How about this instead? Maybe this could only be done with certain mythological units. There could be a mythological unit that could function as a villager. You could take two of them and give them resources. They would start an ally civilization. If you only had one mythological creature type capable of this, the number of AI players would be limited by that factor if only one AI ally could be created for each type. Could you imagine releasing two minotaurs onto the map and giving them resources to start an allied civilization? Later in the game, they could ride in out of nowhere and save the day. However, this would require those mythological units to have somewhat of their own civilization structure.
AI allies would only be enabled if three or fewer players were playing. This would limit the number of players to six. Also, once an AI ally was created, perhaps they could be stolen over by the enemy and you could steal his allies through diplomacy.
[This message has been edited by Newbie (edited 01-20-2002 @ 03:20 AM).]