which castles are worth switching to cities?

[myz]

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?

[Alpedar]

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).

[myz]

does bordeaux make a good city? What about Wales?

[Ramses II CP]

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.

[Rhyfelwyr]

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.

[Daveybaby]

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.