Dont ask me. I dont use these kind of tower. Players who buildin @ spawn using onagers. May be a option for the "1st path mile" and spawn builders. Onagers are able to destroy own towers and may be own wonder (when you build these towers in center). See screenshots.

is not easy and is not safe to try a rush strategy, cause if you fail you will just lose game
that's why every forager starts arround 1.05 1.10 and not at 0.50 0.55.... it doesnt need a genius to have a solid eco and only turks can have +100%gold than other civs....
so right now foraging strategies are very limited just cause of the tecnos costs.....
if you start foragin at 0.5 you can have 4xspeed and 20 minutes in which you do not produce commercial units means you will have maybe 6x 7x at 1.10
while if u start foraging at 1.10 you can have 8x 9x .....
in 20 minutes with 4x 5x you cant do very much damages to enemy team because a ''medium/good'' defender would have already spammed power towers as hell....
as defender i started the second spiral at 0.45 with a nondefensive civ....
so in theory it would be able to resist even if the units had received all +1000 upgrades....
and in any case, once noted a rush is going on, defenders would change gear sending more vills to build and to mine rock.....

in few words: rushes works only vs BAD noob teams
i dont think we should/can work on that because foraging/defending timings/costs are already pretty balanced right now

but as already said, to rebalance this it would be great to up the power tower costs!
swichting them with bomb towers would just delay times of about 10minutes or less....as defender i always have to build 7/8 big towers to stop birds and first waves before to start spamming power towers and those are good enaught to stop first waves!!
so it would be just useless to delay times i dont think it would solve the problem and would only let game be much more boring!!
maybe set power tower cost 35 or 40 stone will be much better!!

talking about civs:
brits mayans goths japs are the ''unwanted'' civs

japs: maybe you could let rapid towers cost less, sumthing like 10 15 20 or maybe FREE!!! it would represent the tip of strength for that type of towers now no longer used and not otherwise convenient.
goths: i think they need 2x speed of creation about market units or an extra bonus about houses. actually I never really checked their gold balance but i have the feeling that theyr eco bonus is too low compared to all others civs.
any civilization can keep up the production of trade carts wich are much better than hand carts+some other trade unit sometime.
mayans: right now watch towers are not that better than dark tower.... and since those are free for all players mayan bonus just sucks and would suck also with 35stone cost for power towers.... i would add an eco bonus or sumthing like EVERY tower cost -20%
britons: here i am.... ^^ they need sumthing more

no civ have any bonus about standard houses so you might give it to a weak civ (brits ^_^) to balance sumthing

Dark tower has less range, attack and fires slower. Keep would be 2x as good.

go through this topic, i've posted the changes along the way.

That is all you need to read. No different from a standard game. People buy a res the price goes up for everyone, etc.

Not trying to be rude or insulting but thats hardly a skilled game unless some of those players have made major improvements last couple of days.
The game you posted suggests turks was either not mining gold for the entire duration or decided to bankrupt the wood market instead *and if its the 2nd option he sucks at making trade units... probably made a bunch of G traders that only made 1/0 Orbits. Having played with mongol i know hes not a very strong player either. Give me Turks and give someone I can coordinate with Mongols and we are foraging @ 45-50 minutes with +500% easy. Considering Kors was slinging *lol wut* and you were probably a combination of rapids/chus/powers you would have lost on dino 2. Im saying this knowing you and p2 are good defenders also.

All I will say is I disagree and I would love to prove it this weekend.

sry i forgot to mention,the prices changed without buying anything,rates for buying resources became CHEAPER then went back to normal,and Btw i know if You buy resources,they become costly

The other players influence the market prices.

The same way you influence them. Buying increases the price, selling decreases.

yep, the rate is the same for everyone. If you see the price of wood at 400 then it will be 400 for everyone else.