Ideas to stop mass castle building for DOM_3

[alexti]

Is there any actual need for any anti-mad-castling measures? Inefficiency of it should be enough. Has anybody seen mad-castling non-Norfleet player to win MP game? So far, every MP game I've participated in (excluding ones with Norfleet), total of about 2 dozens, has been won by non-mad-castling player. 1 castle per 4-6 provinces seems to be the most common ratio for the winning side if the game reaches late stage (if it's won earlier, there few castles usually).

The main problem with the castles that I see is that they are too good as a defensive measure. In late game, to storm the castle, your army has to withstand Flames from the Sky and Murdering Winter, dozen sets of ghost riders, then enemy's kamikaze squad (typically with something like wrathful skies) and only after that it reaches the main battle in the fortress. Big part of it is that the gems are likely to be already expended by that time which makes the final battle difficult (unless some creative scripting is used to retain some gems).

This issue makes the late game pretty slow, because instead of taking big losses in the storm, winning side usually prefers to slowly grow its advantage rather than storm.