Are castles underused? If so, how would you remedy it?

[The Priest]

I agree that castles are underused, but I wonder if we are going the wrong direction here.

We could easily getting to a position in which the main value of castles is not their military strength but their trade or culture impact. I can see why we are heading that way - many of us don't need their military strength because we keep the wars in other people's territory, so if we are going to be build them they need other value.

But, historically this doesn't seem to make much sense. The main point of castles has to be military. This is why you see huge castles in areas which were in areas of major conflict - e.g. Greece, Spain - but not elsewhere. In Britain you have some major castles from the period of conflict between Wales and England, but not otherwise. So surely we want to keep a situation in which when you look back on the game the castles exist in these military zones but not elsewhere. If we bump up trade roots, culture etc. we will all be building them in safe core cities; even if we add XP, we will be building them in safe core military production cities.

So I say, yes strengthen castles, and the delay in obsolescence sounds good except it undemines the only real value of muskets. But lets keep them as things you only want to build in fronter cities.

[The Priest]

Sounds stupid, but I think one of the main reasons I don't build them is that I don't build walls. OK you can say that I then just need to build 'walls and castle' as a single choice, but in practice this means i have to sit there and think 'right i am going to build walls here even though they will do me no good at all'. At no other point do you have to build something which does you no good, just to get another building. (Assuming there that I don't need the defence, but am after the trade etc.)

So, how about removing the need for walls?

[wodan11]

Originally posted by The Priest
I agree that castles are underused, but I wonder if we are going the wrong direction here.

We could easily getting to a position in which the main value of castles is not their military strength but their trade or culture impact. I can see why we are heading that way - many of us don't need their military strength because we keep the wars in other people's territory, so if we are going to be build them they need other value.

I'm not disagreeing with the above, but the latter isn't quite accurate.

But, historically this doesn't seem to make much sense. The main point of castles has to be military. This is why you see huge castles in areas which were in areas of major conflict - e.g. Greece, Spain - but not elsewhere.

In Europe, at least, castles were as much a status symbol and a political establishment of rulership as anything. Wars in the middle ages were largely wars of sieges, but they rarely involved actual battle. If the besieger came up with enough forces to take the castle, the defenders were honorably expected to submit and thereby avoid the protracted, inevitable, and ugly disease and whatnot. In turn the besiegers were obliged to treat the defenders honorably in accepting their surrender.

The goal here was to take the symbol of rulership, not so much to conquer territory. It was all political maneuvering.

But lets keep them as things you only want to build in fronter cities.

Don't agree with the conclusion because of disgreement with the assumptions / premise (as explained).

Wodan

[The Priest]

Glad you agree with the main point Wodan, but I do disagree on the history, not that that really matters. Yes the poxy little castles you get in much of Europe were about status, but the real castles of the medieval world were the serious military things you get on the frontier between Isalm and Europe. If we are going to avoid every city having every building, we want to keep castles for that kind of thing, not little Western European glorified manor houses.

[wodan11]

Well shouldn't we apply that logic to other buildings as well? Historically, every city shouldn't have a Library, or University, or Forge. We want to keep the civ building for the "real" ones, not the poxy glorified little ones speckled here and there.

Seriously, Universities, for example, were far between. They did NOT occur in every city. Meanwhile, in Civ, pretty much every city gets one (except a few production cities). Historically, if you went to a university, there was only ONE in the entire country, if that. Frequently you had to go to another country altogether, to Paris or what have you.

Wodan

[frenzyfol]

I like the idea of delaying obsolescence to steal.

Heres another idea to discuss.

Castles, such as those used by the Normans, were used to quell local rebellions. Maybe a castle should add +1 happy or something of the like to simulate the oppression of the peeps.

[Vampgelus]

A realistic and fair option would be to allow castles to be built with feudalism (not shure of the english name of that tech, it's the one for long-bowmen). IMO castles are underused because of the small window you have to build them if you don't rush engeneering and delay economics. By the engeneering time, you also have alot of buildings to build, so that castles may not be your prioirity at this moment. Finally, when you come to research feudalism, it's most likely you need a defense upgrade, so that castles would fit in well at that point.

For their obsolescence, this should be moved to a more logical tech too. Steel seems a logical choice at first sight but : 1 doesn't fit with spanish gameplay as sayed above, 2 the first cannons in medieval siege, didn't make the defense provided by a castle to be useless. So what ? How about military science ? Seem logical to me, as the introduction of military academys made castles sort of obsolete for military tasks. Another great idea, would to allow to keep their economic and spying boni as long as you are under vassality. Anyway, the units ignoring it, should be the same as the ones who ignore walls, for coherences sake.

PS : AS usual, may you forgive my unperfect english ^^

[Supr49er]

Welcome to the forums Vampgelus.

[Heraclitus]

I think Vampgelus has a good idea there.

[Hauptman]

Most of you are ignoring the actual gameplay features of the building.

I personally ALWAYS build a castle or two, on the frontier, but OFTEN for the extra trade route in my core cities.

The time it takes anything OTHER than trebuches to knock them down would be too prohibitive in actual gameplay mechanics to make available before trebs. Having to build 10 - 15 catapults to beat down defense in any decent amount of time seems way to hard to pull off, especially as early as some civs seem to get feudalism in my games.

Delaying the obscolescence (wow is that spelled right?) might be ok, but you realize the military aspects of its "culture defense" never go away. A castle still protects your cities defense bonus even against artillery... try it. Hit a city at 60% with arty and it might take 3 or 4 to blast it to zero, add that castle and now you may need 5 or 6, maybe more. The real obscolescence at economics refers to when the trade bonus goes away, and also when people decided "It's just not cost effective to build these anymore as these days, if you can see it, you can kill it." so you can no longer build them, but they still give you the other benefits (with exception of the lossed xp for the Spanish) in the cities that have them.

Basicly what I'm babbling about is, plan ahead and you WILL build them. just select build orders and tech orders ad hoc, and chances are you'll blow right passed them.

[Yaga]

Other options:
1) Have castles provide +1 happiness under one or both of the feudalism civics, and/or monarchy.
2) "Royal Castle" National Wonder, available w/ Monarchy -- pretty much every Monarchy had a "home" castle, which was separate from the "Palace" of the government. Req.s will vary
3) Introduce the castle itself earlier, but have the affects be introduced over time. IE: (From the earlier list)

Castle: reqs: Masonry
+1 Culture : With Music
+25% EP : With Alphabet, expires w/ Econ
+1 Route : With Currency, expires w/Econ
+25% Defense w/ Construction, expires w/ Gunpowder
+25% Defense w/ Engineering, expires w/ Steel
-25% Damage to Defenses from Bombardment : w/ Engineering, expires w/ Steel
-50% collateral damage w/ Masonry
Double production speed for Protective Leaders

These are just exemplars.

/P