No one ever raised an army where you didn't have to pay the troops. How about 1% of the purchase cost, per turn? i.e. 2 gold / specaman; 12/maceman (20 &120 for a 10 pop stack). This would limit the size of armies in long campaigns and slow the exponential growth of the leading players, making it a bit easier for the others to catch up. While we're on that subject, remove the gold gain for killing troops as this mainly helps the winning player.

I can agree with this but i think i would also lean towards another change that might make this game a lil more of a struggle, for the better i hope.

Walls that can not be destroyed. How many times have you ever heard of a city beind defeated cause every wall it had was taken down. I think that people otta get to the grit to take down a castle and it will make it so the castle has a natural defence that stays no matter who owns or how many players, maby a few blocks could be owned and thus torn down but i think the vast majority should invulnerable or something similar to this to make castles more formidable without over powering the defender to jump out and conqurer using the advantage.

I have no objection to a cost to support troops, and of course, in the far future in WOK there will be such.

The amount of gold one gets from killing an enemy isn't very high. Soldiers should be stripped of valuables by thieves after battles! Heck, they're dead! Send flowers to the widows.

As for the completely off topic bit about indestructible walls, I'm against it. Defend your castle in the field and you never have to worry about walls or castle defense at all. If they can get close enough, you failed anyway.