Mod Project - Metaphysics

[Illuminated One]

All research will be conducted by dedicated researchers (pulling in a huge amount of RP - up to 180). There will be no need to spam mages just to keep competitive, instead it will be most effective to only recruit mages when needed (and you can use the free commander slots for thematic national commanders!).
There's several options to go from here, but I first want to discuss other changes that follow from that.

Random paths

Since you are not going to have enough mages to ensure lucking on the paths you need, many mages will be given different forms with predefined path picks.
So for example you will see 4 fortune tellers on your recruitment screen:
s2, sd, sn, sb
I thought that this should apply to all non-cap and weak cap-only mages.
So fortune teller and mage engineer, yes, archtheurg and oreiad no.

Money

Without having to buy castles/labs/researchers upfront, I'll have to reduce the money income somehow. However I think of doing this via the researchers upkeep and leaving more breathing room early on, while increasing the upkeep as the game progresses.
What interests me how will this effect the balance of the game, any ideas?

Research Boosters

Won't work as items, as I intended the mod. Summons? Full prize or dwarven hammer price?

Research Options
I thought about giving a nation exactly two researchers, but with dynamic output.
There are other options but this will change the dynamics of researcher spamming, has probably the least problems with exploits, and gives access to many other options.

Goal (d) -> research bonus early on
Goal (a) -> limit it later

Base research output on game progress, nation, number of labs, etc
I wanted to base it purely on game progress and nation. I dislike how powerful expanders will ultimately win the research race, thanks to higher income. Fixing output will allow comebacks, etc. and hopefully keep the game more interesting, especially for struggling players.
I also think it's thematically justified to balance nations into research and combat nations. Mictlan will not be better at research than Arco, even with much higher income, as Arco has a rich tradition of philosophers and enigneers to build on, while Mictlan is "a backward nation".
I'm not entirely decided on this, though.

Dynamic research upkeep. Size of nation?


Drawbacks: This will require different mods on server (dynamic) and client (static, for keeping annoyance low).
This means research output and maybe upkeep wont show correctly, it will be most likely a percentual value.

[Illuminated One]

Clams
I will keep Clams and co, however nerving them in some way, like increasing cost for each additional forge. There's only that much earth blood that can be squeezed out, and you have to drill deeper and deeper.

The chalice and artifacts
Hmm, whats the main reason for rushing to const8?
I'd like to make some oft hese unforgeable and hand them out to players for special archievements. Maybe winning the first arena battle after turn 40, if possible.

[Illuminated One]

I would love to flesh out the provinces a bit more.
I think I know how to make spells castable only in certain province types.

So, if you have read some strange authors I don't remember, you know that there are magic lines all over the world. Only where these lines cross the most powerful magic is possible.
So I'd like to limit the more powerful spells to be cast only in certain provinces.
Additionally I'd like to concentrate income in a few provinces, the other will be mostly worthless hinterlands.
So you should have more strategic options when attacking an enemy, cut him off his tartarian access, etc.
There could be additional rules like no castles or only wizard towers in high magic provinces.

I'm not entirely if everything of that can be made to work and I'm wondering if it's even worht the effort.
Thoughts?