[Vynd]

I like what Tuidjy and Cainehill are saying, which I sum up as "the problem isn't castles, the problem is raiding." For that matter, this is one of the main reasons Norfleet gives for pursuing a castling strategy, although I don't know that he considers castling or raiding to be "problems."

Anyway, if it wasn't so easy for enemy armies to get into your territory and wander around, avoiding battle with your armies, while burning down your temples, ramping up your unrest, and forcing you to devote disproportionate forces to pinning them down and destroying them, then castling would cease to be such an attractive strategy. It would still have its uses, but as folks have pointed out, it has its drawbacks as well. However, so long as it is the best (almost only) way to stop raiders, trying to do anything to limit the strategy would be a mistake, I think.

I like Cainehill's suggestion that it actually require effort of some sort to destroy an enemy temple. Although I'm not sure if the game can handle the idea of a temple and the land it is built on belonging to different people. Tuidjy's suggestion about loyalty is also a good one.

My own sugestion us that the movement rules be tweaked such that it is possible to intercept an enemy army in the space that it starts the turn in, even if it has orders to move somewhere else. In other words, make it possible to catch raiders. You could start with some sort of base chance of getting to the province before the enemy leaves it (33%?), and then modify it by comparing the strategic movement speeds of the armies involved. Alas, I have no idea if Illwinter is interested in making changes like these at this point...