Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
My problems with the free gold have greatly diminished since early units' maintenance costs have risen, once I get a couple scouts and workers up it's more or less like before. The effects are pretty short-lived now.
This was my goal, to even things out at the start (turns 0-30) without changing the rest of the game much. I also increased the maintenance cost for the Stable. Another nice benefit is it let me charge 2/turn for workers instead of 1... for a while now I've felt workers were too cheap. Now they cost the same upkeep as an average tier-1 building.