How would you implement this bonus and still allow a civ to be balanced? Which civ would be the best candidate? What would they need to lose to get this (if any)?
What about free skirmisher upgrade?
ESkirm upgrade could be a good bonus (not ImpSkirm though, for the viets ally) but hard no to free archer line upgrades, it already one of the most powerful line in DE (because of the pathfinding), having insta-researching archers could be OP, not only for the resources, but also for the time saved, maybe -50% saved could be balanced.
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Maybe for a civ that only gets crossbows.
The civ that receives that would need to have crippling weaknesses like no mangonels or something. Same for a civ that would get free cavalier or free onager.
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And what about free blacksmith archer techs (armor or attack)? Free ballistics? Free heavy cav archer upgrade?
Tatars have free thumb ring and parthian tactics. Turks have free chemistry.
No more civs have extra free upgrades or archer related techs, if i remember correctly
What would compensate having free paladin? 
No Light Cavalry, no Pikeman, no Elite Skirmisher, no Siege Onager, no Heavy Cavalry Archer and no Arbalest.
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Deal 
. I was afraid of “no villagers”.
No town centers. 
1 free upgrade doesn’t worth it tbh.
Oh, isn’t that a bit too unfair?
Well, I’d say the free range techs (fletching → bracers) is more balanced than free armor upgrade
Etiopians got the pike upgrade for free, and combined with the other bonus it’s not bad, nerve meant it to be alone.
Hard no, it would be OP, it would affect foot/horse archers, navy and buildings (towers/castles), it’s definitely too much.
The range-attack upgrades are a must to tech for all civs, while the armor for archers are always postponed, so having them for free it’s actually a nice comfort.
Curious, I thought the opposite would be OP, since everyone advises to research fletchling before armor…
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I would assume Free Paladin would also incluse Free Cavalier, so you would start Imp with Free paladins, which is a killer Fast Imp rush.
I don’t think it’s unbalanced, just not very creative. It’s very much like ethiopian +100F +100G on aging up, weaker in feudal (since you obv. don’t get an upgrade) and stronger in imperial age (+350 +300 vs +100 +100), with the extra advantage that it’s instant.
And no wall, because let’s be real, such a civ would just fast imp and spam walls to survive until then (why would you need a castle if you spam palas)
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Implement for which civ? I mean, it depends a lot on the other civ bonus. Free archer upgrades or free fetching for Britons is OP. But for instance, the old Khmer (without the farm bonus) would have been weak even with free archer upgrades.
Free archer armor tech is a minor bonus that can be easily fit for several existing weak civs.
Yeah, you have a point.
I still forget about navy and cav archers idk why.
That would be kickass. ngl
Still, I think they have to lack light cav, camel, arbalester and gunpowder units.
Obviously, no one intended that for a really strong archer civ.
Not minor, that can be eco-saving for an archer civ lacking eco bonuses
I’m thinking of a Heavy Pikeman replace for Pikeman for a civ…
True. It woulkd be a Fast Imp taht would just spam the best baseline unit in the game, even faster than Franks.
Yes, a civ with Free Paladin, would save on a lot of Food and Gold to get the best baseline unit in the game, so it would likely have to get everything else really bad.
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