One of my biggest complaints in the TW series so far is how bad the high tech buildings are. The easiest way to win the campaign is to mass low level troops, ignore most building upgrades, and just conquer everything. The biggest reason for this is how easy it is to support large armies with just basic buildings and how cost ineffective upgrades are.
Case in point, the market line of buildings. IIRC, grain exchange gives 10% trade bonus for 800 florins. Then each succeeding upgrade is more and more expensive but only gives 5%. That means the benefit of upgrading past grain exchange is pretty laughable. It's way easier to make money by just conquering another city and building the basic, cost effective, upgrades there. Things such as the merchant guild line of buildings aren't very cost effective either.
I think that in Empires, the later market, etc. buildings should give bonuses that are much higher than what they give in previous games. That and make it harder for factions to support large armies with just basic buildings.
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