When to build castles/towns?

[NinjaWJ]

Hey guys sorry if this is a noob question but what is the advantages and disadvantageous of having a castle and a city? When should i build these settlements? All the good troops seem to come out of the castle! Also will you ever be able to recreate good, professional units form a city after hundreds of years (1400s, 1500s?)


thanks

[kevindrosario]

Cities can produce more income, while castles can (usually) produce better troops. That's the basic jist of it. Castles also get free upkeep knights in SS, which make them much easier to defend. I've heard some people say to try to keep about half cities and half castles, but I generally keep more cities than castles.

I really don't ever get very late in the campaign, but I believe that many gunpowder units can only be recruited from cities and not castles.

[ShockBlast]

As said above the cities are your income makers and the castles are for recrutement.In later stages you can recruit Halebards and Pikemen from cities but the castles will remain your recrutement centers.

Castles are also better for defending becuse they have mutiple tiers,fortresses have two and citadels have 3.

To maximise income build the castles in land locked regions since the cities have a building that gives you more income from naval trade.That said i advise you to get two or free of them in regions that lets you build ports.They will let you deploy troops very fast and sometimes speed is more important.Of course you should have those ''naval'' castles afther you have a secured your base of operations and have a nice flow of income.

As a rule of thumb try to have more cities then castles.

Have fum.

[Genuine_Intrepid]

I tend to have a ratio of one castle for every 5 cities, and also I try to have as many cities on the coast as possible because those will tend to make me the most money.

[philipjd]

I tend to have a ratio of one castle for every 5 cities, and also I try to have as many cities on the coast as possible because those will tend to make me the most money.

ditto this.
But convert as soon as you can afford as top do so later gets very expensive (as they increase in size). Best castles to keep are those that grow in population size quickly.

[Ichon]

Later cities will get quite nice selection of units for some factions but most factions still get more units from castles in every era even late eras. Kiev, Novgorod, Italians, ERE, Crusaders with guilds get nice units from cities in late eras.

I think 1 castle per 5 cities is a good ratio- even fewer if you play BGR maybe though sometimes the more important aspect is keeping a castle in every region close enough to a port that it doesn't waste a huge time sending armies back and forth. So for all of England you can usually have just 1 castle- then 1 castle for all of Scandinavia, Italy etc. At least once you are in full control in those regions. When you are still in conquest to capture the entire region leave the castles until its over as you can retrain more quickly. Once the region belongs to you though its a waste to keep more than 1 castle unless they can easily supply your next invasion.