How Do You Balance Growth?

[LintMan]

Arryn's AAR was a great help in me getting a feel for the game "balance" as you call it. Most other AAR's are less detailed and more fiction-oriented, which is fun/interesting, but can be less useful as a learning tool.

Other thoughts:
Here's a thread with some Posts that might touch on some of what you're asking about.

Order of Expansion thread

If someone has 20 castles at turn 21, they probably have the cheapest castle type and are building a castle in every province; this is a very specialized strategy I wouldn't recommend unless you know why you're doing it and what the tradeoffs are (and there are some)

Getting 1 or 2 basic SC's by turn 20 isn't so hard, especially if that's your targeted goal. Bane Lords don't take that much research, and neither does construction of a few items to start them off.

You might also find some other worthwhile discussions here is you search on particular aspects of your question, ie: research and site searching strategies, super combatants, "castling".

[tinkthank]

One example could be (with some tradeoffs) to slap a wraith sword on a Niefel Jarl; you can do this multiple times by turn 20; with the right randoms, you can toss a pendant of luck and some sort of etheralizer on them too, plus ditto on your pretender, and/or any other little gadgets you can construct, and hence by turn 20 you can have a bunch of SC-type units, if that is your goal. You won't have much of anything else, however, but that isn't the question.

If however the question was: How can I get mulitple SCs (or tons of castles) by turn 20 and simultaneously either a) have a great economy or b) have a kick-butt army or c) have a multifaceted research schemata or d) have lots of neat casters or e) have at least 2-3 mercs or f) have scouted the majority of the map so you know who and where your enemies are and what their weaknesses may be or g) site searched to achieve good gem income or h) conquered strategically significant provinces or i) be able to play in a style that suits me well and is fun for me or j) any or all of the above
then that is a different kettle of fish altogether. The answer may very well be "you cannot".