Has anyone ever tried making all military units also cost a population point? Would it be a realistic replication of history... or just stunt growth by enormous amounts? What do you think about playing a MOD with something like that?

All my personel mods have Industrial age and onward infantry units cost a pop point. I rationalize this by saying that the units were big enough by then to warrent this, and because before this time cities aren't big enough to shed the pop points, it just stalls the gameplay. I figure armor and air units should just take more shields, as their actual personel are much much lower than say an infantry unit. Works well

Stephs mod has most units cost atleast one pop point.

Yes, but I don't see population point cost as just new recruit, but as the population needed to support the army.

That's why the aircraft also cost population : if you want to create a new aircraft squadron and support it, then a part of your population is used to support it, and thus can't produce something else. It's not perfect, because the pop is not returned when the aircraft is destroyed, but it's the best I could do with the limited editor... It will work better in SSS.

I thought about suggesting with my trireme, that construction of one would take one population, since It holds around 200 men (just one 40 meters long ship).

OTOH, that ship could have some special powers (enslavement, extra movement, ect...)

How about giving the units the "join city" worker command, so that when they're decommissioned they can go back into the civil economy?

That's what I do in Steph's mod, but the AI doesn't use it very well.

Originally posted by Steph
That's what I do in Steph's mod, but the AI doesn't use it very well.

I'm amazed the AI uses it at all! -- According to both the online documentation and experience, ALL "terraform" flags except "Build City" must be checked for any of the "worker" functions to be performed. (The classic example is that many players wanted their Roman Legions to be able to build forts: impossible unless every other box except "build city" is checked, and then the AI will use the unit like a worker).

-Oz

The AI hardly has time to use it, I usually destroyed his units before they come back home :D