The problem is that he's not the only one... and the map is so confusing that it takes about a month to get anywhere on foot... At the beginning, trying to pull troops towards you is simply dangerous... he has 3-4 times more troops than I do at the start... Overall, the map is terrible in my opinion... And it seems like the AI has two castles at the beginning... Okay, I'll try to figure it out myself... As for development, it's fast, max 4 weeks, and the castle is fully built... sometimes I manage it in 3 weeks.