Unit supply & maintenance costs?

[Fascion]

Is it based on purely number of units, or is there something involved with how costly or advanced a unit is?

The former, I believe.

In my experience, it makes no difference what the unit is, be it a Pikeman, Paratrooper, Worker or Great General; they all add to your unit maintenance at the same rate. Here's where it gets weird, though... there appears to be a sort of "buy one, get one free" system going here. Every odd numbered unit is free. Your first unit does not require maintenance, nor your third, fifth, seventh and so on...

 

[Jaybe]

Yes, you don't seem to get any savings for each other one you lose/disband.

Recall however, that you also get a gold refund if you disband a unit in your territory.

 

[publicaccount]

Here's my guess considering hint #1 and hint #2.

hint #1

*snip* Inflation is only referenced in the game speed and handicap info data, but I don't have any clear idea about how it is applied in game.

EDIT: Please note that this is from pre-patch data.

Difficulty / Production Free Units / Production Free Units Population Percent / Inflation Percent
Settler / 10 / 50 / 60
Chieftrain / 7 / 50 / 70
Warlord / 7 / 50 / 80
Prince / 5 / 50 / 90
King / 5 / 50 / 100
Emperor / 5 / 50 / 100
Immortal / 5 / 50 / 100
Deity / 5 / 50 / 100

And this is from Gamespeed data:

Speed / Inflation Percent / Inflation Offset
Marathon / 10 / -270
Epic / 20 / -135
Standard / 30 / -90
Quick / 45 / -60

hint #2

*snip* In my experience, it makes no difference what the unit is,they all add to your unit maintenance at the same rate. There appears to be a sort of "buy one, get one free" system going here. Every odd numbered unit is free. Your first unit does not require maintenance, nor your third, fifth, seventh and so on...

Let's say that each unit add to the cost but the game being kind gives you a certain number of free unit depending on difficulty (settler would allow 10, warlord 7, prince 5...) and this kindness is delivered at certain rate depending on population (50% would match the odd behaviour fascion mentioned).

would be easy to test, change the xml value of production free unit to 100 and the first ten units built should have no maintenance cost.

I'm not quite sure about the inflation, could be an increased cost for additional unit of the same kind or an increased cost over time

 

[Fran6_72]

Inflation applied to unit cost is the most annoying features in Civ5. How come a Nation of let say 1M pop with a production of X at time Y can have decayed army over time??? It doesn't make sense that with the same production at time Y * 20, the same 1M pop only afford one fraction of the original arm force?!?!?! Living in peace it not a matter of culture and progress it only a matter of time... I'm really frustrated by the way Firaxis implemented the the inflation of unit cost.