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In the game, you have those castles in coastal regions, that could potentially bring you a lot of dough by being converted to cities. Immediate examples that come to mind are Caen, Caernavon, Bordeaux, etc. However, I heard some of them only marginally make more money, so in your experience, which ones are worth it, which ones are not?
Depending on what faction you are playing. Italians almost does not need castles so with them only few castles are needed, so every increase in income from converting is plus (without minus efect of losing needed recruitement centre).
does bordeaux make a good city? What about Wales?
Personally I don't keep any castles on the English Isles. What's the point? If you're England you'll run over Scotland within the first ten turns, and if you're Scotland you'll smash the English just a little slower. Then what will you do with that castle, spend the whole game shuttling units to the mainland?
I tend to convert all coastal regions to cities, and to convert select inland cities into castles where appropriate. The ones that immediately come to mind are Adana, Acre, Gaza, Rhodes, Nicosia, Smyrna, Caen, Hamburg, Stettin, and Bordeaux. If you keep a trading partner your trade income from a coastal city can be three or four times the income you'd make from a castle.
Lately I'm finding I need about 1 castle for every 8-10 cities. Any more than that is not a maximal use of your provinces.
:egypt:
You should convert pretty much any island settlement to a city, trade income from sea tends to be much better than that from land trade. A possible exception might be Ajaccio, as since the either patch 1.1 or 1.2 naval invasions are much more common, and Portugal, Spain, Milan, and the Papacy all show interest in that island, I've seen all four of them with armies on it at the same time! So Ajaccio does need to be kept well defended, either by being a castle or if you already have it a strong navy may allow it to convert safely to a city.
On the mainland, any isolated regions should be converted to cities. If you own Britain, there's no point in Inverness or Caernarvon being castles (although I have seen the Danes invade Scotland and conquer all of north Britain). Same goes for the Iberian peninsula. Always keep Tblisi and Mosul as castles. It may even be worth converting Yerevan to a castle just to halt the Mongols and Timurids.
In the New World capture the Cuban settlement and Miccosukkee first, and convert them to castles to get some of your good cavalry, they're the only reinforcements you'll get over there.
Wich castles are worth switching to cities? Financially, any province is going to be making far more as a city than as a castle, so youre really asking the wrong question.
What you should be asking yourself is: where do i *need* castles? Any you dont need, convert to cities.
Actually in my first campaign I have kept Nottingham as a castle because it gives me a castle well behind my lines, far from the front line, where I can safely build up an army without worrying about enemy assassins, ambushes, etc.
My second, I might try the strategy of not keeping it though.
Some castles do make so little extra money as cities as to almost not be worth converting and upgrading. Corinth for one is terrible tradewise. The castle in Norway makes a great city, as do a few of the small castles on the Baltic, like the one in Finland. Hamburg also does quite well as a city, although early on, if you'r eplaying as Denmark, it might be good to keep it as a castle for a little while to reinforce your front with the HRE. Stettin takes a while to make decent money as well, and would be low on my castle conversion priority list.
Generally any castle (especially coastal ones) converted into a city will see an income bonus, however, so once one is far enough from your front not to be needed for troop building it's usually worthwhile to convert them.
Playing as the Spanish right now, I've found that converting Valencia almost isn't worth the trouble. I'm only at war with the Moors, with everybody else being a trading partner, but Valencia makes considerably less money than any other city in the peninsula - less than Toledo castle, even! I've converted Pamplona, though, and my income has soared there. I've also converted Cagliari to a city, to see my income triple in short order. Tunis and Granada I couldn't try, as I desperately need the troop production centers to fend off the Moors. I've taken Toulouse and Bordeaux, and will probably convert one of them soon. Bordeaux seems like the likely candidate.
Check out the trade report, how many trading partner does the castle have. The more and the larger the more profitable city it will be. Landlocked castles usually have less trading partners but still might be worth to turn them into cities if at least one of the trading partners is a large trading city (like Constantinople or Venice).
Also size matters :yes: the larger the better, it takes ages for small castles to turn them into profitable cities (like Iassa).
Also try the PDER mod, it has a rewoked castle/city system, in that system it makes sense to have castles.
few mods:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=97908
Even places without a port like Metz can make considerable money. Must be from the fine Mosel wines.
At times you may find yourself only utilising 50% of the castles you actually have. If this is the case, convert anything that you are not utilising to towns/cities.
I am still playing my Turkish campaign and I have 30 settlements under my rule (was 19 cities and 11 Castles). Of the 11 castles I had, I changed, Trebizond, Sarkel, Smyrna, Mosul to cities. What I have left is Gaza, Corinth, Bran, Sofia, Caesaria, the one just above Yerevan and the one above Jeruselum (the names escape me at work). From these I can direct my flow of troops to whereever I want in quick time.
Another thing I have figured out is usually an automatic governer town will usually grow faster than an automatic governer wooden castle, thus getting to higher levels quicker. If this is the case, change the castle to a town, get it to grow and then convert back before it is too late. I have had good success with this.
Waste not, want not :2thumbsup:
The best ones are the ones that start off with a relatively high population in the beginning so they can start growing fast. The only castle that I remember clearly is Palmero?, the starting capital for the Sicilians I believe. It starts close to 6k pop so it can get to the next size city easily.
Furthermore, unless you have some extensive campaigns in Africa which no one ever has, it is too remote from anywhere for it to really function well so thats another incentive for converting it