Faeries might simply need some more unique units, the works. And, probably, the whole thing with the eternal fruits fixed.
What I thought of:
- One, perhaps two new leaders. Only Larincsidhe as a leader is boring, I'd like to have an Arcane leader or something.
- Fae Lords being national units might be a good idea too... Four times Ice III still wrecks.
- More Recon line UUs. Which leads me to...
- An abduction mechanic. The most easy way to do this is to give the fairies a slave UU. Hunters and Trackers (or their respective UUs) could have different ways of getting those. Summer court hunters (Changelings) could, for example, sacrifice themselves in an opponent's city to create two of these slaves in your capital. Winter court hunters have a certain chance to generate a slave in battle. Et cetera.
- Those slaves can upgrade to the melee and archery lines. Units upgraded to those should be weaker, especially when attacking cities, but should cost reduced support or something. The Fey should have no way to actually build those lines, just upgrade to them by way of abductees. The Pixie/Sprite line would be the replacement for your mounted line then, and should behave at least partially like it (withdrawal chances, increased movement, the works - iirc, they already do a bit). Make a chariot UU that behaves a little more like melee and all is well.
- The grand plan would be for the Fey to use Mounted, Arcane and Recon lines as your mainstay. Melee and Archery are your thralls to defend cities.
- Minor thematic thing, but the Fey should not be capable of using Iron at all. If it is in your borders, convert it to some other ressource. They, therefore, should also have no equivalent to iron weapons (helps keep the melee/archery line down a bit)
- Give the wishing well an extra happy face.
- It would be sweet to have some unique unit art, but I'm an incompetent 3D artist.
Welllll... I planned to make that all into a module, eventually, but that might be a while still.