I sometimes have populations that are furious with me and no matter what I do I can't get this down. What strategies should I adopt for these provinces?

I had some dwarves in one game that never corrected (I was good aligned). Had positive guards, used spells, put in special buildings, but every few turns they would rebel again.

1) unlock a lot of buildings that improve mood a little (like Pub and Brewery) and use those

2) Place a strong guard and let them revolt (and fail repeatedly)

3) Find some Ancient Schematics in dungeons etc. A lot of those give +2/+3 mood, which makes it quite possible to pacify a furious population

Also take advantage of random events that affect that province and choose the answer that improves mood (usually costs money or gems).

Burn the province to the ground and curse the land, they wont bother you for a while after that :D

3 is only worthwhile for provinces you really need to keep (has resource or strategic location.

2 is only worth it on high gold income provinces... if you let them revolt then all fury goes away and you can reconquer them later on for XP and a fresh-er slate.

One time though I got a weird messup with elves where they decided I broke the alliance (I conquered an elven territory before forming the alliance with another and then let them revolt, the moment they did elves decided I violated the alliance)... boy did that have all kinds of bad consequences for me :(

The best way I find to effect morale of conqured provinces is by the use of a Pub built in each with a Theater in your main as this increases their mood right away by +2.

The build order for them are: Tavern, Granary and Inn (Hotel) This lets you build the Taverns which improve mood by +1 in each area they are build as well as generating +1 gold. To increase the mood by another +1 you build Library, Show Booth and the Theater.

This way any new area you take all you have todo is build the Pub and boom your morale is quite good.

This also lets me take advantage of the "Empty Coffer" ritual to get myself extra gold quite often as well as taking advantage of certain random events like when their is food shortage and I over charge them for food, even after all this the people are still usually content. lol

Pubs only give +1 with the expensive Theater. Taverns dont give more. The +2 from Taverns and the +1 from Pubs without theater is only for the morale of the province defenders.
Much better are breweries, because they return the investment pretty quickly. Very good are arenas or chosing light brethren as defenders. Forests are of course very easily pacifiied with forest keepers.

I am sorry you are correct the combo only gives a mood +1 improvement. Odd how it seemed so much more though.

Yes Light Brethren are excellent as well however I think Guards or Patrolmen are easier to get as now I usually skip level the 1 Healers Since I usually aim to get the R2&3 ones.

I just meant Brethren of Light for the +1 province mood bonus. But they are pretty bad strength wise as defenders.
Anyway the pubs I also got wrong a long time. I was building pubs for like 10 shards thinking they improve mood until I got to the Theater....bang head against the wall time.

The +1 from the pub only offsets the TEMPORARY minor displeasure humans have when conquered. (which would have expired early enough for them to not revolt anyways).

A superior option is to get a brewery there.

It's still a good idea to build pubs early on. It means once you do get the theater a lot of provinces suddenly get +1 mood, and until then it does give a bit of income (and morale bonus). Also it's cheap and you can build it very quickly.

Breweries are great, but Plains only.

that is a good point, and hey, you can get both on the same province
I think actually a lot of it depends on what choices of buildings you have. As you conquer shards you get more buildings to choose from.

The Extravaganza global spell, Pubs and Taverns with the Theatre and making nice decisions on random events all help to improve mood. I also have a feeling that exploring the entire province (and exploring dungeons) makes everyone happier. Guards reduce the accumulation of discontent by 3 so the province rebels less and the Healer guards increase mood by 1 and the Unicorn/Dryad Guard by increase mood by 3.

Sometimes there is no perfect solution. At times no matter what you do there will be provinces, especially of a different race (Elves, Lizardmen, Dwarves etc) who will never be happy. So in that case either let it rebel or guard it with a Guard strong enough to cope with multiple rebellions.

Exploring entire province only gives a +2 gold per turn income from province.
Exploring all dungeons gives you the opportunity to make discoveries that could positively effect morale (but more often, income)