Castles

[Brown Wolf]

So do you think the castles take too long to build? I am certian it takes longer to get to the ultimate castle "level" in Medieval Totalwar than in the old Shogun.

[Alrowan]

castles dont take long enough...

if you look at it, castles were monumental building projects taking many years just to build or upgrade, ####, 12 years isnt long for upgrading a castle at all.. let alone a fortress

[Brown Wolf]

From a historical point of view, the castles do not take too long. But I think from a game point of view, the do.

[Durendal]

I'm not so sure about that guys. I remember reading about castles being finished in four years or sometimes less. Especially the smaller keeps and forts, wich could take less than a year. If the work was stoped often than yes, they could take decades, but I don't see how that's relevent to MTW. It there are any experts here, maybe they could share some historical examples.

But from only a gameplay perspective, the castles take far too long. If you add it up, going form scratch to a fortress takes 4+8+12+16+20 = 60 years Thats 60 turns just to reach the highest level of castle, with nothing else constructed. Then you figure in farm inprovments at 2+4+6+8 = 20 years plus 4+6+8+16 = 34 years for churches, and Yikes Thats 114 years building without a single millitary structure. Add in those millitary structures plus government buildings, ports and dockyards, trade sturctures, special buildings and such, and building plans must be measured in centuries

On the other hand, the costs associated with castles seems awfully cheap considering their value and historical expenses. I think CA should cut building time in half for all fortifications and upgrades, while chargeing twice the price. And even better would be if credit were given time-wise for the suplemental upgrades when finally building up to the next level castle. That would be very cool.

[MizuKokami]

almost everything takes to long to build in this game. it's why i don't build peasants. a year to build a unit that will just go running home to momma? and think about improved farmlands. 2 years to improve exsisting farmlands by twenty percent? i could see improving farmlands takeing 2 years if it doubled the output, but not for a piddly 20%. but think about a fort. a structure made out of wood takeing four years? then another 8 years to upgrade it to a keep? maybe eight years if you scrapped your old fort, and built the keep from scratch, recycling the wood from the old fort to lower the cost. but that's not the point of the game...is it? gotta stretch it out so you can't have everything there is to have before the time period goes from early to high. by the time you get to building a fortress, you should be pretty dang close to the late period. but the big question...why the hell are we building keeps, when what we really want is a fortress? seems kinda silly to build a fort, when all you are going to do is scrap it a few years later when it comes time to build a keep. what a major waste of manpower...no wonder the rebellions are hell:/

[Shahed]

Wow

Great comments u guys

Does anyone know ho long it historically took to build lets say, one of those castles like Krak des Chevaliers in Syria. Surely it could not have been 20 years ?.

In game sometimes I wonder what kind of labor is being employed, specially when it takes the same amount of time to train professional cavalary as it does peasants. For some of the building si guess it is understanable the amount of time it takes, I guess a Church with all the artisans paintings, glasswork, etc could take years. However a trading post, or merchants' guild can't possibly take more than 2 years, after all it's just a market place no ??

[Prodigal]

IMO yes, I read a post smplace that why not just let people pay more to speed things up on the build time. Prefer that myself, it's a real pain having to have (usually you best province) tied up for 20 on 1 build, just to get some golden armour going. Course it's another 10 years or so to actually get there, cos of the armoury build.

It is always worth the wait though

[hoom]

Quote[/b] ]The inner castle was completed in 1170 AD and the outer ramparts in 1200 AD. It took 90 years to build and housed 4,000 Crusaders for only 71 years

Though I have seen elsewhere that it was only 2000 people and for 130 years...

[Alrowan]

well that sounds about right, hell windsor castle just kept getting added to.. and it still does

[Brown Wolf]

I have also noticed that if you select late period, the castles/citadels are not built fully and do not have all of the buildings (I would have expected this in at least one province).

[Saki]

First off, from a game point of view I like the idea of cutting bulid time down by half but increasing the cost.

Most provences in game had many more castles in reality then are displayed in game. I see the construction of buildings in game as a representation of infrastructre provence wide.I dont think with the current system you can make for a wholey realistic build set up if you dont see it as a reprsentaion.In game we build things one after the other;but in reality if I owned a castle I would have several building projects going on at once.

[Katasaki Hirojima]

Yeah, It Takes WAYYYYY to friggin long to build up provinces. I don't even bother, I just build up enough to get the unit I want, and sometimes I don't get to use the units I want because it takes to d@mn long to build anything.

This is probably game balance of course..I guess I wouldn't mind the long castle build times of it also didn't take so much time to build the regular buildings and such, and If I have the money why can't i have more then one building project at a time? WHY?? I can carve out a mighty empire and gather great wealth, but I can't do anything with that wealth because I'm waiting for the Cathedral to finish. Besides, by the time I own have the map its pretty obvious I, the human player am going to win, so at this point I want to flaunt my wealth and power and steamroll the rest of Europe for a satisfying win. I just don't have the time in my life to play the game -as is-. It just takes tooooo long.

Oh, I'v got a idea ..they should have a "Speed Version" option avalible for SP, where buildtimes are very low for buildings and castles and units. You get built up quickly as your welth grows and then can ovvupy yourself with more important duties, like fighting, the real enjoyment of this game, not waiting forever to get some elite unit.

[Lord Romulous]

all i want is

The castle to not fall during a assault unless
1. all defenders are killed or routed off map
2. all walls are breached. (a door in the keep which u have to breach would be cool too)
3. no loss of city upgrades until castle falls (not possible to do except in xpack)

if these are implemented i will be most happy and retire from complaining (until i find something new that is http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif)

[Pellinor]

The English castles in north Wales (Rhuddlan, Harlech, Conway, etc) were generally built in just a year or three. IIRC, that was done by drafting in a large labour force - the things needed to be done quickly to get in before the Welsh revolted.

These were top-notch castles for the time (13th century). Caernavon held out against a siege with a garrison of only a couple of dozen.

I think there is a difference between these castles, where the complete plan was drawn up in advance, and most others, which evolved gradually. Saying a castle took 100 years to build doesn't necessarily mean it needed 100 years - just that the building work was spread out.

It might be nice to be able to pay a premium to get the castle done quickly, but that doesn't fit the build queue model. Unless, I suppose, you have two castles: one takes 8 years and costs 1000 florins, and the other gets you an equivalent structure in 4 years but costs 2000 florins.

[Brown Wolf]

Well it looks like most people believe the castles do NOT take too long. Well I still disagree.

oh well

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[A.Saturnus]

4 years for a fort is definitely rediculus, the higher fortifications are more realistic I think, but it takes far too long to develope provinces. The problem isn`t the building times but the fact that you can`t build more than one at a time.

[Lichgod]

I think the build times are too long.

I could live with the build times if you could build multiple buildings in parrallel. Afterall, you already pay 100% of the cost upfront for a building taking many years to build. It is not like you need to fund current year costs.

A simple way for multi-building is to raise the cost of each additional con-current project.
1st building = 100% cost
2nd building = 125% cost
3rd building = 150% cost
4th building = 175% cost

This additional cost could reflect the need to import workers or fund economic losses caused by having all your people building rather than their normal tasks.

Which also begs the question, why can your only train one unit at a time? If I am building a ship, why can I not raise a foot unit? Or build a siege engine? Or Horse unit? I can understand building only one unit-type at a time, but you should be able to make multiple different unit-types at a time. Say, foot - horse - seige - ship - agent.

[hoom]

Also, the Roman army built a wooden fortification around their camp each night when they were on the march in potentially hostile country.

Of course building the Welsh castles just about bankrupted England due to the extreme expense. And they were mostly not actually completed properly either.

I think the build times could be done a little shorter, but in my current campaign, I have a max size castle at 1209 (I guess it helps that the AI had built it up to 3 down from max). My next biggest is just getting to 1 down from max and I built that from nothing in Switzerland.

[Papewaio]

To half the building time would require an exponential factor say four times the cost not just double.

And there would be a maximum speed that is dependent on surplus wood/viable stone (not all stone is equal)/skilled craftsmen/metal/food to feed the workers/viable transport etc.

Now factor in this is not a single castle but a province wide set. Afterall you don't expect the farming improvements to be just for a single village or shire.

For instances the forts would have to suitable sites located, have all the materials transported there and then built. Not easy when your fastest land transport are wagon horses, roads are probably mud and you have to convince craftsmen to build these things across an entire province. Add to it that engineering was still more an art then a science and you probably would have to factor in forts collapsing due to poor design, being built on unsuitable ground or not having enough water supplies to make it viable.

Rome wasn't built in a day neither were castles.

[+DOC+]

Thinking purely in gameplay terms i'm under the opinion that most structures take too long to build, including castles.

Cost-wise i have no real problem with the structures, however, it's almost impossible to reach the end of the tech tree given the way structures are degraded everytime a province is captured.

Has anyone managed to build a bell foundry level 3, or a whole range of master level structures. I've maybe only had the luxury of once getting to the stage of building a fortress and that was in Constantinople.

So i modded. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Most of the structures i streamlined a little more making the more advanced structures at the end of the tech tree take comparatively less time to build, for example:

Castles now 3,6,9,12,15 years instead of 4,8,12,16,20
Bowyer now 2,3,4,5 years instead of 2,4,6,8
Armourer now 3,4,5,6 years instead of 4,6,8,10
Metalsmith now 4,5,6,6 years instead of 6,8,10,10
Bell foundry now 3,6,12 years instead of 4,8,16
Shipyard now 3,4,5,6 years instead of 4,6,8,10

Now it seems it is possible to reach the latter building stages/structures even given building destruction and periods of poverty.

[Papewaio]

Infrastructure breeds infrastructure ie it is easier to build something when you have most of the tools close to hand.

So the size of the castle and should influence the speed with which things are built.

Also having other buildings in the province should make it easier to build things. Having alot of horse trainers would have a spin off of increased transport in the province, armouries would increase the general amount of smiths and so would swordmakers. Ports and trade would allow faster amount of goods and services to be applied.

So it would be nice that various buildings decrease other buildings time to build to the point that some small buildings get built as part of the support structure of the primary industries.

Now as far as destroying buildings and getting the money back that should only apply to the first building of any sort as the money assumes a dismantling in some sort of useful manner. Province wide destruction of all buildings is a rampaging devastation and as such should not get the double bonus of a influx of great quantities of cash.

The destruction of buildings would also trigger a revolt if done on a grand scale. Also the buildings should only be able to be destroyed in mass by the beginning of your next turn assuming you still hold the province from attacking armies or destruction inspired rebellion. Wholescale destruction should not be an easy cash cow but a last ditch effort to weaken an enemy while causing some grief to yourself.

[Teutonic Knight]

it took them almost two centuries to build Notre Dame Cathedral Remember they didn't have cranes, and jackhammers EVERYTHING was done by hand so it could take 50-100 years to build a large fortress like Byzantium, or Rome. Byzantium from some early accounts took almost 300 years to finish building so no if anything the amount of time it takes in the game is an understatement if anything. ---Teutonic Knight