Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..

[Cheezeninja]

To me the preferred solution would be making sneaking units targetable by overland spells. While hoarding would still be quite possible, useful, and smart to do, an enemy with good and detailed intelligence could attempt to take out your production base.

I would also very much like to see an overland spell capable of castle destruction, which would open up some very interesting tactical opportunities IMO. If you made it so that the chances of success were predicated on the number of earth gems put into it against the defense rating of the castle it would also encourage people to use the high defense castles alot more.

[Graeme Dice]

Cheezeninja said:
I would also very much like to see an overland spell capable of castle destruction, which would open up some very interesting tactical opportunities IMO.

That role is taken by crumble.

[Cheezeninja]

Crumble hasn't been very effective in my experience... I was refering to a spell that would physically remove the castle, thereby removing the speedbump effect, which crumble does not do.

[Cohen]

Crumble is damn good!!!
It damages even the troops inside the castle, and I saw a Tartarian get killed by crumble! (well it disappeared, and there was in only a crumble in that province).

[Cheezeninja]

It seems to me that almost every time im using crumble, im doing so because there's a large number of defenders inside the castle keeping me from beating down the walls. When this is the case all that seems to happen is that crumble beats down the walls but then the defender vs besieger check happens afterwards and I get the message saying the defenders are repairing the wall faster than I can beat it down and I dont actually get a chance to storm the castle. While some damage is implied in the spell description I have never seen any statistics on it, or any noticable damage when I cast it.

[Graeme Dice]

Cheezeninja said:
While some damage is implied in the spell description I have never seen any statistics on it, or any noticable damage when I cast it.

The spell description tells you right out that it does 150 damage to the defense of the castle, with an additional 25 for each level of skill above 5.

[Cheezeninja]

I should have been more specific, I meant the spell description implies damage is done to the units inside the castle, but I have never seen evidence of it. I am aware of the damage the spell does to the castle, but if the units inside the castle can repair better than your troops outside it becomes moot how much damage you do as the game first applies the crumble damage and then does the besieger/defender check. While it does have uses now, obviously, it would become alot more useful if it either 1) fully destroyed the castle, requiring a new one to be built, or 2) applied the damage AFTER the defender/besieger check so that if the walls were completely crumbled you would then be able to storm the castle. This is only personal preference on my part.