Factional economy - history and gameplay

Hello EB fans and team, with this thread I hope to start a discussion useful both for learning purposes and gameplay improvement.

Although I admit I didn't look into detail at EB economic model I noticed that in most mods no extensive efforts are made to emulate how historically factional economics and logistics (not limited to AOR recruitment!) worked.

We know that some factions were based on sea trade (Carthage for sure, probably Saba and Casse for EB) and colonization not far away from the sea, others relied on military settlements for their army (successors)
while there are many darker spots to know (eastern factions may have relied on trade from asia but what about "barbarians"?).

In the end, do you think that factions should have personalized bias on how they get their income and recruitment base?
If so, how?

I do.... although I fail to see how such differences could be implemented on a gameplay level. There really is only two options to make serious money in this game, those being sea trade and mines.

Granted, I'm no modder, so perhaps I'm missing some important things. BTW, what's up Zarax....how's XGM these days? :)

Well, for example Carthage (if historically correct) could be set up as essentially a thalassocracy, meaning that they will make most of their money and factional recruitment on coastal settlement (aka, better port bonuses and so on) while inland will rely mostly on the infrastructure they find and local troops.

Granted, it can't be 100% historical and 100% flexible but I think there is room for that.

XGM is going well thanks, we recently added Saba to our factions and we're discussing about Epirus.
I opened this discussion also because I'm trying to improve the role-play elements in the mod and enhance the play styles differences.
Of course we will probably never reach EB detail (also because we try to not rely on scripting) but my AIM is to have a good historical accuracy level while retaining the "user-friendly" atmosphere.