Building temples (noob question)

[PhilD]

Also, it appears that the mechanics of dominion spread as described in the manual are wrong - there was some rather intensive testing done some weeks ago, and reported here.

While the manual says that the "strength" of temple checks (the probability that they actually produce a dominion change) scales with the maximum dominion (ie, it's supposed to be 10% per [starting dominion] + [1 per five temples]), it doesn't seem to increase with additional temples (ie, it's only 10% per starting dominion).

So, it seems that starting with a high dominion is actually more important than it seems if you want to push your dominion ahead of you.

[Sheap]

I think some players build too many temples, obviously you can never have too many, but you can build some pretty cool units for the amount of money some players spend on extra temples.

As far as temples in castles or not, now that castles cost a fortune, it makes sense to leave temples out in the open. Back when castles cost less than temples did it was reasonable to give every temple its own castle. Now I think of it more like giving every castle its own temple. But with the high cost of castles, even if you lose some temples to raids, it's still cheaper than trying to protect them all with castles. This is especially true if your nation has a discount on temples.

The effect of temples on preaching is more than just one level higher. It's double, plus one, and the odds of successfully preaching are also increased. Plus you get the automatic temple check. Still, IMO players build too many temples.