Ideas for a few balance tweaks

Just thought I'd throw these ideas up here to get some feedback. No worries if you don't like them, just explain why. I have no say-so whatsoever in AoE2 balance, so don't feel like I am threatening the status quo. In some cases the ideas listed below are meant to be mutually exclusive, but in other cases, I think 2 or 3 could be combined into a single idea. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on combos of these ideas and/or additional ideas/tweaks.

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Vietnamese Ideas

Despite having no eco bonus, the fact that they can see opponents starting positions and their extra HP on archers makes their archer rush more than satisfactory early on.

I think if they are to be boosted further, it should affect them in the Castle or Imperial Age and not directly affect their feudal age archer rush.

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Idea 1:

Imperial Age Unique Tech:

*Paper money cost change (800 food/200 wood) - Gives 500 gold to self and all allies

Just hate giving 200 gold to get 500 gold. This way the trade off is more clear.

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Idea 2:

New Civ Bonus:

*Battle Elephants +50 HP

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New Castle Age Unique Tech:

*Archery ranges work 50% faster

Some have suggested making archery ranges cheaper for Vietnamese, but that would boost their feudal archer rush and I don't know that they need that directly boosted in the feudal. Also, this helps the Vietnamese avoid building a castle if they don't want to. The +50HP to elephants as a civ bonus rather than a unique tech actually improves the value of the meager "free conscription" bonus also, by allowing them to also build battle elephants faster from stables (due to free conscription) without needing a castle already to get the HP boost from Chatras.

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Idea 3:

New Civ Bonus:

*Elite Battle Elephant upgrade costs -50%

Helps them diversify from archers a bit and boosts their slow, underwhelming elephants in the early imperial.

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Idea 4:

New Civ Bonus:

*Imperial skirmisher upgrade free

Gives them Imperial Skirmishers earlier in imperial age and saves them a bit of coin.

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Portuguese Ideas

Idea 1:

Feitoria generates 0.1 of each resource per second PLUS additional resource generation that is tied to market value of each resource (i.e. market value for 100 * factor TBD). So when stone is worth more, Feitoria generates less stone. When stone is worth less, Feitoria generates more stone.

The intention here is to boost the generation rates slightly in the early imperial with less of a stone (and other resource) boost in late imperial. (Though overall, an increase from current rates).

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Idea 2:

Feitoria generates only gold (not stone, wood, or food) and costs 1000 wood, 500 gold, and 20 population space.

Generates gold at a rate equivalent to having 10 trade cards in a trade route along the longest edge of whatever map size is being played. So less gold generation on small maps, more on giant maps.

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Idea 3:

In addition to it's current effects, Arquebus gives organ guns 4 spread damage.

Gives organ guns more spread but hides it behind expensive tech so not too much too soon.

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Persian Ideas

Everyone hates boiling oil as is, but no one agrees if it needs to be made more effective or changed entirely.

I don't think the Persians need a major boost from it (well-balanced already), but at least make it more situationally useful and/or interesting.

Since Persians don't have Bracer, and their archers/cav archers/skirmishers aren't the best, here's my idea:

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Castle Age Unique Tech:

*Boiling Oil - Gives castles +9 attack vs. rams, gives towers +2 attack vs. rams;

extra arrows (due to garrisoned villagers, archers, skirmishers, cav archers, etc.) from castles and towers do 0 melee damage each (3 damage vs rams for each extra arrow).

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Essentially Boiling Oil in an ungarrisoned castle is unchanged, but in a fully garrisoned castle, damage vs. rams can range from +30 if garrisoned with archers (+21 from extra arrows) to +63 if garrisoned (+54 from extra arrows) with hand cannoneers.

This allows for the damage against rams to potentially scale up in Imperial Age when garrisoned, but not be too different in castle age from what it is now.

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