China Rus and to lesser degrees HRE and English water are leagues ahead of the rest.
Delhi, my main has on the surface the appearance of OPness with 30% production speed per scholar housed in dock BUT you have to idle 1 dock 30s for the tech AND the bonus is exclusive to that SINGLE dock with the scholars… so basically you’re spending 150w and 65-130g to get a dock that 10% faster than a Chinese dock that only costs 150w abd builds faster and doesn’t have to wait for a scholar to be created and garrisoned AND doesnt take up one of the 3 garrison slots.
In other words: you’re not gonna maintain a water fight against the production speed of China nor the “instant” transmutation of RUS with the delhi mech.
One wayy to boost delhi is allow the 30% buff per scholar to extend to all docks inside influence. This way it still costs something (a mosque) but it actually makes the buff effective and useful in combat.
Currently delhi can mass fishing ships which can fight but you want your fishers fishing not fighting prolong bouts.