There are two amazing mods for fallout nv and fallout 3, RTS real time settler, and wasteland defense, they allow for the construction of fortresses and towns by the player, the construction method is alot like gmod, where you are in first person controlling the position of spawnable materials and objects.
wasteland defense is built around combat and constructing strongholds where rts is more about building and expanding your own settlements and towns.

wasteland defense works like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVcG8U_6M1U&feature=fvst
rts is pretty much the same, but less restrictive to what you can actually build, rts lets you blueprint just about every item in the game to use as materials.

now, if my prediction comes true then sometime after skyrims launch we are going to have a mod that is identical to this or if not very similar.

so what would you do with a mod like this?
build your civilization around a river? up in the mountains? bolster the defenses of one of the main cities? build your fortress outside a city and storm the gates once a day?

Sounds sort of neat, but I'ma PS3 user.

I'd probably make a separate play through just for that mod.

But it seems like something you do after you've had your fun with the normal game which may be awhile...or practically never with other mods.

yep those mods are amazing. i used both with personally tweaked zombie and "realism" mods and basically played an entirely different game of zombie survival. Fun.

Even if we can't become jarls in vanilla Skyrim, we can RP it with mods like those. I look forward to defending my settlement against dragons!

someday, you need to give this a try, i hope someday you get a pc, it doesnt have to be 2000 dollars, 900 should get you set.

totally, iv spent a good 50 hours creating layered settlements using rts alone, now wd adds another 100 hours of pure survival wave defense
i cant wait for something like this...and you know they will, modders are itching with anticipation over this game.