The problem of fort types

[Renojustin]

Really great point. Instead of making everything the same, though, we could just hope for 'reward' forts being better at the types of things that ARE important, as you say... namely, cost and build time. You'd think that lizardmen would know how to build quickly and cheaply in swamps.

And why build a city for 1500 inhabitants? It's not intuitive.

[ano]

IMO, one of the serious advantages of a nation is the ability to build fast cheap forts. And that is what makes, for instance, EA Mictlan who has cheap forts in mountains and forests far better than LA Mictlan who has fortcities everywhere. When you're short of money, this really makes a difference and when you have cheap little mages, ideal for research and other tasks, build time is your money, research and potential.
So I definitely agree with Sombre.

[Sombre]

You make a good point there. If swamp city and fortified city were the same in cost and build time, Ctis would then build in the farmland/plains provinces rather than the swamps, so they'd still be neglecting them. Perhaps in special cases like that they need a flat out awesome bonus like a fort with strong admin and defence, but also very low build time and discounted cost.

You could give Abysia really great forts for wastelands too, for instance, actively encouraging taking and holding these normally crappy provinces to get forts up on.