I understand this argument and agree. In the Age Series, houses are required, which does have a direct impact on the strategy that a player will adopt (I really hate it when I get housed!!!). I also dislike how houses can/are used in a defensive manner, to wall in, while increasing the population.
I think we can all agree that there will be some overall population limit per player. But how will ES prevent players from just cranking out villagers and advancing quickly? I think that ES will use the population and age advancement in an attempt to limit what they referred to, very loosely interpreted, as the Age sprint. Where the fighting is limited while all players by-pass the early ages and sprint to Feudal/Castle, consequently, missing out on the early battles.
Perhaps in AOM, each military building increases the number of troops that can be spawned. The player can keep pumping out the villagers, without getting housed, and continue to gather resources. But the number of military units is directly correlated with the number of military buildings. Since we do not know what the final cost of each building will be: perhaps they cost more and take longer to build early; get cheaper and are built faster later.
Using AOKTC for this hypothetical: In order to rush with archers, I would need three archery ranges to get nine units. And as I advance through the Ages, then each building gets a population boost.
I just had another thought (yep, I have used up all my thoughts for this year, just on this one post ). Each Age has a population limit associated with the Age. If the population limit is set to 200, then the game starts with a 50 limit and is incremented by 50 with each age. That way, I need to decide how many villagers and what type of military to build early on. And a player can not advance to the next age without some military and the required buildings.Maybe I should keep a copy of these musings to see how far off I was in my thinking
"The devil and the priest can't exist if one goes away, its just like the battle of the sun and moon, night and day. The force of the devil is what we are told to fear. Watch out for religion when he gets too near."
"Living in a world of fantasy, I can hide behind what's real."
"Behind a smile, there's danger and a promise to be told, you'll never get old. Life's fantasy, to be locked away and still to think you're free! So live for today, tomorrow never comes. Die young."