Castle obsolescence

magicalsushi

magicalsushi

Prince
Joined
Aug 14, 2006
Messages
573
Location
Oxford, UK
I don't have anything radical to say or ask, I'm just wondering...

...am I the only person who finds it maddening that castles generally go obsolete when you've barely even had enough time to build some?
 
Everyone thinks Castles go obsolete to fast, that's why nobody builds them.
 
When they added the bonus trade route, I started building them very occasionally, and now that they get an espionage bonus, I build them slightly more often still. It still bites that they go obsolete practically the moment the last brick is laid. I usually try to be first to Economics for the GM, fool that I am. I play on Noble, can you tell? ;)
 
I'm baffled as to why castles go obsolete so quickly. I'd think that they should go obsolete with rifling, like walls do. Further, it seems like you should be able to get them with Feudalism rather than Engineering (because, let's face it, even if castles do go obsolete with rifling, by that point most are running gunpowder armies and they don't matter anyways), with perhaps a reduced-benefit castle (+75% total rather than +100%?) giving you advantages over just walls, but waiting till engineering for the full bonus.
 
They seemingly go obsolete very quickly because engineering is a low priority tech for most human players, and Economics is a high priority tech because of the free great merchant.

However, if you miss out on the free great merchant, you can skip economics for a long time because the castle is giving you the eqivilent of the +1 trade route from free market.
 
snipafist said:
I'm baffled as to why castles go obsolete so quickly. I'd think that they should go obsolete with rifling, like walls do. Further, it seems like you should be able to get them with Feudalism rather than Engineering (because, let's face it, even if castles do go obsolete with rifling, by that point most are running gunpowder armies and they don't matter anyways), with perhaps a reduced-benefit castle (+75% total rather than +100%?) giving you advantages over just walls, but waiting till engineering for the full bonus.
Click to expand...

I think the defense bonus does go obsolete with Rifling, it's the trade routes and spy points that go away with Economics.
 
I suppose it'd be a bit much to have Free Market and also keep the trade routes from castles. Still, their lifespan for human players seems to be about 3 turns or so* with current setup - maybe there's a happy medium somewhere in between.

[* okay, maybe I exaggerate]
 
My point is, if you're not in the tech lead, castles tend to show up sooner and last longer.

Try playing at a difficulty where you have trouble staying at or near the tech lead.
 
Oh yes... I can relate to the OP. I never understood why they obsolete so quickly.

After reading through the forum here, and asking around when opportunity presented, I found out that playing on a "longer" speed makes it worth your while.

Now I pplay on marathon speed, and castles stick around much longer in terms of research. The extra trade rocks that early in the game and rifling is (next week) away.........

The only thing slightly confusing to me is the Spanish special building. Ive yet to delve into when each bonus (attribute) obsoletes with their special building.. I'll probably never know cause I hate playing as the spanish and reset if I get a start with them.....

I think game speed is the key to many buildings or wonders going obsolete. Marathon makes all advantages last a little longer (as far as research or science goes)
 
FuRRie said:
Everyone thinks Castles go obsolete to fast, that's why nobody builds them.
Click to expand...

I build, because of culture points. I never have those too much...

Wenla
 
I got a quest with building castles. Will make you know what it does if I manage to complete it.
 
I've had situations where I had rifling before economics. Thus i couldn't make castles any more because I couldn't make walls :( I think this is a strange oversight by the programmers but it's also constricted by the bonus of +1 trade route that you get from free market. If castles didn't obsolete with economics but rather with rifling, you could tech the south part of the tech tree to abuse castles too easily.
 
magicalsushi said:
That's a very expensive culture point! If you have music, it might just be better to build culture directly.
Click to expand...

Not really, if you have access to stone or you're protective you build walls in 1-2 turns and then castles in 3-4 turns.

4-6 turns isn't too much to pay for Spy Points, Culture, Defense and a trade route.
 
A better solution, instead of pushing Engineering up, why not make castle go obsolete with corperation instead of economics.
 
1) I'd agree with making it go obsolete with Rifling, but the bonus trade route should still be gone with Economics.

2) Castles are expensive, but are powerful as hell. Ever tried sieging a castle before gunpowder? The defensive bonuses are so damn huge and hard to take down it's insane.
 
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