A discussion on monks

A 1300 ish in solo scrub here. I would like to hear thoughts and suggestions on how monks as a unit might become more usable in the meta! I've had opponents trying and I've also tried monks as a back bone of the army, which has every time ended with one lucky catch resulting in decimation of the monk ranks, and after that the monk player was finished. 1 and 2 are meant to be exclusive, but maybe someone can propose a better solution. 1. I would propose a price change for the monks: I would say 50 gold and maybe some other resource. 2. Some civs might have some sort of battle monk tech, which suck and could be improved. I was thinking in lines of adding auto attack, armor and hp. Saracens, slavs and aztects have these things. Imo, I want to say half-assed.