butch26:
1. Agreed, the AI is much better - but that's the game engine, not the data. Which is why I said and will continue to say, AoE on AoK's engine would be awesome.
2. I tried playing AoK, about 3-4 times. I only started winning when I gave up on military units and started covering the map with villager-garrisoned TCs, and won overwhelmingly at that point, ridiculously so in fact. A castle is just the cherry at the top of the TC cake, and the latter don't need murder holes.
3. True, garrisoning your initial TC doesn't really protect you from attack. That's the worst of it, it's a powerful rush without being a really useful defense.
4. It's quite easy to have villagers come out and kill a ram, then re-garrison before losing more than 1 or 2.
5. I ran a web server, database server, ftp server, the usual desktop with text and graphics editors, browser, etc, with no noticeable lag - on a pentium 90 with 16 mb ram. AoK's requirements are INSANE! I know other games require more, but that doesn't say much now does it.
6. Now, to be fair, a lots of things have been added in AoK:TC to weaken TCs, strengthen and vary their counters. A *LOT* of things. So much that I can see half a dozen rushes to destroy an opponent's TC while he's still in feudal, the stone cost and building time ensuring he doesn't catch up before your knights can wipe him out. Reminds me of slingers and camels, really - trading one problem for another.
7. What does complicated have to do with anything? The comment you're replying to here may be from someone else. BTW, according to my preliminary calculations, about 50 scythes - but it depends how much they mix in, if they get to use their area damage more they may get better odds.