People always seem to forget how much of an abstraction the strategy portion of the game is already. Taking the castle route or the city route appears to be a symbol for focusing a province on either military or financial development.

The game will basically be the same as RTW and BI with settlement location that can be deleveloped. Now you have more choice and more powerful consequences for your choices which can only be a good think in a strategy game.

Of course we all in the dark really until they unvail all the new "features" in a simple list...