[krpeters]

I'm just trying to figure out the math here.

Your base province has a base income of 300 gold/turn. So by turn 10, you've received 3000 gold from it. The provinces you conquer provide considerably less, let's add 1000 gold for the sake of argument. So that's 4000 gold.

Average researchers are 150/gold. Recruiting 10 of them takes you down to 2500.

An expansion army is at least 500 gold. Let's say you make two of those. That gets you down to 1500.

I can see maybe starting a single castle by turn 10 -- if you wait for frills like a lab or temple until later. But three forts? I'm obviously missing something. That's why I asked about 200% taxation, or maybe +3O/+3P to get a tastey +30% income? Whatever you're doing, it's impressive.

Or maybe I'm being too stingy on my estimate of province income? Maybe I should up that to 2500 -- assuming 50 gold/province, 10 provinces would get you 5000 for ten turns, but it takes time to get them (you don't have them all at turn one) so I'm cutting that in half. So if I add that, I can see how you can get another castle or two started, but again only if you don't build labs or temples.