Balance and Cheating

[Twan]

I think the best answer to castle spaming is to make a default fortress really worse than everything else, as well as slow to build (I suggest as the default castle to add the palace... a fortress with a cost of 400, needing 5 turns to be built -lots of artwork needed-, defence 25, food 100, admin 10 but takes 30 on surrounding provinces -courtiers living in a palace are corrupted persons-). The watchtower should have a cost of 40 or even 60 as it's the easiest to build and cheapest fortress, so castle spaming may be still a strategy, but with an initial cost.

Another good option is to delete Caelum.

[Oversway]

Personally I don't find castle spamming that big of a deal. I hope that castles will be moddable so that people who do care can eliminate/reduce it.

[Gandalf Parker]

That would work for me also. Some things are hard to get the best answer for both solo play and multi play and all variations (large map, small map, etc). But alot can be answered by having it moddable. Modding isnt that hard if its just a simple one-line change. The game can be started with an agreement that "all must play with GameMod-9 which is a single line mod taking xxxxx castle from the game"