Nope, disagree heavily.
Eles are insanely strong lategame units. A full Ele push is very hard to stop in 1v1 closed maps already. And in TG Ele + siege (and probably some Archer/CA as addition) is also really hard.
Eles have the highest pop efficiency in the game and their main lategame counter (as monks aren’t viable there anymore) is one of the least pop efficient units in the game.
So it’s absolutely necessary that eles have that Gold cost otherwise they would be completely unbalanced in these lategame situations where they are already strong.
The problem is more how to get to the situations where Eles are strong.
And this is one of the reasons why and how I designed my Chariot/Ratha trash unit to accompany the Eles. Cause this is a unit that you can transition easily into in castle age as it only needs wood. It’s a kinda weak unit but it is good for raiding and you don’t need much eco to make some of them. When you have build up your eco you then can use your Gold to invest into the eles. In my opinion this would be the most “elegant” ways to make Eles more viable.
A) You would have a natural trash partner (knigh/skirm, archer/spear, CA/Light cav, Ele/Chariot)
B) The trash unit especially thrives in more open maps where eles on their own are kinda bad, so there is no need to completely redesign the eles just in order to make the combo not OP in any setting
C) The chariot doesn’t need a lot of eco, it actually needs only wood, so it’s the ideal economic complement for a unit that has a lot of food and some gold requirement. Which leads to
D) The easy chariot transition in Castle Age would allow to save the Gold for the later addtion of Eles, leading to more available Gold in the very lategame in comparison to the other main comps. This ofc comes with the price of a more vulnerable middle game where you need to raid with your chariots and try to prodect your own eco with other stuff like castles etc.
E) The trash unit on it’s own is fairly easy to counter (Any Cavalry or skirms) just like the ele, but the combination kinda hard. But it takes a while to get all the necessary eco and upgrades to get to that lategame comp and allows the other players several counterplay strategies. It still would probably the least Gold intensive main comp in the game which would naturally (witht the pop efficiency) also make it the best lategame comp.
So the succession of the main comp dominancies would be:
Feudal: Archer/Spear
Castle: Knight/Skirm
Imp: CA/Hussar
Late Imp: Ele/Chariot
I’m not too sure about that. Imo BE always have been a lategame unit and ofc for that their gold ratio shouldn’t be too high. For TG the high gold cost isn’t that restrictive anyways, so I also don’t see a reason from that perspective. I think the current Gold amount is good for 1v1 balance. It’s just the problem how to get to that lategame situation where you can push with that beefy boys.#
And ofc you can argue that the pop efficiency causes the problem there why they are so strong in these sitations… But haven’t eles been implemente with exactly that pop efficiency in mind?