Greetings, all. Let me first of all say that BL is a true modding accomplishment, and enormously fun to play. I've been having a blast in the last few days, except for some balancing issues that I feel could use a second look. There are two major issues, which are in some respects related:

1. Rampant population growth, with resulting squalor and rebellion problems.

2. Not enough trade income.

I've only played as one of the Chinese factions, so it is possible that the very high growth rate is isolated to them. However, I've had cities that had over 34.000 citizens, and even with a full stack, were totally impossible to keep happiness over 60%.

The lack of trade income was compounded by having to maintain full stacks in each of my cities (even if they were only peasants), which meant that I simply had no money to maintain any field armies, or to build happiness buildings (which give a health bonus, further compounding the population growth problem).

I've noticed that a lot of the coastal cities only have one trade route, despite having a dockyard. They might be too far apart or have nothing to trade. With 11 of 13 provinces having dockyards, owning the sea-trade wonder, and all the cities over 20,000 people, I should be making cash like a Harlem pimp, but I'm barely breaking even. Obviously, I'm falling behind everyone else technologically.

Any suggestions?