Cholas concept

The Chola empire was a trade empire in southern India that dominated large portions of the Indian ocean, interacting with many South Asian / South East Asian civilizations, as well as China. They were known for their military use of elephants and naval power. This concept should be decently historically logical (perhaps), but should also provide good gameplay:

Cholas / Tamil (Indian or new South Indian architecture set):

Elephant and Naval civ

Bonuses:

- Gold / Stone miners do not need drop off points (mining camps still buildable for upgrades)

Could have a slight negative collection rate modifier--like Khmer farmers--to ensure balance

- All mining camp, market, university, and town center techs available from a prior age have -67% cost and research time.

So wheelbarrow, for example, in feudal age will cost 175f/50w and research in 75 seconds like
normal, while in castle/imp age it will cost 58f/17w and research in 25s.

- Villagers and Battle Elephants attack 15% faster

Note on the villager attack: this is much, much worse than the Inca armor/attack bonus.
However, it will be active in dark age and useful whenever your villagers have to fight & can
help you save the odd villager from a boar / wolf before loom or from a feudal age scout after
loom. This may also encourage delaying loom until feudal to get the -67% cost/time discount!

- War galley / galleon upgrades are free

Team bonus:

- Galley line +1 range

Unique techs:

- Trade Empire (250f / 250 g): trade units +50% hp, +10 gold per trip for all trade routes >20 tiles long.

Benefits shorter trade routes more than long ones, above a minimum length of 20 tiles.

- Yanaipadai (900 f / 700 g ): Battle elephant blast radius doubled from 0.4 --> 0.8. Battle elephants gain +5 elephant armor (take -5 damage from scorpion, halb, etc.).

Unique Unit:

Villaligal (60w / 60g): A very slow, heavy archer with powerful melee armor and high attack. A Teutarcher, if you will.

Stats (elite, 1100f / 550g): HP = 45 (55). Attack = 6 (8). Range = 5 (6). Armor = 3/0 (6/0). Bonuses:
vs. infantry +1. Rate of fire = 2.5. Accuracy = 85% (90%) [note lack of thumb ring!]. Movement
speed = 0.75 (0.8).

Tech tree (missing techs shown):

Barracks: champion, arson. Archery Range: thumb ring, parthian, heavy CA. Stable: camel, steppe lancer, paladin. Siege-shop: BBC, siege ram. Monastery: redemption, sanctity, heresy. Blacksmith: plate mail armor, ring archer armor. University: [none missing]. Eco: [none missing]. Dock: heavy demolition ship. Castle: [none missing].

Summary:

Strengths: elephants, navy, trade, Unique Unit archer, defenses (with a decent tower rush, though much worse than the Inca / Korean trush).

Weaknesses: infantry, monks, cav archers.

Mediocre, average, or usable: standard archers, siege, cavalry, economy, late game trash.

{ Non-English tech / unit names from Wikipedia page on Chola military }