[Suicide Junkie]

Using the attack/defense modifiers is still not good...

Only *one* unit is needed to get the full bonus, and you can't get penalties, since only the best value is used.


"Mobility" seems like such a tacked-on thing, with no actual mechanic behind it...

The cost method is simple, effective and straightforward, on the other hand.
If the goal is to increase variety, this is the way to do it.

For example:
In Gritecon, your artillery have 50 hitpoints and 300 attack. And they cost thousands to build.
In order to win a ground war, you must add infantry to that (or at most, light tanks). Light infantry give you 50 hitpoints, one attack and cost only 20-30 resources to build.

The infantry can't kill anything on thier own, and the artillery can't survive on their own.

Basically, the bigger the troop;
- more firepower per kt
- far far more expensive per kt
- about equal hitpoints per kt, maybe less.

Thusly, the player wants big troops, but can't afford the time and resources to make their army *all* big troops. In practice, you get ten or twenty apocalypse tanks, maybe two hundred light tanks, and ten thousand infantry.

The infantry die really fast, but get built fast and often... 100 per turn even on small colonies.
The apocalypse tanks are built one per turn on industrialized worlds, but win battles, and survive thanks to the infantry absorbing the hits.
And then there are the intermediate sized tanks to round things off.

Do you really need more variety than that?