I've been thinking about defending a city against invasion when playing with the castle. Consider the scenario shown below, where the two CCFF tiles shown are not part of the board, but just shown for reference.
In the base game alone, Blue is hoping to draw the tile (top right) that divides the cities before Yellow draws the tile (bottom right) that joins them. There are only two dividing tiles, but there are five joining tiles, so the odds are against Blue. When using the castle from Expansion #8, things get worse for Blue, because in that case if either Blue or Yellow places the dividing tile, Yellow can create a castle and then share the city points by completing Blue's city before any of the roads in the castle fief are completed. There are many more "city cap" tiles than "road end" tiles, so the Yellow invasion has a very high chance of success
even if Blue draws the dividing tile!
But, if Blue closes the left edge of the city
before placing the dividing tile, Yellow could no longer use a castle to share the big city points, because the dividing tile will complete the city at the same time that the castle is created, and a castle only scores for features completed on a
subsequent turn.
The tactical implication is that when your city is threatened with invasion from a city segment that could become a castle,
close all other open edges of that city as soon as possible, so that a dividing tile will effectively repel the invasion.
Perhaps this isn't too important, because the better tactic for Blue is to respond offensively, by "invading" their own city from the left, in which case a joining tile would be to Blue's advantage in preventing a castle and allowing them to win the meeple war in that city?
I like the castles and they certainly create interesting situations. But in the base game, it already seems very difficult to defend against invasion, and castles appear to make it even more difficult. We use a few castle house rules, one of which is:
a player may only create a castle when they close a city. In the example here, Blue would be able to deploy the dividing tile to repel the invasion without Yellow creating a castle.
I'd be very interested to hear other thoughts about the example shown here, or other subtle castle tactics, and also any house rules that you may have when using the castles.
Thanks!
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