Ahriman
Tyrant
In my experience its almost impossible to have even a few units in the very early game if you also have a couple of buildings. I was loosing about 5/turn and all I could do (without dibanding/selling) was to build improvements on river sides and those gave only 1/turn.
\Skodkim
Was this in the bugged version where the base empire-wide gold per turn wasn't operating?
I've been playing advanced start lately, so I'm out of touch with the latest versions of the early game. I also think that 2 maintenance for things like the mentor's Hall is unnecessary, especially given how little the Mentor's Hall provides in the early game.