Ideas to stop mass castle building for DOM_3

[Yvelina]

Speaking as someone who, by turn 50, tries to have a castle in every province she ownes, I do not see why people complain, and why something should be done about it.

First, let me make clear that I play exactly one race, and it is the penultimate raiding race - Vanheim. I use sneaking armies, I use remote anonymous spells, and I most certainly use teleport attacks. If I follow the reasoning of the most vocal opponents of ubiquitous castles, I should hate them... but I do not.

If someone can afford the castles, they deserve to be safe from my raids. If they go overboard with them, and spend too much, they may have a hard time fighting me off.

So can someone please explain why we should not have them? By the way, I study in Strasbourg, and I have probably seen twenty castles or ruins in a radius of twenty miles. I would not be surprised if there are twenty others I do not know about. Castles worked in history, and castles work in Dominions II. Watchtowers serve as an answer to raiders, Castles and Fortified Cities help with ressources and income... I do not think anything is wrong.

And yes, I have fought people who make tons of castles. In my present game, I eliminated Cohen, and had to take five castles before turn twenty to do so. I think that he should have invested in mages, rather than in castles. Later in the same game, I took out Caelum. They had one of the stronger castles, but they took exactly as long as Abysia's, because I had shakers and cleavers. Part of the game, why should we change it?

[CUnknown]

Yvelina--

It would be nice if Castles weren't as necessary, that's all.

I think province defense should be doubled in effectiveness, and the more expensive castle types (mountain fortress, citadel, fortified city) should be made much better and/or slightly cheaper. In this way, people might actually choose those types of castles, and castles would be naturally limited due to the cost.

[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.

[Verjigorm]

I don't think that castling needs to be diminished. Watch towers and Mausoleums can only slow you down and prevent you from horroring, ghosting, or imping your way through someone's land (which IMO is equally as cheesy as castling--that is if I considered either one cheesy).

I don't agree that Ghost Riders is too powerful. After all, it is a 9th level spell. I wouldn't tone it's effect down, but I might add a skull or two to its usage to try to keep it Pretender-only or require a significant investment in gems to make a caster. That would curb castings to 1 or 2 per round.

Province defenses are weak, yes, but consider what a province defense generally is in reality. It is a militia--armed peasants with a little training defending their homes. It is in my opinion that PD shouldn't be powerful (i.e. Wizards shouldn't be dropping meteors on your army every time you take a province). PD should, however, have much higher morale and maybe a bit higher stats (like a berserk bonus or something). If you were defending your home from an Ermoran invasion and you knew that your family would be slaughtered and turned into mindless zombies when you ran away, would you flee like a little whiney wussbag? Probably not...

[Huzurdaddi]

6) Make it so that mass castling isn´t necessary, because of useless pd and cheap raiding spells like horde from hell and ghost riders.

Sounds like the best fix to me. Sure it's not "realistic" but what is in a game with undead, demons and all manner of strange beasts?

Perhaps in this fantasy realm the "real men" stay home and only the less fit have to travel outside their realm. Who knows?