Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Sure you have to pay for the gems, but that also gives you a thousand hitpoint piece of stone with a protection of 30 that virtually no early game army can defeat before they are forced to autorout.

I see the entire "autorout" problem as the fundamental issue at hand: Battles should be fought to the death! Or at least until nobody is actually fighting anymore, for, say, 3 rounds.