killing points

[Stark Bledfast]

I don't see that as a weakness. I see it as something that people would need to consider when building their cities. This is easily addressed by building fake power during the building construction stage... train 10k lancers alongside your buildings. Cheap and they will raise your net power. After you have the buildings you want, disband (if that feature is ever created) your lancers and create the army that you want.

But as I showed above, you could stop at 39k with a defenseless city and then build an army which will obfuscate what you have. It doesn't make scouts irrelevant unless you don't keep an eye on strategically hiding your troop power.