I had understood that a player would be punished for using all elite units because elite units are generally small in number, for example those goidillic (sp?) hammermen for the casse. If a casse player had an army made entirely of hammermen not only would it be frighteningly expensive but it would easily be swamped by less experienced troops and destroyed. Every army will at least need some plentiful 'holding' troops to allow the elite units to charge into spaces or on the flank and turn the tide of the battle. The way I understand it elite units will be the ones you use (if they are offensive troops) to charge in and shatter units that were wavering, or if they are defensive troops, to anchor a line of otherwise flakey troops. I dunno though; thats just what I gathered from the previews.

Anyhow, yeah, the cities. My only thing about making cities big is that it has to be done proportionally and to a historical scale, like the troops.

For example, take Rome. Let's assume that a 'huge' city, with fully upgraded facilities represents Rome at the height of it's size, with fully developed sewage systems, aqueducts, excellent roads and a massive merchant population.
If we take that as our scale for what could reasonably be assumed as the 'maximum' a mediterranean city could grow to, is there any city in 285 bc that could equal that size? I don't think there is, so in that case no city should be 'maxed out' and probably only Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, Athens and possibly a couple of Seleucid cities such as Damascus should even be 'Cities', the rest being merely towns. (I understand that many of these places were in fact 'cities' in reality, but like I said, the important thing is scale)

I guess at the start some civilizations should have access to some elite units, but not their entire unit roster. Bear in mind that arms and formations did evolve considerably over the time period covered, as shown in the sauromatae preview - a progression from less effective to more effective troops over time is not entirely ahistorical.

Anyhow, *shrugs* thats what I reckon.