Thanks - but it really is a conversion of gameplay and will require a lot of effort. (nevertheless, as you can tell from my enthusiasm - I firmly believe this could be a fascinating change (needless to say that I loved playing settlers in the past... )

That sounds good Grautvornix

What we are discussing is a considerable change in gameplay, but I believe it coud be a quite interesting feature to stimulate more complex strategies than "just" booming or turtling. Frankly, the name "storehouse" somehow implies that goods are stored there. When the storage capacity is exceeded, no further goods can be accepted. Processing of goods (to invest into new buildings, techs or train units) can acutally only be done from your civ's "accoun"t (the to status bar on the screeen). Goods can be added onyl if they are delivered to a CC or fortress. If we store stuff in storehouses, capturing should provide the stored goods to the new owner. If you destroy them, you get the standard loot only. Just, storing goods in a storehouse is great -  but you need to retrieve them and add them to your civ's account. this is true both for your own storehouses and the ones captured, i.e. in any case you would need to send some transport to forward the goods to your nearest CC or fortress - and protect them from attacks. Traders could be used for that initially,  but later on we can introduce specialized transport modes: civilians/slaves, donkeys/oxen, horse carts depending on the phase. Attacking the transporters would yield the transported goods to your account (very much like traders currently).

we do have some civs that can do stuff like that based on what we have learned so far about them.

I think you only get loot if you destroy it, I don't know though. What if you had a metal trickle from your units, maybe 1 metal per unit per 10 seconds, it could be like taxes