How to reduce #cities & # units?

[Captain]

Not sure where to put this. Might belong instead in Creation but I thought it was a fairly general question.

I know some people have fiddled with terrain, food requirements, and population point requirements for units...

... with the intent of reducing the city & unit diarrhea. (Too many cities and too many units, esp. late game, is very very tedious.)

Are there any other ways of doing this?

Has anyone tried changing the unit maintenance cost? Like say, making it cost 3 gold per unit instead of 1? I imagine this would limit armies to a smaller scale so there aren't a bazillion units flying around the map.

But, does this do wack things to the AI?
(e.g. Willem's food req & terrain adjustment really helps reduce the number of cities but the AI is too stupid to realize settling bad lands results in starved out cities. Good idea, but wasteful for the AI - makes it a tad easier for human player and I don't want that to happen.)

--edit--
Note: I am looking to reduce # of units and cities overall, not variety of units or cities. Perhaps this could be called a "scarcity mod".

[Willem]

Well I've been experimenting with the units costs, 2 gold per unit for Republic and Democracy, and I'm not sure yet whether it makes a difference. What it means for me is that I have to reduce my science spending in order to build a large armed force. Strangely enough, in my current game it's 1555 AD and I haven't had a single war yet, so I can't be sure how it's affecting the Japanese forces, who are my main rival at the moment. It does seem to me though that I'm having an easier time trying to maintain at least an average army compared to the other civs, which I had trouble doing before. So it's looking like raising troop costs does indeed reduce the number of overall units.

[godinex]

Yes hen you rise the unit cost the overall amount of units fall. I just tried

[Willem]

Well that's good news, it's what he's trying to accomplish.

[SpencerH]

Strangely enough, in my current game it's 1555 AD and I haven't had a single war yet, so I can't be sure how it's affecting the Japanese forces, who are my main rival at the moment. It does seem to me though that I'm having an easier time trying to maintain at least an average army compared to the other civs, which I had trouble doing before. So it's looking like raising troop costs does indeed reduce the number of overall units.

I seem to be seeing something similar. I've increased the building costs for all units in my current game. Although I've been at war, I haven't been assulted by masses of cav yet so I think there is some effect on the AI's unit production. Leonardos workshop certainly becomes more valuable! The lack of aggression could also be that I'm testing these mods out on regent instead of deity.