Origins:

I think the first 5 units (or most powerful 5 units) shouldn't cost maintenance.

This would encourage early strong play, on a limited scale, which is both a natural counter and healthy alternative to zombie spam.

Otherwise the only way to stay at 0 taxes and have a decent military is zombie spam.

With the 5 free units, you both encourage a starting party of 5 decent units so that you can start leveling your Champion or Sovereign, but also you allow yourself enough power to counter those that still zombie spam.

For beginning weapons, I'd say Club (2 attack) 10 hammers. Slingshot (1 attack) 15 hammers. and Stone Axe (4 attack +1 crit) 18 hammers.

Then at Standing Armies tech, you can get spear (5 attack) 15 hammers. Staff (3 attack) 10 hammers. and Shield (2 defense) 10 hammers.

-> you should be able to equip spear with shield, at a loss of 1 attack.

Explanation:

Clubs shouldn't be a 'good' weapon, they should be a stop gap ... and Spears shouldn't be good because they are armor ignoring, etc ... It should be because they are VERY cost effective (and cheap).

In the early game you can choose between Clubs (cheap melee), Slingshots (weak ranged), and Stone Axes (Strong melee).

-> later on, once you get standing armies, you can basically replace Stone Axes with Spears ... because clubs don't make sense on advanced troops.

If you want to start with Clubs, might as well start with Slingshots and Stone Axes too, and then make Spears the obvious next choice once you get the appropriate tech.

Other than that, once you have spears you can choose between Spears (5 attack), Staves (3 attack, +2 dodge), or Slingshots (2 attack still).

You can also get a Shield, and you can equip the shield with a Spear for (4 attack, 2 defense, +4? dodge)

-> You could also equip a Shield with a Club or a Stone Axe ... but I almost feel like Standing Armies tech should obsolete these weak choices.

-> Also, I feel that a Staff is better than a club because it has a longer reach and can hit faster than a club, for about the same bite.

As far as the "free top 5 units" goes ... basically you get 1 free army. This encourages an early potential defense (at the cost of early game hammers), with no penalty in maintenance.

Basically it is a defensive addition, as zealous and fast attackers will usually be using weaker units (and tons more of them) ... at least in the early game.

Either this bonus could be temporary, or eliminated with a tech ... or permanent.

Maybe even its just (first 5 units built are free) ... which further discourages from early spam of cheap units, or rather helps those that dive right into the expensive units not be hit too hard when it comes to taxes.

Could be balanced later -> IE when each new set of economic and military balances comes through the pipeline ... but some amount of free units is probably needed (in the early stage where 0 maintenance units are the obvious choice currently)