[MaxWilson]

It's true that it can be frustrating to try to hold a chokepoint with a fortress because, as you point out, the enemy can wipe out your PD unless you're patrolling, and that disrupts recruiting at that fort. Part of the problem here is that you're confusing chokepoint forts, which are intended to hold territory, with recruiting forts, which are intended to build troops. If he captures a chokepoint fort, it doesn't matter that you can't recruit troops there, and he's got an army tied up besieging your fort. You're correct that he can just move right on past, but the AI usually doesn't. Also, if he does move on past he's now cut off in enemy territory while you build reinforcements behind him, and it should be pretty easy to build pincer-movement him from in front and behind at the same time. Note that as soon as he moves past your fort you get your province back and can now recruit again, which is one time you might want to recruit at a chokepoint fort.

I've taken to playing lately with NI mods (No Independents, by Edi), which makes forts even more important because they're pretty much the only place you can recruit at all. I found it useful in my latest game to sometimes build two forts adjacent to each other. It slightly reduces the resources each fort gets (by 15 points or so, out of 160), but allows them to easily reinforce each other in case of attack. Since I'm playing LA Agartha, I was actually hoping they'd break down my walls and attack me in the darkness of my Cave Fort (with my F4W4N4E9B4 Sepulchrals that would have been fun), but it was so easy to break the siege from the neigboring fort that I did that instead.

Anyway, key point is that if you have enough forts, you don't mind letting the enemy occupy the province outside a fort because it doesn't slow down your recruitment any, it just shifts it elsewhere. And it also ties up an enemy army for a good long time.

-Max