Fortress building tips, plz...

[Nikolai]

Building for supplies is luxury. I have seen my nephew do when he played Reborn Ulm, but he was already winner, and was readying for final challenge battle by last opponent standing.

Fortress can increase income from province.
Fortress can gather materials for worthy troops.
Fortress can protect temple and preachers fighting enemy dominion.
Fortress can protect fragile mages doing research.
Fortress can keep large force threatening bypassing army.
Fortress can hide your secret activities in province from scout. (Example: summoning Tartarians) If no fortresses, scout will see them when he gets there. Even if you patrol, you catch him, and he sees them. Not so with fortress.

My dream place for fortified city is knight/elephant grassland province fully surrounded by mountains, in a chokepoint on border with enemy.

[thejeff]

And most importantly, forts let you recruit more mages.

Especially early on, getting a fort in the perfect site is much less important than getting one up to double your mages and thus your research.

[Omnirizon]

I generally build forts to allow me to shuttle troops to frontlines quicker; allowing me to simultaneously better fortify a position and attack another.

I build first with respect to strategic placement and resource availability. Special troop availability may figure in as a secondary factor.

This said, early on I like to build a fort at least every four provinces. That may seem like a lot of fort building, but when you are able to consistently pummel your foe whilst they are trying to move troops to their frontlines from 6, 7, or even more provinces away, the benefit to you quickly becomes apparent.

I typically don't build a fort on a chokepoint, unless it happens to also be very resource rich and have lots of connections. However, I like to build right next to chokepoints, but I opt for whatever province can provide the best resource production and most movement options.

Forts are used to increase your production and mobilization speed, build them with that in mind.

[Cor2]

Fortresses are good for provinces you plan to do alot of blood hunting in, prevents a Bogus invasion from ruining you day.

I also prefer castles just behind choke points, that way you can still research/forge/ritual with the mages while they defend.