, etc.) that attack before movement.

I take capitals with my standard raiding party (herse + 8 Vans)...... my late game raiding parties (Drott + 5 Herse)

I think people are referring to raiding parties costing 800 - 1500 gold (if I can calculate the above listed rading parties based soley on memory). Of course an army costing that much should wipe out PD. Imagine a rading party costing 1200 gold attacking your empire. They wipe out 5 temples, but on the seventh try you catch them with a large army and kill them. Then it's a wash. You lost 1000 gold in temples, plus some province income each turn for 5 turns, they lost a 1200 gold army.

I find that building too many castles is often a stupid idea for any living race. There is no way to defend so many castles, so you are guaranteed to give up some to your enemy. Then, your enemy has a new supply center, a fortified position, and a place to recruit and summon new units inside your empire. If someone wants to spend 300 gold on a castle in every province, that's fine. I'd rather spend that money on armies to seige and claim those castles for my own.