Could remove the popcap entirely, so that there isn't any popcap.
I've been thinking about making popcap for armor only. And infantry not have any popcap. Thoughts?
I wanted to make a mod like that but got discouraged at the UI stage.
My idea was to have FOUR separate pop caps. Before you laugh it off, bear with me. They would be called Infantry, Support (weapon teams, some vehicles), Armour (vehicles and tanks) and Elite (elite infantry, tanks and any other "special" or rare unit). Each would have its own color coding and symbol and each would have up to 10 "popcap squares" that would fill up. Some units could take up more than 1 type of popcap.
As a reference, an MG would be 3 Support popcap, engineers would be 1 inf / 1 support, a basic infantry squad would be 2 - 2.5 infantry popcap, whereas elite infantry like Shocks and Obers would take up 3-4 Inf and 3 Elite popcap etc.
The idea is to organically promote combined arms and eliminate spam even in team games. Gone would be howitzer spam, AT gun walls, Panther spam etc (these are all to frequent in 4v4s). But it would also eliminate some 1v1 cheap tactics such as pure infantry spam or MG spam.
It would furthermore present an additional design knob that would allow some units to shine. Through clever use of popcap you could unnerf some units that were nerfed to the ground over the years. For example the Sturmtiger could take up 5 tank, 8 support, and 5 elite popcap, meaning you could field no more than 1 Ober squad alongside it, and you'd have practically NO support weapons. In this environment suddenly it no longer makes sense to overnerf the Sturmtiger, as fielding it means you have demonstrably gutted your army in a few other key aspects that means you can counterplay against it. Jagdtiger could be restored to its former overpowered glory if it took up 7 Armour and 9 Support popcap, because that popcap would mean that the OKW player has no support weapons of any kind and can only have, say, 1 Schreck fusiliers (in this example let's say Schrecking up Fusiliers takes up 1 support popcap). Suddenly the Jagd player has a weakness that can be exploited.
For example, there is a thread about the Pack howitzer up right now. Now let's say an Ambo is 3 support popcap and Pack howitzer is 4 support popcap. You would never be able to get 2 pack howies AND an ambulance. Getting 2 pack howies would practically leave you without other support weapons OR even other units that take up support popcap (maybe 105 Shermans take up 3 tank and 2 support popcap each? etc. etc.) This means that there would be counterplay to twin pack howies -to exploit the weakness in the army composition that the US player opend himself up to.