Town Points – Is development becoming too formulaic?

To katrine, I'll draw an analogy with Heroes of Might and Magic III - if you have money for cavalry but lack crystals and mercury for monks, is that also a stupid design choice???

And monks aren't a prerequisite for cavalry;)
Nival achieved something with this system that no other company could have: they eliminated the "rush" strategy. Whether to play aggressively or not is up to the player, not some guys in an office.