Ideas to stop mass castle building for DOM_3

[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?