Yeah i liked that too, especially when the province wasn't too far away. I remember in MTW 1 the Jannissaries were famous from Bulgaria, which wansn't even in Turkish hands, and when you took it over you had to build a fortress, a mosque, a grand mosque, a military academy, and the spearmaker. (this was the only reason I didn't like Janissaries, they were great but not worth the trouble)

And the French province that was famous for it's Chivalric Knights had basically zero buildings in it (no strongholds anyway) so to be able to take advantage of those Knights you had to spend like 150 years building it up.