I don't like the idea of making iron production slower because that makes the whole game slower/longer, and people already complain that it takes too long. If swordfighters are overused I think we can find another solution.
Is not about swordfighters, is about
mass iron winning the game in first minutes after PT.
If you make Stables work faster, won't resolve anything, since the same Iron rush will then be focused in Xbowmen + pikemen (instead of swords/knights).
I said games won't be any slower... but people may go leather production (normal speed), while adds Iron units as elite backup.
Otherwise making main army full Iron + militias owns every other combo (specially in semi-open maps), only ways to stop massive rush like this are very narrow passages and teamworked defense or copying same strategy which derives to lack of base-builds.
Go mass iron for a quick victory, no lategame. 80% replays I saw follow same course.
Can't be that hard to add 10 sec extra resting time for each Iron stage, it's worth testing.
Or lets see what happens with the upcoming better farms... if that makes all corn houses produce more by when PT ends.