Right now castles are quite useless for a clan to have since even with all the income from the villages and rents from the castle combined they generally can't even pay for 100 elite troops. And currently the villages are defenseless without a lord patrolling around to protect them.
As it doesn't make much sense for castles to be huge economic powerhouses I think at least some of the following improvements and mechanics should be added to castles:
- Reduce the wages of the garrisons in them by default.
- Castles should train the troops inside them much faster.
- Allow you to recruit noble troops from them.
- Automatically recruit troops to fill the garrison from the surrounding villages.
- Automatically send out troops to defend nearby villages from raids or aid nearby armies in battle.
- Send out small patrols to wipe out any bandits.
- Serve as a hideout for smaller armies and parties fleeing from bigger ones.
- Have a zone of control around the castle. Small enemy parties would not dare to come close to a castle garrison that can easily defeat them.
- NPC's you could talk to for the above mentioned functionality, your governor should be the one to do these things.
Castles should help lock down the area rather than just stand there until people siege it down as they do now.
