Early strategic resources in Worldwide are more common than regular Conquests for just that reason. You could conquer a whole continent and still not have iron. I haven't had a game without gold yet, so I underestimated the problem of not having wealth available. This will be rectified. I like the idea of gold as a hard currency reserve, so maybe I can think of some other buildings or mercenary units that would require this.
China was the second civ to be developed, and I was still getting my feet wet on what I wanted. I knew the 'imperial bureaucracy' thing was a kicker, so I might limit it to one unit rather than two. Cannons are stupidly powerful, and China gets them with gunpowder instead of metallurgy. Sounds like you had quite the force! I've also been thinking about having 'amphibious' available earlier, maybe to the swordsman-grenadier line. China is missing the Renaissance upgrade between Tang and fusiliers; I'd have to find a unit for that.
I didn't want to make the game
too different from regular civ. My main motivation was to make it look different. The handful of computer games I've played, such as Total War, Sins of a Solar Empire, and World in Conflict, all have different faction graphics for units that are very similar, and that's what I like. The English Longbowman actually has a 4.2.1 instead of the usual 4.1.1., but I see what you're getting at. The German carrier will be corrected, that's a pure screw up since I changed naval stats so much over the course of development.
I will not be making a World map version. Europe and the Middle East would be overcrowded, and the Americas, Africa, and Australia would be wide open. Also, there's other civ stuff that I'm working on next. I'll just wait for the CCM World map