Cost/Benefit for Castle types

[FrankTrollman]

I'm really fond of the Wizard Tower. At 120 pts., it's nothing like cheap, but an admin of 30 on a castle that springs up in 2 turns is no joke.

Also, the Mausoleum is really good. Only 40 design pts. and you get an Admin of 20. That's not bad.

In general, I think the Watchtower is one of the weaker options. Both of the other 300 gold/2t castles are better. You pay for that, and you don't always have the points to spend. But if you do, those castles are rather obviously worth it.

-Frank

[Turin]

the wizard tower is too expensive. For 120 points you can pick order 3 which nets you +21% taxes. The 20 more admin, which you get from the wizard tower is only 10%.
Sure there is the resource bonus and higher def, but those two aren´t that important.

[FrankTrollman]

Right. But you can't have 3 more Order, can you? You could have Production 3, but that's only 9% taxes. Once you've already made the choice as to whether you are an order/misfortune nation or a turmoil/luck nation, the Wizard's Tower is the biggest chunk of economy you can buy.

Of course, the Mausoleum is even better in that regard - it only costs 40, so it stacks up quite well to picking a point of Productivity o Growth.

-Frank

[Saber Cherry]

FrankTrollman said:
Once you've already made the choice as to whether you are an order/misfortune nation or a turmoil/luck nation, the Wizard's Tower is the biggest chunk of economy you can buy.

I prefer castles, with 450g / 3 turn build and 40 admin @ 80 points to Wizard Towers. IIRC, as normal races, I've never taken anything other than Castle, Fortified City (on very small maps when I don't expect to build a second castle), or guard tower. Though if you need to fortify all provinces or lose them, nothing above 300g will be a very good idea.

Pumping points into your pretender's fire magic (to enable fire-site searching) can boost your economy nicely, though... I'd rather give a pretender 80 or 120 points of fire / earth searching ability (for non fire / earth nations) than spend the points on Wizard Towers. Alchemizing the gems should make up the difference, and Ironskin / Fire Shield are great on combat pretenders.

[Turin]

FrankTrollman said:
Right. But you can't have 3 more Order, can you? You could have Production 3, but that's only 9% taxes. Once you've already made the choice as to whether you are an order/misfortune nation or a turmoil/luck nation, the Wizard's Tower is the biggest chunk of economy you can buy.

Of course, the Mausoleum is even better in that regard - it only costs 40, so it stacks up quite well to picking a point of Productivity o Growth.

-Frank

I´d still pick growth 3 over a wizardtower. That´s 4% less taxes at the beginning, but you soon gain more because of the increased growth, especially in conjunction with order 3. Now if you can take order 3 growth3, magic 3, design your pretender and you still have 120 points left, then the wizardtower is a good choice.

I don´t like the mausoleum, because the defense is so low. One single casting of hordes from hell breaches the castle walls immediately.