[Pocus]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
A might be an interesting twist, but B strikes me as overkill for the nature of the game. Even if it were used just for a handful of provinces, I'm not sure it'd be worth the management time.

As time is of the essence now that the gold are soon to be sent, I propose a simple fix, which ask for few minutes of tweaking : do not reduce provinces with more than 0 resources (initially) under 1 resource, even if they are supposed to be 100% drained. With this we would still be able to recrut unarmored mages.

When a province has special troops I want, I usually build a fortress right there. That way, the province is better protected against enemy invasion, the fort draws in more resources to use right there, and (since many of the special units require a temple or lab) other buildings in the provinces aren't quite as vulnerable to assualt either.

Forts may be expensive, but I'm never adverse to having another hardened point of defense. [/QB]

Actually there is a significant drawback to have castle everywhere, when you are a nation which can do faery trod or gateway : you arrive in your castle. If you were to have provinces without castle, then gating against an enemy is generally a 'swat the fly' operation, most often than not a victory, as you know what he have and can adjust in consequence.
I speak from (painful) personal experience