(TFT) Wither castles?

[Pasha and or Rick Smith <pnrsmith@istar.ca>]

Hi Everyone,
	I have been working on and off for many years on
a system on the cost to build castles.   This has made me 
think that the TFT economic system is messed up (The cost of 
a rapier is only 20 times that of one day's food, etc.)

	Let us pretend that the economic system is fixed
so that cheap things (like peasant labor and food) become
VERY cheap.

	However, TFT magic makes it so easy to blow down
walls, Universal Solvent them, fly over them, Reverse 
Missiles the arrows of the defenders, etc. that I wonder if
castles make sense.

	Basically the cost of defensive and offensive
weaponry is what is at issue here.  The cost of buying
magic items for one person is far less than magically 
protecting the castle itself.

	For example I wanted my castle to have Reverse
Missiles.  Rather than enchanting each rock, I enchanted
huge thin metal sheets each of which was about 3m 
square.  Then I hung these sheets over the stone walls.
I didn't even have to make every sheet enchanted, even
doing 10% of them made catapulters very nervous.

	However the cost remained astronomical.


	Rather than enchanting the castle, we could
buy magic items for the defenders.  If the castle defenders
has a hero that is immune to the attackers weapons and
who can take out the toughest hero on the attacking side
goes a long way to intimidate the attacking peasantry.
But then why not buy magic items rather than castles?

	Basically TFT's system of cheap magic items /
expensive labor makes me think that castles don't make
sense.   Even if we assume that castles are cheap to build
I think magic means that it is too easy for small 
magicked strike forces to eliminate the advantages of
castles for themselves and the normal troops following.

	
	So the questions for the list is:  Should castles
exist?  Perhaps they should be comfortable airy houses
with little defensive value?  Do you have any stories of
how a small PC strike force eliminated mighty fortresses?
Any stories of how a castle defended itself successfully
against a powerful magical attack force?


	Rick


=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"