Castles growing too slowly?

[Natsymir]

I've played the game with Khwaresm, Sindh, Byzantium, Oman (twice) and Armenia (twice) thus far, and every time, I've conquered most of the world long before my castles grow big enough that I can recruit the most advanced units. Wary of this, I've done all in my power to make the castles grow their population quicker, but with castles, there's only so much you can do, and in my latest game as Sindh, I didn't participate in any war whatsoever until 1240 or so, only watiing for my cities and castles to grow. (I never have a problem making the cities big). But now it's still 4000 population to go for my biggest (native AOR) castle to reach even the next best castle level (18000), and population increase is mostly at 0 or at best at +0,5, so it seems I can't except to be able to recruit my best units for the whole game.

The problem is worst with Armenia; I've played them twice, and because they have to go to war from the very first round or so in order to defend themselves, I've -never ever- been able to recruit nakahar nights etc; I win the game long before any native castles in anywhere near that population level, and even if I do everything I can to make the castle grow, it will often stop growing completely for long periods, or get hit by plague or something.

Now I'm wondering: is this an intended feature of the game, a problem that ought to be fixed, or am I doing something wrong? Do you have any tips for strategies I might have overlooked that can help my castles grow? I WANT those units!

(I always try to have trade agreements with every faction in the world, ofc).

[I3enjaIvIin]

I've only played 2 deep campaigns with KoJ and Abbasid and 1 ~150 turn campaign with ERE and in all these campaigns I had the same (problem?). I didn't build things that drops my pop health (like caravan if i recall correctly) and focused on farm buildings and the slave market (which has pop increase bonus) but like TS the native castles grow so slowww.

[medhma]

The only solution, I found is to give your castle to any AI allies and when they reach 18000 population just re-buy them (AI has population growth bonus so they could very fast grow their castles) is kind of cheating but if I don't this I won't be able to enjoy any elite unit and really I only use elite troop in my armies.

[Harith]

its not too hard to grow ur castle... I did it several times.... just get ur most saintly or utterly immaculate person.. place him there... and watch ur castles boom