One thing that paying your cannon fodder, I mean trusted minions, is that it changes the pace of the game. With the need to always pay your people you are always searching for gold and need to get the most out of your minions before the next paycheck. Gold becomes a count down to defeat. If you run out, you will have a hard time wining. Thus, you are always on the offensive, trying to mine gold and pillage before the countdown reaches zero. I find that makes games much more fast and furious.
Now, this is not an inherently bad thing, but it is off-putting to those that like to build up a fortress and army and take the game at a more sedate pace.
A few ways to change this.
1. Some way to reduce pay to get reduced work. For example, you could put someone on rest, pay them half as much but they only work 25% as much or something like that.
2. More ways for gold other than pillage and mine. Maybe you could ransom off captives or research some form of alchemy that would let you convert mana and some resource into gold.
3. leave it as it is.
