feneur pretty much said it all, it comes down to your system. I imagine there will be some mod that someone will make in vb6 or something to allow easy change of population. But you have to keep in mind that if you have an older system, eg: made in 2000, it possibly won't handle a load of more than 200 units. Newer systems can handle more, because either their processors are faster, or the Motherboard has more than one processor installed in it (dual core/quad core). For example: My system, in AoEIII, can handle 400+ units (infinite pop mod rules!), but that's because I'm sitting here with a 3.0ghz, and a top of the line graphics card. My older computer, which was a 1.2ghz, with a decent graphics card, couldn't even run the game. If I confused anyone there, just let me know and I'll try to make it simpler