Can I get some cheese with that...

[NTJedi]

I was reading where it's 300_Gold per castle... and it can be as much as 450_Gold per castle. In any case just 10 provinces each with castles is over 3000 gold ! A very deadly army can be made with 3000 gold. That's 20 Hunter Knights from Machaka with 500 gold to spare.

Also a good strategy for stopping the castle strategy is removing the control of the province during construction. It takes 3 turns to build... a stealth army or ghost riders or call of the wild... etc.
Another idea is if you are currently the strongest... send a message thru the game to your opponents saying,"If you build a castle on our borders then I will consider this an act of war." Even someone of equal strength could be intimidated as a result.

The biggest part of multiplayer is diplomacy not some VQ or castling strategy. Players should be focusing on stopping the strongest player. If players A and B combined are the same strength of player C... then player A & player B should make an alliance against player C and make an agreement based on honor not to fight each other for 10 days or so. Peace Treaties... part of history.

[ May 26, 2004, 19:34: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
I was reading where it's 300_Gold per Another idea is if you are currently the strongest... send a message thru the game to your opponents saying,"If you build a castle on our borders and I will consider this an act of war." Even someone of equal strength could be intimidated as a result.

If somebody were to say that, I would immediately deploy for war, since that is obviously his intention anyway: The only reason you'd be concerned about your opponent building castles is if you plan to imminently attack him, and thus want him to be weak and exposed: Otherwise, an opponent who castles is actually working in YOUR favor, since he will not be able to effectively conduct an offensive operation against YOU without rendering his castles irrelevant. Given that such a message obviously indicates an imminent desire to invade you, appeasement is out of the question. I think we learned enough about that in WW2.

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
Being one of the non-VQ-whiners, but clam, blood and castle-whiner, I beg to differ.

I'm not whining because a strategy is unfair, unbeatable or similar. I'm whining because I HATE micromanagement, and all those strategies requires a lot of it.

Is this quite clear? Please don't impose motives to other people

Thank you.

Rather than make an exhaustive list of all potential "motives", I chose to start this thread by proposing a few. I don't deserve a frown for that!

You've added another motive, which is great--and I find it quite curious:

You don't want ME to "castle spam" because YOU hate micromanagement.

Without more, this appears to be a non sequitur.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
If somebody were to say that, I would immediately deploy for war, since that is obviously his intention anyway: The only reason you'd be concerned about your opponent building castles is if you plan to imminently attack him, and thus want him to be weak and exposed: Otherwise, an opponent who castles is actually working in YOUR favor, since he will not be able to effectively conduct an offensive operation against YOU without rendering his castles irrelevant. Given that such a message obviously indicates an imminent desire to invade you, appeasement is out of the question. I think we learned enough about that in WW2.

Well if player A, player B or player C were all the same size... and myself was twice the size of any of them then sending such a message to all players is usually effective. There will be the one player(player_C) who says hey I will utilize my gold for other resources/investments delay on building castles. And then there will be the player such as yourself that says "F.. You.". As a result you would be the first in the path of my expansion while player C has a longer time of peace and building.
And if our strategies were equal then you would most likely lose... unless one of the others came to your rescue.

As a result I would also make a peace treaty with player_C for 15 days or so.

[ May 26, 2004, 20:10: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Cohen]

The Caster doesn't need an army.

Machaka spiders? Uh what a good lunch for my SC ...

Try to play against Norfleet at least once, after we can talk again about that.

I mention Norfleet cause he's a skilled player, that adopt (if not invented) this strategy.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Cohen:
The Caster doesn't need an army.

Machaka spiders? Uh what a good lunch for my SC ...

Try to play against Norfleet at least once, after we can talk again about that.

I mention Norfleet cause he's a skilled player, that adopt (if not invented) this strategy.

I wasn't talking about the cheap spider knights

and I'm sure my SC could easily tango with your SC

[ May 26, 2004, 20:19: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Originally posted by Yossar:
All you have to do is press F7, pool slaves, and pool astral pearls. Not much micromanagment unless you are doing a lot of blood sacrificing and then have to put the slaves back on the priests.

Unless, of course, that the gems you have on your commanders are there for a reason. In which case you have to reassign gems to every commander who happened by a laboratory each turn. Result: Extensive, pointless micromangement.