A couple quick ideas for demagogues

[Fafnir13]

Just finished a Bannor game that took approximately forever. Tectonics with 30% water + barbs choosing me right from the get go =
Anyways, managed to make good use of Crusade for the latter half of the game, but had a few ideas to make demagogues more useful than just expendable fodder units.

Idea #1: XP = Gold
To reflect the idea of the triumphant soldiers returning home with spoils of a crusade, convert some amount of all demagogue xp into gold when they disband. Perhaps a tad abusable if a person spams demagogues with Form of the Titan, Apprenticeship, and Conquest. However, those are hammer being expended which may or may not ever make it to the front-line.
It would also be a somewhat needed boon to a Bannor economy as it comes out of a crusade. Being unable to build markets and other economic buildings can take its toll if the crusade goes on long enough. I think I spent over 200 turns in my game, during which my empire grew and grew and grew. Winning with a conquest victory meant I, thankfully, didn't have to deal with the aftermath.

Idea #2: Upgreadable Demagogues
Say that, at level 4, 6, or whatever's deemed appropriate, a demagogue can be upgraded to a champion/other applicable units with appropriate tech researched of course. Mostly they just become fodder, but occasionally one demagogue gets lucky and the promotions start rolling in. Seems perfectly logical to me that the army would want to promote that unit into a permanent troop. This would help alleviate the veteran shortage the Bannor get if they rely too heavily on the demagogues. My strategy was to just keep chaining wars together (AI's declaring helped with that a bit too). Doing otherwise, at certain points in the game, would have left me somewhat vulnerable, especially on the frontline cities which were relying strictly on demagogues for defense until the other troops could be brought up.

Aside from demagogues, might I also suggest some tinkering with the build limitations during crusade? Some buildings (like lighthouses and pagan temples) are allowed when they don't have much military application. Settlers and workers, which have many useful applicatons in prolonged wars are not buildable. What I would suggest, without knowing how feasible it is, is removing all build restrictions but adding an unhappiness penalty called "We are not aiding in the war!" You could then tighten down harder on what does or does not count as military applicable without completely impeding the Civ's progress in other areas.

[zup]

Yes, as it is now, the only viable solution for ending a crusade is to win by conquest or domination (or religion if you go inquisition). The aftermath is unbearable.

[GePap]

I would love a way to limit the spawning of Demagogues after a certain point. When your empire is big enough, you get far more troops than you know what to do with. Last time I won with a crusade I had 320 Demagogues on a standard map, not counting the 100 killed. Hell, a good 200 of them never fought a single battle.....

[Mailbox]

You could spam farms over your cottages.

[Annex]

I dont know if this has been changed or not, but the last time I used crusade I had some demagogues who spawned at the end of my turn, so the enemy was able to attack and kill them before it was my turn again, so I didnt even get a chance to control some of them even for one turn.