[rdonj]

krpeters - No. Here's pretty much the best case scenario for a turn three fort... MA vanheim. They have access to the keeper of bridges pretender, who has a 100 patrol bonus in CBM. I can take him awake, o3/c1/g3/m1, a little extra magic and 6 dom. First turn, set taxes to 200 in the capital and patrol with him and the starting army, while creating a vanherse and 9 skinshifters. Next turn, send out the main army with the reinforcements and the vanherse, while buying a dwarven smith as you continue to overtax at 200. Turn 3, order the vanherse to build a fort. Approximately 640 gold left over to purchase mages and additional troops. So it does slow down the speed of the expansion, but it isn't nearly as crippling as you implied, if you've got a plan to make it work. Of course ma vanheim isn't going to benefit as much from an early castle as others given that their expansion is mostly gold-driven, and p3 would enhance it better than g3 here, but I just wanted to show how it was possible without sacrificing too much, and I think I've done that.

Recruiting mages in your fortress slots is NEVER a waste, it's honestly a waste to recruit other things in your cap fort because of the need to build a stable of your best (usually cap only) mages. However, you usually can't afford your best mages in the first few turns anyway, and it can be worth it sometimes to recruit non-mages to help fuel your expansion. But it's not ideal, and if you're caught with insufficient levels of research by a rush that's the best way to lose a game.