Castle Bonuses: redundant or symbiotic?

Lucky · #1 January 19th, 2004, 09:05 PM

I am a big newbie, motivated to learn how to play by painful losses and a desire for revenge. With this as the setting, I wonder if anyone knows if the castle bonus that doubles resources in that province are tapped by neighboring castles?

Ex) 2 provinces, side by side, both have the cheapest fortifications, the tower. With their admins of 10, they steal 10% from each other. But since each's resources are doubled, would not the percentage work out to 20% in reality? Would this be bad for big provinces, giving a big 10 % to little ones, and getting a little 10% back? Would the bonuses even interact with each other? Finally, stupid as it may sound, I dream of a defensive realm, each province with it's own tower, as far as the eye could see. Would this be stupid, or prudent?

Thank you if you took the trouble to read this, and vice-versa.

aldin · #2 January 19th, 2004, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lucky:
I am a big newbie, motivated to learn how to play by painful losses and a desire for revenge. With this as the setting, I wonder if anyone knows if the castle bonus that doubles resources in that province are tapped by neighboring castles?

Ex) 2 provinces, side by side, both have the cheapest fortifications, the tower. With their admins of 10, they steal 10% from each other. But since each's resources are doubled, would not the percentage work out to 20% in reality? Would this be bad for big provinces, giving a big 10 % to little ones, and getting a little 10% back? Would the bonuses even interact with each other? Finally, stupid as it may sound, I dream of a defensive realm, each province with it's own tower, as far as the eye could see. Would this be stupid, or prudent?

Thank you if you took the trouble to read this, and vice-versa.

First, having a castle doesn't double resources, it causes them not to be halved. This is important because the % taken from adjacent provinces is taken from the full amount, not the halved one.

Second, while castles that are adjacent to a single province all draw resources from that province, they do not draw resources from adjacent provinces that also have a castle.

Third, no province can give more than 100% of it's resources, so if three Castles (Admin 40%) are adjacent to a single province, they'll each only get a third of that province's resources, not 40%.

~Aldin

Lucky · #3 January 19th, 2004, 09:27 PM

Thanks man, exactly what I needed to know, and fast too! Fortified cities forever from now on then. So how much do I owe you then?

aldin · #4 January 19th, 2004, 10:38 PM

Heh - my pleasure. When you're using resource heavy nations (Ulm, for example) Fortified Cities can be a major boon. You may find that some of the other options work well with nations that aren't quite so resource dependant - to take advantage of cheaper costs, faster build times and/or better defenses

~Aldin

General Tacticus · #5 January 20th, 2004, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Finally, stupid as it may sound, I dream of a defensive realm, each province with it's own tower, as far as the eye could see. Would this be stupid, or prudent?

You better be ready to defend every single one of those towers, because if you don't, you'll find that the nasty neighbours suddenly has a base to build troops right in your territory, instead of having to ferry them over 4 or 5 provinces...
Better stick with a few strategically placed and well defended fortified cities, IMHO

Saxon · #6 January 21st, 2004, 09:16 AM

You may want to be aware that the fortified city is very expensive and time consuming to build. It is very effective, but the cost in time and money is high. I have played with both and found that you need to think carefully on that one.

Also, run a search under threads in my name (Saxon). I had a similar set of questions to you a few weeks ago and got some great detailed answers on how resources are distributed. The general consensus was that you do not want to build a castle everywhere. Try checking out that thread for more details.

Arryn · #7 January 21st, 2004, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
You better be ready to defend every single one of those towers

As a side note, it's been my experience that forts are attack magnets for the AIs. The AIs seem to prefer to attack forts over attacking nearby, often less well-protected provinces that have magic sites or high income levels (and thus would be a higher priority if it were a human rather than an AI looking at what's juicy to go munch on).

Just a few added words of caution, FWIW.