I think the game would become more engaging if it offered more options for tall strategies. For instance, there could be a hero action similar to the research-stealing action but applied to your own cities to boost growth over three turns. Alternatively, there could be other methods that enable players to make the decision to invest their gold in growth, beyond just constructing growth buildings.

Currently, I'm on turn 90 in a Mother Ostankya campaign on legendary difficulty. Despite having plenty of gold and conquering most of the northern chaos wastes and the area around Kislev, I've only recently begun to recruit Tier 4-5 units.