Hello, I have no modding knowledge about this game, so I can only propose some suggestions hoping that some modder might find them
interesting/useful, or that in the future I learn how to edit gamefiles.
1) Vineyard & Distillery
The inspiration for this came from the fact that the Romans drank wine, not beer.
Basically, the vineyard is a large building equivalent to the farm, except that it produces grapes rather than grain. Grapes can
be brought into a distillery, a medium size building which in turn produces wine.
Wine is equivalent to beer: you use it to train soldiers, and nothing else. Mostly a flavour addition.
I thought of three possibilities:
A) the distillery replaces the brewery and wine replaces beer (I don't know if this can be done for the Romans only or for
everybody)
B) both the distillery and the brewery can be built at the same time, wine and beer are two separate but functionally identical
resources
C) both the distillery and the brewery can be built at the same time, they produce the same resource, alcohol (using the graphics
of the beer barrel)
C would be easier to implement.
2) Fruit orchard
A small hut that only requires wood and plants fruit trees around it, possibly requiring a plow like a forester. Each fruit tree
matures in double the time required for grain field to mature. The result product is a new resource, fruits, which behave as any
other food in-game.
This building is basically an additional level 1 direct food producer that doesn't exhaust its source, unlike fisheries and (if no
trees are around) hunters. To avoid it being overpowered, it would require more time than the normal combo farm-mill/pig-
bakery/slaughterhouse to produce food. So, it needs to be inefficient compared to level 2 and 3 buildings, but it is cheaper, and
is ideal for maps with scarcity of granite and steep terrain unsuitable for large buildings.
3) Food is required to train soldiers and workers too
I often end up with tons of stockpiled food, particularly if mines are not inexhaustible, but even early on. Furthermore, I always
found "cheap" that food is required only for mining.
I propose an option that allows to require food for basically everything else.
A) soldiers require weapons, alcohol and food to train
B) workers require a tool and food to train
C) both A and B simultaneously