[Saxon]

The challenge is that gold is so versatile. It does so many things in the game and is so flexible that it becomes more valuable than anything else. Resources, research, luck are all quite focused and lack this flexibility. As such, maximizing gold means maximizing your flexibility across the board. Linked to this, minimizing something, like production, does not limit your flexibility to the same degree minimizing the broadly impacting gold does.

If I am understanding Baltz�s point well, he is pointing out that good planning in some situations will allow you to maximize your cash flow in ways other than just maxing out order. He provides the C�tis example, which is clear, but it does lock one into a certain path. However, if circumstances change, due to the stage of the game or an unexpected enemy action, that recruiting pattern might need to change. Order would offer a more flexible way of getting gold, which is independent of recruiting patterns. In addition, that same recruiting pattern, with order 3, would generate even more universally useful gold. (Yes, this does ignore where the points came from, but the idea remains)

Some nations in certain eras and other nations with well thought out plans can get by without order. However, for the majority of nations, the broad usefulness and flexibility of gold makes order a very attractive option.

Given the game design, gold is going to remain critical. If the design was changed to bring in multiple resources and limited specific actions to certain resources, gold would become one of several resources that you have to balance. However, with the structure we have, the simple universal usefulness of gold is always going to make order a dominant choice.