How about EA Ctis then endomorphious?
The Better Independents mod makes the crappier independent recruits cost something like 5000 gold and 900 resources. Basically they become unrecruitable. The purpose of this is to stop the AI from spending all its gold recruiting crap independent troops, instead (hopefully) investing in better troops. Independents that remain recruitable are those that you get for free from lucky events (or imagine what the upkeep on 50 odd 5000 gp's a piece units would be) or independents that are uniquely good (eg amazons riding lizards).
Glad to hear from you endomorphious
