Yes, I agree.
Most likely, it will be like this:
red chooses the template (the player marked in blue in the table starts crossing out the template, the last choice is for red)
blue chooses the method for selecting the starting castle: random (the color changes upon restart, the first generation is based on the color in the table) or standard cross (the player marked in blue in the table starts crossing out first, chooses a castle from the three remaining, then the second player chooses a castle from the two remaining and announces the color they want to play with).
With this arrangement, no one should feel "disadvantaged":rolleyes:
With this arrangement, it is not beneficial for blue to choose random.
As an alternative, blue can choose either cross or random+color (without changing).