Modding the unit costs to make battles epic

I´ve noticed that it is very rare to get to fight the promised battles of thousands versus thousands in the campaign. The AI tends to divide its forces, but maybe there´s still not enough troops to go around? I´ve been thinking about halving the unit costs, but I´m not sure how the AI would react to that.

Do the AI factions have an honest budget, ie. do they play with the same monetary limitations as player-controlled factions? Meaning, with lower unit costs, would they build twice as many units?

It might be necessary to halve the costs of other things too to keep it all in scale.

Good idea, Scorpion! But there will be limitation of city's population that allow us to have epic battles only many turns after game start.

Yes, this would make population a crucial matter when it comes to military strength!

I think this would be good.

Increasing the initial populations and income would give you the needed population base for increased unit size. But I think that would screw up game play without adding supporting structures. Now we're talking additional modding. When playing with huge units, you can suck a smaller city/town dry by making or retraining just a couple of units.

Well, I did, in some way. Decreasing the upkeep costs tends to increase the number of units in game. Levels of population didn't fall, on the contrary remains high, but if you decrease the keeping costs in escess, the AI usually bribe armies. It is important to keep the game between some limits.

My main worry is to keep the game balanced. If a faction goes down very fast I increase his power a little.