Originally, the game had an individual level-up system for each unit. Each unit, as it levelled, would receive new weapons and armor, gain more hit points and would generally be a tougher unit. This would encourage players to keep experienced units around for longer times, and lead to a lower population max with players concentrating more on tactics as opposed to larger, less individual groups of units accomplishing a similar goal, which is what we wanted the game to really feel like. In other words, if I have 50 orc slashers and a few of them are level 3 and a few more are level 2, does that REALLY matter to me? Or do I just see a mass of orc slashers. Most would see just a mass of orcs. So, we scrapped individual upgrades for units because it just didn't fit the feel of the game. Larger forces would be more appealing to most players and would naturally lend itself to the chaotic wartime feel of masses of units killing each other as it happened in the 'Rings' books.