Castles vs PD

[Minrhael]

In my current MP game, I'm "mad castling". I understand some people don't like it, but I'm not too worried about that. I'm more worried about the economic effects as it keeps me from getting good resources in one or two provinces so I can recruit more of my high res. cost troops, and even cheap castles are expensive enough to make me wish I didn't have to pay for them.

My problem is, I'm playing as Man (Tuatha). My PD consists of 1 militia + 1 slinger per point. I have personally experienced one Call of the Winds spell, just 20 stupid birds or whatever it is, beating a 23 PD province of mine. Now that was unusual, but still... I find that it takes about 13-15 PD as Man to fight off a single CotW consistently, and I need to keep them out or they just start flying all over the place and I have to guess where they're going. The only "solution" I've found to this is castling.

So I was wondering what do other players do to stop overland spells from conquering their provinces when they have weak PD units? Once you hit the midgame, you have too many provinces to keep an army in all of them unless you've got great income, and while a nice mobile force can retake provinces, you still have to try and guess where they're going to next, especially in the case of the birds which are so mobile.

[Arralen]

Drop some summoned, upkeep-free troops into each province.
Wolves and Hawks have low morale and don't stand melee fighting for long, so all you need is some more fodder to keep your slingers save for some combat turns.

With Last of Tuatha, you have easy access to vinemen/-ogres.

You may cast CotWinds/Wilds on your own provinces and move the commanders out - there are other uses for them - or use some animals or dryads, but those spells use nature magic as well and are more expensive.

Undead will not work, as they require the "undead leadership" ability or they will dissolves during the first turns of battle. But, on the other hand, a mound king comes at 3 death gems only, and may be ordered to patrol ...

There are other summons which don't need magic or undead leadership, but AFAIR they are quite costly and nothing you would drop into backwater provinces and forget about them.

[Cohen]

Personally I like to castle provinces.
It's far more efficient ... if you've income obviously.

I see now this strategy more balanced, because I have troubles applying it in wartime, when you've to pump out mages, troops, etc etc ...

Obviously if I'd free gold and gems, I could castle without any problem ... I believe Mad Castling is a word we can abolish.

[Boron]

yeah some nations need to castle their corelands .
man is such an example .
a jotun/ulm pd is more worth their money .

but i play with the "rule" : castle your base territory before you run into other players , that are about 15-25 castles depending on map , early game expansion speed etc.

then when i expand only castle key provinces first , and castle every province where you want to build a temple first .

if i have time i castle everything but at least my homelands .

lategame the best bet to get rid of "raiders" like the birds is to wipe them out by ghost riders .

imho in the long run the nations which don't need too much resources for their troops , e.g. vanheim , mictlan , pythium , arco .... have a advantage because everything is castled .
the others have the real huge disadvantage that 1-2 ghostriders can wipe out most p.d. + garrison troops .

5/10 deathgems for -200 gold for temple , - 200-300 for pd , some lost garrison troops etc. is normally totally worth it while it has no effect on castled provinces .

i think we can really abolish clam hoarding / mad castling now

[alexti]

5/10 deathgems for -200 gold for temple , - 200-300 for pd , some lost garrison troops etc. is normally totally worth it while it has no effect on castled provinces .

Or 5/10 death gems for -0 gold for non-existent temple, -1 gold for PD ;-)