I really think the direction of recruited monsters need to be altered. Recruited monsters should not be automatically spawned up to limit X like they do now. Having a limit is fine, but automatic spawning is not. The player should continuously be spending influence to recruit monsters, production to actually make them, and gildar to keep them paid.
These "monster lair improvements" should also be upgradeable as you progress in the game. Instead of a single troll camp there should be one or two upgrades that give us access to troll shamans and/or troll warriors. Same for ogres, wildlings and so on. These should be roughly balanced according to technology investment equal to warfare or magic tree.
The world also needs many more of these monster recruitment places to make it a viable strategy to pursue. They should face the same restraints that other resources do, don't get me wrong. Sometimes you should get many, sometimes you should get too few to use well. But right now for every ten crystal crags I find, I find one monster recruitment place. It makes it a no-brainer to not research access to them.
Managing the civilization tech tree in this manner would make it an interesting choice for the player to pursue. A player starting near lots of influence may decide to skip magic and warfare altogether, and build mighty cities instead that pay off monsters to keep them safe. High influence and gildar costs ensure that the recruitment centers do not bleed over to other tech trees, just like metal pegs a player in warfare and crystal/mana pegs a player in magic.
