Questions about castle and cities

[General_Thral]

Bought ME2 few days ago and just got a couple questions i have about castle and cities in regard to the ratio of cities and castles people prefer to have especialy what cities or locations are best to be castles and best to be cities ?
Also wondering how you convert captured settlements into castles because i capture them but unable to convert which is annoying considering im capturing settlements against milan, denmark and roman empire and its to my strategic advantage i can convert some of them to castles

[Aymer de Valence]

1) Usually best to have cities on the inside of your empire as they are slightly harder to defend (they make you the most money too), and castles on the outer regions as they are easier to defend and you can recruit better unit types in castles to help when invading an enemy. I usually have 1 castle for every 3 cities. Of course, it does depend on personal preference too.

2) Sometimes when you capture a settlement, it is too upgraded to be converted to a castle, e.g if it's a large city. If you're having trouble converting a town to a castle though, hmmmm not sure, could be a glitch but somebody else might know!

[General_Thral]

Well see this is my problem im at war with factions who seem to have very big cities and in the building tab it shows they have built walls beyond that of the requirements of a castle but then that means im incapable of converting castles as i wish and i haven't got that many castles because i didn't know i would be at war with 3 factions at once and secondly i didn't realize i couldn't convert after a certain point .

Technically doesn't that mean at a certain point in time every settlement on the game could be upgraded to the point they cant be converted anymore meaning i have no real way of creating a strong enough defense in strategic positions? if that's the case then its a pretty poor mechanic tbh .

[Sitalkes]

Hi, you want cities where they have good trading possibilities (e.g. a port) and fertile land. Since every settlement in the game does not start as a civilian settlement you do not have to worry about running out of castles (unless for some dumb reason you want to convert every castle to a town and then back to a castle again). Also, converting from castles to towns and vice versa is an expensive and time consuming process. You should consider that it is unlikely that you will be able to build everything in every castle and city, so you need to specialise them, and having several castles is useful if you want to build all your types of troops and also upgrade them with armour and guild upgrades - so then you can have one castle for cavalry, one for archers, one for heavy infantry/spearmen, one for armour upgrades. You also need to specialise your cities for building spies, assasins, priests, and merchants. To read more about cities and castels, read the Medieval 2 Total War Settlements and Siege Guide http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...php?p=12220924 and also read the Medievalopedia Introducing the Medievalopedia don't worry if you have too many castles, sometimes castles can earn as much money as towns and they require fewer troops and less management to keep them happy. A quick way to get to grow a town is to convert a village to a motte and bailey, wait until it grows to a castle, then convert it to a town but that method doesn't work in reverse and also is a waste of money if you do it past the castle stage.

[General_Thral]

See i can understand how like having your cities near the sea will be huge advantage in terms of profit from that city but my problem is my enemies cities are too advanced for me to convert to castle making it extremely difficult for me to hold them like if they are in a strategic location such a terrain choke point.

Right now im using Nottingham and Caen and the welsh castle cant remember the name, to produce my units but then having to march them all the way to the front lines which is taking too long . Then they also have to resupply my other front line settlements because none of them are castles either im sort of inverted , my castles are inside and my cities are on the outskirts and im kinda lost in what to do

[Kaiser Nonsense]

See i can understand how like having your cities near the sea will be huge advantage in terms of profit from that city but my problem is my enemies cities are too advanced for me to convert to castle making it extremely difficult for me to hold them like if they are in a strategic location such a terrain choke point.

Right now im using Nottingham and Caen and the welsh castle cant remember the name, to produce my units but then having to march them all the way to the front lines which is taking too long . Then they also have to resupply my other front line settlements because none of them are castles either im sort of inverted , my castles are inside and my cities are on the outskirts and im kinda lost in what to do

I suppose you are playing as England, well, I'm right now in a similar campaign as England, do this, convert all your castles in UK to cities, so they will back your financial structure, and keep Normandy (Caen) as a castle, then expand south, take France out of game and their castles will supply you with armies to hold off the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, and so on. They have Metz, Angers, and Bordeaux I think as castles. Then you can take some Imperial Castles, Bern or Stauphen (I think that's the name, those bloody germanic names I can't remember) and expand east.

[Sitalkes]

Find the nearest enemy castle to your border and make it your priority to conquer that?

[painter]

Don't let your quest for castles blind you however. It is possible to successfully defend a city. And as for castles earning as much as a city, that is only true if the city is woefully underdeveloped or economically handicapped.

The primary reason you want castles is so that you can keep your front lines fresh, well-equipped and within a reasonable time. Converting a city to a castle will consume money and time, and so does building all the structures you need to outfit your army. Thus it is usually more economical and quicker to depend on existing castles, even if they are some distance from the front lines. To compensate, you can plan to take enemy castles during your campaigns.

And if you haven't yet, please use a liberal amount of spies, to penetrate deep into enemy territory so you know what lies beyond the lands that you can see and can better plan your invasions. The spies can also open the gates for you, making sieges a lot more quicker and less damaging to your armies.