Population

Population
For most races there are two types of population. Squad Cap is generally used for infantry. Support Cap is generally used for vehicles. Exceptions include: Commanders and Mini-Commanders cost no population.
 * Squad Cap
 * Support Cap
 * Tau Broadsides (that takes both squad and support cap).
 * Imperial guard heavy weapon platoons (an infantry unit that takes IG's version of support cap).

Why have a population system?

 * Population is a resource for managing army compositions.
 * It provides a balancing mechanism between having more units or more effective units.
 * You can balance choices that take no population and those that do.
 * A player can manage how much population worth of units to cover each area of the map.
 * It imposes a tax on tech switching between Squad Cap units and Support Cap units.
 * A player's options are affected by what units are alive after a fight, which introduces variance into the game.

How does it contribute to player skill?

 * Understanding the specifics for the race you play provides an advantage.
 * It encourages competing for an advantage in squad numbers.
 * At every phase of the game, the possibilities for an army comp changes.
 * For example, having an additional Scout squad may provide an advantage for map control but will make it more costly to pull out a Terminator squad.


 * The late game becomes far less predictable than the early and mid-game in terms of army composition, which rewards late game scouting.

Population Efficiency
Units have varying levels of 'population efficiency'. This means the unit is more or less effective for a given population. This is often based on: Population costs increases the value of dual or tri hero compositions (or even anything that costs no pop, such as turrets or mines), which is an interesting variation to infantry or vehicle mass.
 * How many upgrades the unit has, such as Bionics (which increases the unit's HP).
 * How many special weapons they have (which tends to concentrate a lot of resources into a given squad).
 * The basic capabilities of a unit, weighed against its population cost. For example, Scouts are highly pop efficient.

Squad Numbers Advantage
In Dawn of War (and further emphasised in this mod), having more squads than the enemy has a number of advantages:


 * You can kite ("attack and flee") with ranged troops to negate the damage of melee troops.


 * You can wreck the enemy's economy, while melee units chase ranged troops.


 * You can reinforce faster than the enemy, and thus overrun them when supported with a more powerful economy.


 * You can adapt to the enemy faster, by having more special weapons.


 * Morale loss is less painful, as it affects a smaller subset of your army.


 * Units with long range weapons, such as Heavy Bolters and Missile Launchers, benefit from the sight provided by allied units.


 * You have more opportunities to concentrate gunfire from many units onto one.

Acquiring the Squad Numbers Advantage

 * Killing a unit early in the conflict is often a priority, esp. in melee vs ranged combat.
 * Breaking the morale of a unit effectively gives you a squad numbers advantage.
 * Disrupting a unit (such as via grenade launchers or frag grenades) effectively gives you a squad numbers advantage.
 * Units in extreme proximity to each other are at high risk of being interfered with by a fewer number of close combat units. The larger the close combat squad, the easier it is to do this.


 * Each player receives a small amount of Support Cap, which encourages timing window attacks. Often the production of additional structures increases Support Cap (or increases maximum Squad Sizes).
 * In effect, it rewards the player who focuses resources on Tiering up, rather than upgrading their units.
 * Units can be constructed even when the population requirement has not yet been met. However, it does not complete until you have the required free population.
 * This allows a player to simultaneously acquire population while engaging in production, encouraging timing window attacks.

What changes have been made?
With these facts in mind, Dowpro has rebalanced the population system.
 * As units are more balanced generally, the advantage of having more squads is increased.
 * Population is faster to acquire, which encourages timing window attacks.
 * Population is more expensive to acquire, which increases the opportunity costs.
 * There are more valid options to increase your army size.
 * Squad scales scale over time.
 * The second HQ, which provides population, is a valid option in 1v1s.

To be more specific:
 * Vehicle population costs have been reworked, so that massing them is more costly.


 * Squad Cap Research and Support Cap Research now build in 20 seconds (from 30/35 seconds respectively).


 * Their cost was also increased to 200/50 (from 150/0); Each subsequent research also increases in cost by +50/+50.


 * Cap researches give +3 population (from +5), though vehicle population costs have been reduced by half.
 * Tier 3.5 vehicles (such as the Landraider) cost more population.
 * The Second HQ provides 3 squad population and 1 support population.