You only need 3 castles.

[ScrapTower]

One for Infantry, one for Cavalry, and one for Missiles. You might want one more in the Holy Land, and maybe one for gunpowder. Its too expencive to tech up more castles then you actually need. I think Im going to start playing this way. What do you think?

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

Yup, I always maintain an overwhelming city:castle ratio, probably somewhere in the 5:1 ratio. I usually make one in each hotspot for fighting, you really don't need any more than that.

Oh, and the gunpowder infantry units are trained in cities anyway, so you don't need to dedicate a castle to them. Cannon's don't take long to access anyway once gunpowder arrives.

[Daveybaby]

True, except for:

(1) Excessive distance from your castles to the front line makes getting new troops to the front, not to mention retraining old beaten up ones, take a looong time - which can put you at a significant disadvantage.

(2) Theres a limited number of units you can build per turn in a castle, and a limited number of each type of unit become available each turn, per castle.

[Sheogorath]

I prefer to establish my castles in rings, covering choke points (EX: The start of Iberia, Marakesh, etc. etc.), as well as one or two 'inland' castles to supply real military units to my big cities if need be.
You dont get as much money as you normally could, but usually my inner castles are landlocked and dont produce that much income as cities anyway.
I find this also rapidly bogs down any AI attack. They might get past your first ring, but then they have to bring up reinforcements because attacking your first ring of castles wore them down so much.

[Flavius Gonzo]

This is a major dilemna in my English campaign too. In addition to the timing issue though, which you can account for with sufficient planning, there is also the cost issue. If you have a unit that costs 250 to upkeep but the castle is a 7 turn walk/ride from your front lines, that means it really costs an add'l 1500 per unit to get them anywhere they can see action. Yikes.

So, I think there's value in keeping at least some castles that you expand especially inland ones that wouldn't be earning giant revenues as a town.

But, as your borders grow, it's probably a good idea to start flipping most far away castles to towns, although I don't feel comfortable yet with how many/how often. (For example, I struggled last night with the decision to flip Cannes, where I had made big military investments earlier in my campaign.)

[Bob the Insane]

It really is a good dilema... You don't want to lose you old castles as all your best troops are trained there, but you are running out of money to train them or build the better buildings. But as you empire expands those old castles get further and further from the borders making them awakward or training or retaining units.

In dangerous areas a castle is much easier to defend (or at least beat off the assaults) and you can retrain your troops there. But this takes more money and a city can produce cash and allows for a garrison for free. But the free garrsion is unlikely to hold off anything but the lightest assaults unless you have access to advanced militia units, but by that poin the dynamic of the game is changing to favour cities even more. But you would never have gotten to that point without your castles...

Wow...

Personally I have about 3:1 ratio and while money is aways tight, training and retraining is usually available and my lands are well defended...

[Lochar]

Just remember you can only be offered certain guilds to castles only.

Swordsmith, woodsmen, and a few others. You could be preventing self from some knights guilds or other types.

[Aenlic]

With limited numbers of troops available each turn per castle, it's probably a good idea to have at least 4 castles. Infantry from two of them (since you use more infantry than cavalry per army), cavalry from one and a fourth producing missile troops and siege engines. As your empire grows, you can double this number and use the extra set for retraining and resupply of existing troops so you don't have to give up a production slot otherwise used for new troops.

[Flavius Gonzo]

I think it depends on your game strategy too. If you play a more aggresive expantionist style, it might make less sense to flip your castles quicker, as it is expensive to get them teched up and you'll conquer an enemy's teched up fortress or citadel soon enough.

If you are a "builder", a better strategy might be more along the lines of keeping 3-4 inland castles that you are building up on your own.

[Ice]

It all depends on where the province is and how easy it is to hold. If the only purpose on the province is for military/strategic use or if it is in a particular war torn sport, I usually build a castle. If it's in a relatively safe place and/or it produces big bucks, I make it a city.

[Musashi]

It totally depends on your faction... Some factions have better troops in towns than in castles, and some have such horrible town troops that you need lots of castles to have enough troops to get anywhere.

Generally speaking though... I will have a ring of cities around a central castle. The cities are staffed with only free upkeep militia... But the Castle will be garrisoned with a full stack army of entirely professional troops. If any of the cities are laid siege to, the army from the castle can quickly arrive to lift the siege and smash the enemy army.

[Grimmy]

I'm starting to get away from the specialization builds especially in my castles.

I'll simply build each castle accross the troop spectrum and keep my overall number of castles as required only for how many troops need to be pumped out per turn.

As the front moves I'll set up another cycle of castles, usually only 2 and relatively close together geographically. I'll build a fort to serve as a staging area for troops to muster as they're produced then march them off as full stacks of whatever it was the terrain type and local enemy forces dictated as Order of Battle. As the castles grow up enough to start pumping out the forces I need, I'll flip the ones in the backfield.

Gold is the engine that drives a war effort. Cities make the gold. Does a man zero good to be able to build "best of breed" armies if he cant afford to feed and equip them.

Guilds be damned. I'll get em if they're offered but I wont go out of my way for them. The only thing I have to beat is the game AI and that doesnt really require maxed stat troops. Taht's mostly a vanity issue. The knights are nice but I can live without them plenty well enough.

Of course, to keep all that in context... I pretty much suck at these games and only play on m/m.

[Decker]

Don't forget about forts and the fact that it seems you can build them anywhere and upgrade them(I think). It would probably be easier to build forts than to constantly upgrade a majority of your cities to achieve a better defense of any area. I haven't really seen anyone discuss forts around here and the fact that they may be the best unused "weapon" against enemies like the Mongols..... or to contain those pesky neighbors*cough*France*cough*. You can use your forts to support each other while attacked and to use them as a base of operations before say..setting off on a crusade or attacking an enemy faction. These could also help give your agents, characters, and armies a safe passage across your empire if you are under threat or attack of any sort. It would be nice to see how people would use them if they have the time to, as I see more use of watchtowers than anything else. The general can build as many as his movement points allow him, so you could build a huge amount of forts that can be well garrisoned right off the bat by his army. What do you guys think about them? I have yet to use one myself, but I did happen upon a heavily defended Spanish fort that was guarding a pass through the mountians(I forgot their name), it was rather intimidating as it only appeared after you made your way through the pass.

[ViolentRebellion]

I agree with Musashi's core point, it all depends on your faction, but I disagree with the reasons why.

I'm in a H/H France campaign right now, about turn 50 and castles are Frances best friend. I have Angers, Toulouse and Bern as castles right now. Each at a hotspot. I took Jerusalem a few turns ago and killed Nadir when he tried to take it back, but Jerusalem being a city is tough to defend. He had a 2 to advantage and I won, but with more Egyptian armies coming my way, I'll be in for some serious battles, outnumbered and without a castle. I'll have to expand in the holy land and get atleast 1 maybe even 2 castles there.

There is no doubt in my mind that I will need more castles once I expand into eastern Europe.

In my English campaign, the only thing that won it for me against the Mongols was Castles in the East.

The English IMO, have a real advantage being on an island. They don't need nearly as many castles as others. Conceivable the only three could work with England, but no other faction has the luxury of being an Island. And once you spread across Europe, castles are necessary for both training troops close to or on the front line and for defense.

And for my next campaign I'll try the HRE, and no doubt there I'll need more than just three castles as the campaign moves on.

Further more, I like the luxury of a professional soldiers over peasants at every part of my empire. They don't rout nearly as easy, and the french once you get Feudal Knights, have a serious advantage over the peasant POS soldiers that my enemies try to come at me with.

[Shahed]

I agree it's useless to have too many, but it all varies on the specific situation.

Anyone know how many and what specialisation castles should I build as Turks ?

[Ice]

You can upgrade forts?

[Shahed]

Nope, you can't.

[Spendius]

I'm finishing my second campaign as Turk, after a first one as French. During my first campaign I didn't bother about this castle/city distinction, and just upgraded whatever I was conquering (eventually after about 70 turns I switched Bordeaux into a city for money).
As a Turk I've been paying more attention to that fact. Basically, I converted to cities whatever coastal provinces I had, or islands.
With a little hindsight, I might have been too hasty about that. It is only important to keep as cities provinces with lots of commercial resources, like antioch and jerusalem. The Turk needs castles badly in the early game, since early city troops are very weak. Cities can build cheap weak militia, and artillery. They become interesting once you can build janissaries, which come with the 3rd city hall level. On the other hand castle provide you with highly needed cavalry (horse archers mostly, then heavy cav with the 4th level IIRC), and archers. Castle infantry is almost useless until foot sipahi, which are far weaker than janissaries, and naffatuns which are a nice plus and fun to play with.
The strengh of the Turks lies in janissaries: you can get them in 9 turns by building city halls, which also improves order. High level cities can also produce horse archers cavalry & missile troops.
Castle should not be neglected in the middle east though, they might prove very useful against the mongols & crusades (but I actually never had to defend a siege against the mongols, they never attacked a city, maybe because they were intimidated with the armies I used to chase/harass them)

[cambrax]

I tend to end up with a 50:50 split, more or less, with perhaps a few ore cities than castles.

You don't need to worry about castles revolting, and if you max out the trade potential in your cities you can compensate for the lack of income where you're producing troops. Cities are a nightmare on borders, as they tempt the AI to attack, and are inevitably riddled with spies.

I never really specialise my castles either, although this idea probably merits some experimentation. I prefer to build troops in a castle in cycles of two turns, and dispatch 6 unit armies to needed areas, while merging them en route.

[Shahed]

I'm finishing my second campaign as Turk, after a first one as French. During my first campaign I didn't bother about this castle/city distinction, and just upgraded whatever I was conquering (eventually after about 70 turns I switched Bordeaux into a city for money).
As a Turk I've been paying more attention to that fact. Basically, I converted to cities whatever coastal provinces I had, or islands.
With a little hindsight, I might have been too hasty about that. It is only important to keep as cities provinces with lots of commercial resources, like antioch and jerusalem. The Turk needs castles badly in the early game, since early city troops are very weak. Cities can build cheap weak militia, and artillery. They become interesting once you can build janissaries, which come with the 3rd city hall level. On the other hand castle provide you with highly needed cavalry (horse archers mostly, then heavy cav with the 4th level IIRC), and archers. Castle infantry is almost useless until foot sipahi, which are far weaker than janissaries, and naffatuns which are a nice plus and fun to play with.
The strengh of the Turks lies in janissaries: you can get them in 9 turns by building city halls, which also improves order. High level cities can also produce horse archers cavalry & missile troops.
Castle should not be neglected in the middle east though, they might prove very useful against the mongols & crusades (but I actually never had to defend a siege against the mongols, they never attacked a city, maybe because they were intimidated with the armies I used to chase/harass them)

Good post. Very helpful for me. Thanks.

The Turks do need more castles in the beginning, specially of you are playing all cavalry, like I do. Unless you go for racing tracks, but there is a minior dilema.

You definetely want Horse Guild, but you can't have that in a castle. What a bummer. So essentially if you play with this handicap it means you have to build a racetrack and keep churning cavalry from that city in the hopes of getting a horse guild there. But of course you can produce better, and (produce it) quicker from your existing castles. Which you really want to do because given the fact that everyone hates you, you better start taking people out asap i.e preferably from turn one.

So the whole city specialisation thing seems a lot more complicated and generally harder to organise for the Turks. You have to select very carefully, more so than other factions I think. I actually don't know what cities to specialise... lol.

[nameless]

As the Sicilians, I have conquered all of the islands, north africa and am currently invading Spain.

I only have one fully upgraded citadel. Two professional armies supported by 3-4 militia armies.

I've decided that it's best to leave one fully upgraded citadel for certain areas. Like for Sicily, Tunis is a good position to send out troops as its in the center. In Spain, I'll be using a citadel near the borders with France and so forth.

It's just too costly to start all over again.

I think that's the best tactic, have several militia armies supporting 1-2 professional armies because in comparison with RTW, I find it very very hard to support a professional one.

[Shahed]

OK I've decided to have only 3 castles, Smyrna, Caesarea, Mosul. Rest will be cities. Mosul will cover Caucaus, Maghgreb. Smyrna will cover Balkans, Caesarea will cover both i.e support the other two castles.]

By the way I just found out that you can retrain some mercs in certain locations. For example Alan Mercs can be retrained in Trabzon (or whatever it's called in English...Trebizond). This is AWESOME news for the Turks, because even though Alans are expensive, you have a light cavalry with a good charge.

Would I still be able to retrain Alans if I converted Trabzon to a city ?

When you convert do you lose buildings that you already built there before you converted ?

[Amon_Zeth]

I'm thinking a good idea would be to have three castles or so, and as you expand you put up a few castles in the new lands you get. Then, when these castles are at a maximum level, you flip your older, less advantageously placed castles. Repeat as you expand.

[Spendius]

OK I've decided to have only 3 castles, Smyrna, Caesarea, Mosul. Rest will be cities. Mosul will cover Caucaus, Maghgreb. Smyrna will cover Balkans, Caesarea will cover both i.e support the other two castles.]

By the way I just found out that you can retrain some mercs in certain locations. For example Alan Mercs can be retrained in Trabzon (or whatever it's called in English...Trebizond). This is AWESOME news for the Turks, because even though Alans are expensive, you have a light cavalry with a good charge.

Would I still be able to retrain Alans if I converted Trabzon to a city ?

When you convert do you lose buildings that you already built there before you converted ?

Sipahi make ok light cav. Use their bows to disrupt the enemy formation, but they can pretty well handle artillery and archers in melee.
If you invest a little more, go for armenian cavalry, true heavy cav.

[Slaists]

Castles are much easier to keep happy than cities, especially if they are far away from the capital. Most likely, you won't be able to keep a Mid-Eastern city happy even with a full stack of troops if your capital is in London... It can be done with just a handful of troops in a castle though.

As to flipping old castles into cities: one is losing all the money invested in troops buildings in that castle automatically. And... the same amount of money (and time) has to be invested in the "new castles" to get to the same level of technology.

[Silvershade]

I generally go for around a 3:1 mixture in favour of cities, the castles are specialised to begin with but eventually i even this out so that all can train whatever I need, I think there is something to setting up a castle in a strategically important position for defensive reasons also.

A lot depends on the faction though, if i can get fairly good troops out of cities for a faction then I lean more heavily towards cities ( maybe as much as 4 or 5:1 ) simply because it's nice to have armies that are re-trainable at multiple locations.

[Somebody Else]

I tend to stick with whatever is originally in place (except islands - I convert those to towns imediately). If a castle ends up miles from the front, it gets converted - I only ever operate on a 'next province' basis anyway - I don't train soldiers anywhere beyond a province behind the lines (except for public order/rebel quelling). I prefer to have a castle as the front line settlement, because they're easier to defend and can produce the cavalry I tend to spam in the general direction of the foe. Though, there's very little (apart from Mlaar hordes) that I can't fend off, or at the very least, give a bloody good mauling to, with militia Xbows and halberdiers. Of course, a teched up huge city is a pretty hard nut to crack anyway, with late era militia and cannon towers. Actually, peasants with cannon towers are hard enough to deal with.

Playing HRE, soon enough, I'll have forlorn hopes and arquebusiers guarding my walled cities... Can't see much getting past them...

So, cities, everywhere, and castles if I feel like having knights kicking about the place.

[fuzzilogik]

On the Egyptian campaign I found I was making everything into a castle if I could. Population growth is so high in that region (from alexandria to cairo to Jerusalem to baghdad) that I had serious unrest problems. Then when I started to expand all the Turk cities were too large to convert to castles so I was forced to execute everyone and try to get enough building upgrades to keep everyone happy with runaway growth. also, the egyptians have some pretty nice cav (royal mamluks) and archers (nubians) so extra castles work just fine to keep expanding. cairo, alexandria, and jerusalem are cash cows so I'm never short on cash.

has anyone noticed the ottoman infantry. they are crazy tough. they must be equal to mid-level men at arms and they have long range bows.

[Shahed]

Nope I haven't noticed yet. That would be good thing though. MTW Ottoman Infantry was just plain annoying, could'nt fight with the local girl scouts if it had to.