Allow players to give each other units

In private team games with my friends as well as public games, I'm often left wishing that I could gift troops to my allies, so they could have access to a stack in a certain position. I could use my NC transports to move their troops to shores, then they get access to their troops again, etc. It would promote cooperation between allies and encourage specialization, just like in real-life wars. During the First Gulf War, the US delegated management of the maritime logistics to Canada, while Canada gave command of its air assets to the US Air Force. America was able to focus on the air and use its superior airpower while trusting Canada to handle the maritime logistics.

Perhaps to counter imbalance some cost would be required, since an Imperialist player could theoretically buy infantry for 40 each and give them to a PD player where their stats would be buffed. On the other hand, this would not necessarily be imbalanced, as then the Imperialist player would be placing a lot of trust in the PD player and could be backstabbed with their own troops.

Allowing players to give each other units would make teams and alliances much more interesting and powerful, and would allow true group coordination rather than multiple players with their own troops. It would allow powers to send foreign aid in the form of troop stacks to their allies without having to micro the units, and it would allow alliances to specialize into different domains, with NC players handling the seas and moving alliance troops in their transports, GW and PD players handling land operations, and SM players adding long range support. This would provide a more interesting and fun alliance gameplay.

As another possible balance, it could perhaps be togglable by players in game settings, so they can turn it off if they want.

This is a cool thought, and I think it would lead to much more interesting tactical choices, though I have an idea for a slightly weaker form of this. Maybe, instead of straight-up allowing troops to switch sides, you can simply stack the troops of allies together? Just as an example, if I'm playing NC and casi's playing PD, we can stack casi's infantry with my marines and move them as a unit under the control of either of us, or stack casi's infantry with my transports and allow me to move the transport around. If a player has at least 1 unit inside of the stack, they have the capacity to move the entire stack. This would give the same elements of cooperation while fixing the issue of units changing stats. They will always maintain the stats of the person who made them. I also agree with the toggling (and would grant that ability to everyone, not just Premium people).

Hi, interesting concept. Hard to know how it would play out from an historical perspective? There could be unintended consequences? One one hand there are many examples of Roman troops switching sides from one commander to another during Rome's many civil wars. Caesar was able to do this successfully on a number of occasions. On the other hand it is difficult to see Soviet (Russian) troops switching sides during World War II to fight with the Germans against the Allies. Or what's even more unlikely, NATO troops switching sides during the cold war to fight for the Soviet Union against the US? Not very likely. Maybe instead of units switching sides, the nationality of units produced for an individual city could be changed to a player other than the owner of the city. So, for example, a player would be able to designate the builds for a particular city to player other than himself. The players that is designated would still require the necessary SP's to build the unit(s) and he could only build units that are buildable for that city, i.e. existing build rules would be maintained. At any rate, your suggestion is food for thought.

Commodus, Founding Leader, Niki Coalition