Island provinces, town or castle?

What is better to use on islands, castle or town?
Reasons why town:
1) $$$
2) Using island castle as unit recruitment means a lot ferriing and that can be disrupted by enemy navy, so own navy is needed.
3) Enemy needs fleet to transport troops and it can be stopped on sea.

reasons why Castle
1) Can be good starting point for conquest (but after conquering castle on mainland it loses this use)
2) Better defense. Its hard to reinforced lonely island, so if attacked, its on its own.


My conclusion is to use towns, unless there is specific reasson for castle.

Agreed. There are SOME costal settlements that don't really increase in income even if converted: (Smyrna, Corinth, Granada, and Toulouse to name a few) but all island regions are better as towns

As Sicily I kept Palermo as a Castle, useful as a base to spread to Cagliari/Ajaccio, and also into north Africa and even east to Corith, Iraklion, Rhodes etc.

I converted Cagliari, Ajaccio etc to towns though. In retrospect, Ajaccio should have been kept a Castle, everyone after v1.2 wants to conquer it, I've had Spanish, Portuguese, Milianese, and Papal armies all at its doorstep.

It depends on what the diplomatic situation is. On Corsica/Sardinia (don't remember actual town names) I usually initially keep them as castles since they are under constant attack and it is nice to have SOME sort of walls rather than an open village, so that you have at least a turn to get some reinforcements there when they are attacked by Milan/Sicily/HRE/Venice/Moors/Byzantium/Pope. One option if you have a ton of cash is to upgrade them all the way to castle as fast as possible, then convert to Large Town. That way you don't have to wait for 2000 pop and have decent walls, but it is very expensive.

Also, when I play as Sicily I always keep Palermo as Castle since it is easy to upgrade to Fortress early on and get your game-winning units.

yeah, 1.2 forces a change of strategy wrt agaccio. now, after i conquer it, i give it away to the pope or to one of those factions that always makes a grab for it so i can force an excomm.

Generally it is better to leave settlements alone if one is blitzing. But what fun is it to do that all the time? I like to change castles, etc., into cities, especially if they are coastal, as the trade is so lucrative. Stettin can be eventually turned into a huge wealthy city with a lot of trade to and from Stockholm.

As C/R said about Palermo, it is so valuable as a citadel because of its position that I have never considered converting it to a city. I always consider everything after capturing Palermo to be mopping up.

I like to keep a few island castles as emergency retreats in case of a run of bad luck. Since you can pretty much defend a castle with one unit against any force the AI decides to land on an island, theyre fairly safe as a way to build up your forces again if you happen to suffer an unlucky blow.

Of course, I'm overly cautious in my play, so...

I am playing a game as the Milanese, and with their incredible spearmen and crossbowmen, along with quick acquisition of merchant guilds to attain a cavalry unit, I am attempting to convert everything I capture to a city. I currently hold 29 provinces, all of which are cities.

If playing aggressively. I'd go for castles. Playing the darth mod on med/vh everyone is sooooo aggressive! Ya win some, ya lose some and then new alliances But anyway, Islands for the Med are very good staging posts, good trade offs for alliances etc. Need a good Navy, though.

Has anyone ever seen the AI converting castles to cities for the trade income?

I am of the belief that it doesn't happen, which means I don't do it as it gives me an unfair economic advantage...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by phonicsmonkey

Has anyone ever seen the AI converting castles to cities for the trade income?

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Nope, never happens.

@phonicsmonkey,
The general rule is: if u can build a port convert to settlement. Take the Byz as an example. Having Iraklion, Rhodes, Limassol and Famagusta (Cyprus, I´m playing DIV 5.0) generates a total of 1000fl as castles but some 8-15000fl as settlements. In this case I rather go with a castle in the Balkans, Turkey etc all inland provinces.
Since the AI never converts it´s getting seriously hampered. Take France with castles in Bordeux, Toulouse, Angers, Metz and settlements in Rheims, Paris, Marseille and Rennes (close reb settl.m. incl). When I play France I settle for ONE castle - Angers. Same thing with Spain and Hre. As Spain I only have ne castle in Iberia - Badajoz. As HRE I settle for Magdeburg and Innsbruck.
The feature from the Teutonic campaign with small x-tra provinces, sometimes within a region, is something I personally hope will get more implemented in future modifications.

Some inland settlements are better as cities as well. Prime example is Metz and Zagreb..they both have good mining income and pop that they make a lot more money than they seem, especially early game when trade isn't that huge.

As a rule I make Island provinces cities for their sea trade.
One marked example is Nicosia, which I find I always keep as a castle to provide reinforcements to my mainland battles against the Mongols.

towns make some$$$ yes. but they cost it too. constantly upgrading the structures.... i have even thought about turning over recent swathes of conquest in the Balkans into castles, to keep down the garrison costs and maintain momentum. Its a law-&-order lockdown thing.

playing as hre, Stettin, a motte & bailey, is mostly pagan. turn it to a town and they are so unhappy, but you can turn down the taxes. tot up the conversion cost, palisade, tax losses and its prob'ly no saving on having to upgrade to a castle first, when all you need to do is build a small chapel. but the payments are smaller. it will more than pay for itself eventually.

the good thing with an island castle, like Notts, is the communications. you can ship fresh troops from this central point to anywhere they are needed.

castles are strong in defence . that is why Metz remains one. likewise it is tempting to turn captured Constantinople into one. they can help buttress the frontiers.

when i first played i was a solid city-lover, a Townee. but it can be a strain doing everything at once and castles give you a breathing- space

Idea:
Build as much swordsman as possible in one castle to gain weaponsmith guild (or how its called). Then convert it to city (esp. if you play faction with good city units).

Most notable city units are the genoese xbows, moorish christian guard, gunpowder, varangian guards, and JHI. Sadly most of them don't benefit much from swordsmiths, and its probably easier to have castles in the front have swordsmith so units can rally there, retrain/upgrade, and sent off to battle.

JHI can benefit, no?