How about some buffs for Slavs?

If there is one civ no one seems to be excited about to play them, it's gotta be the slavs. They may have FU infantry and FU cavalier/hussar, as well as cheaper siege, but is that really enough to warrant playing them over pretty much any other civ?

• the unique technology to buff monk's armor feels rather bad. It protects them from villagers/wolves, but that's kind of it. Also, no Heresy/Faith
• The Boyar is kind of like a Paladin, except it has less hp and ranged armor in favor of more melee armor. But when your cavalry is fighting melee units, it usually is fighting pikes/camels these days, against which the 6 melee armor does not help (but the lack of hp compared to a Paladin does). And the unit loses a lot of pierce resistance, which was the best thing about the night line. Now the unit only really counters the normal swordsman line, and can fight against enemy knights. Everything else is strong against the super expensive Boyar.
• No gunpowder units
• A small economic bonus that pretty much becomes irrelevant when you really would start profiting from it (castle age+), because farming speed seems to be capped, and before castle age, you tend to rely a lot more on other sources of food. Compared to other economic bonuses, it outright sucks.
• The other unique technology, Druzhina, performs way worse than anyone hearing it for the first time would expect. Why? Because the AoE is super small. So your unit pretty much only does trample damage, when it is swarmed with multiple enemies attacking it. Now, for elephants and even the byzantine Cataphract, this frequently occurs, as those units are tanky enough to get swarmed in the first place, at which point they profit from trampling. However, Slavs only have swordsmen and halbs. Helbardiers die way too fast to get swarmed and reliably make use of Druzhina, leaving only the swordsmen line. And even in the off-chance your opponent does not use a unit that kills your Champions fast (haha), they still perform underwhelming compared to real, straight up infantry bonuses, such as attacking faster or +3 or +4 damage. Oh, and Druzhina is 1200 food. Which is a TON of food, when the only units that profit from it are super food-heavy.
• The team bonus seems to be miniscule. It translates to "military buildings cost -25 wood", which is okay, but you won't profit from that much until you are having enough wood anyways to not worry about the extra 25 wood. I mean, it's okay, but it's not a game-changing mechanic. You might save 100-150 wood in castle age, and another 200 wood in imperial.

So, in essence, Slavs are a civ with pretty much no bonuses until castle age, where they get 15% cheaper siege. And that's it. No real economic lead over any other civ, no decisive military advantage in any area. That 15% cheaper siege seems to be the only reason to play Slavs, really.

Therefore, I would like to start a discussion about what could be done to tackle at least some of the problems mentioned above. Changes, buffs. I know that this week's civ discussion is about the Britons, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about other civs, right?

• What would you change to make the Boyar a viable unit? Decrease the cost? Increase pierce armor? Give it special armor against anti-cavalry bonus damage (similar to the cataphract)? Is the boyar in general just too similar to the cataphract and needs a new identity?
• Would you give the Slavs at least the bombard cannon to profit from 15% cheaper siege, as they don't even get bracer or archers in general, and the Onager line is their only real ranged threat?
• Is the economic bonus enough? Slavs do get all economic upgrades except for Stone Shaft Mining (which arguably is not useful anyways) and Guilds. Then again, Two-Man Saw and Crop Rotation aren't super strong compared to the other bonuses. How would you change the economic bonus to make it more valuable, both for early and late game?
• Do you feel like Druzhina is reasonably priced and strong enough as their only military bonus? Would you give the slavs another military bonus? Which unit line would you give a stat bonus, if you had to?