[st.patrik]

Here's my 2¢:

1. I don't know about the fortified city particularly, but I would definitely take a high admin % castle.

2. Longbows are definitely best for the first few turns - I usually build up a nice block of them, and then start recruiting daoine sidhe. But I do start recruiting daoine sidhe as soon as I have a heavy force of LBs (around 50 on a indep str. 6 setting), and thereafter rarely recruit LBs again.

3. No. At least I don't think so. Especially for Man since you don't have a ton of points to play with. You can get far better blessings from 4 or 6 in several fields than 9 in one. One combo that I go with sometimes is water 4, nature 6 - which gives a boost to defense, to make your troops even more untouchable than normal, and means that if they do get hit, then they have some fighting worth left. A blessing like that isn't too expensive, and so leaves you points for a good castle, and decent scales and dominion strength.
Although, Astral is nice to have for Man.

st.patrik