Some places the "When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England." quote is closer to the truth than you'd expect, but yes, "good strong land" is one of the keys to a long-lasting structure.

Building very slowly can alert you to issues there, but they didn't always catch them (Pisa for example).