Castle (Age of Empires II)

The Castle is a military Building in Age of Empires II available once Castle Age is reached. It is a powerful fortification with many different functions and can accomplish the following. Being the building with the most uses and functions, the Castle is one of the most powerful buildings in the game but requires huge amounts of Stone. The best counter for Castles are siege weapons, such as rams, trebuchets, bombard cannons, or Petards. The AI usually builds a relatively high amount of Castles close to the center of the map starting from the Imperial Age at Death matches.
 * Can heal and Garrison up to 20 units simultaneously.
 * Develop the Unique Unit of a civilization.
 * Allows the player to develop the Unique Technologies of a civilization and can promote unique units to elite levels once Imperial Age is reached.
 * Allows the player to construct a Trebuchet or a Petard.
 * Can support up to 20 population.
 * Allows the player to gain control over a foreign territory.
 * Can fire four arrows within its range without garrison but a fully garrisoned castle can fire up to twenty arrows simultaneously.

Tactics and Placement
Players should build Castle inside minor fortifications outside their settlement. Surrounding the entire base with walls along with other towers such as a Bombard Tower provides additional protection from Battering Rams and other melee units. If a river separates their base from the enemy's, players should wall up the river's shallows and build a Castle near them. Players should build Castles at major chokepoints, especially if they have researched the Murder Holes upgrade. Players should also garrison a few cavalry units to fend off Battering Ram attacks.

Civilization Bonuses

 * The Franks can construct cheaper Castles and can use them more effectively to defend their territory.


 * The Teutons unique technology Crenellations increases the range of Castles by 3, allowing them to retaliate against Bombard Cannons and regular Cannon Galleons. The Teutons can also research Murder Holes for free upon reaching the Castle Age. This provides them an earlier deterrent to attacks from Cavalry and Battering Rams.


 * Byzantine castles have higher hit points than normal castles. A fully upgraded Byzantine castle can have over a whopping 7000 hit points.

Architecture
Each architectural group of civilizations has its own unique designs for its castle:


 * West European (Top picture) has one tower and a drawbridge.


 * Asian (Upper-left of gallery) similar in appearance to pagodas.


 * Middle-Eastern (Upper-middle of gallery) Muslim-inspired architecture with gold-brown colors (perhaps made of sandstone).


 * Central European (Upper-right of gallery) has a blocky design with four tall towers and two shorter ones with a bridge in between.


 * Meso-American (Bottom of gallery, leftmost picture of the five castles) resemble tall ziggurats, with a steep staircase leading to the top.