Materials are materials that are manipulated in mass quantities. In general, material types just index vectors of values attached to other objects, such as unit supplies.
No more than 126 types of material may be defined.
Form: material-type symbol properties...
This form defines a new type of material, named by symbol. Details are similar to those for unit types.
GlobalVariable: m*
This variable evaluates to a list of all material types, listed in the same order as they were defined.
GlobalVariable: non-material
This variable has a value that is never a material type.
A material type can be designated as representing people.
MaterialTypeProperty: people n
This property is the actual number of individuals represented by 1 of a material. If 0, then the material type does not have people associated with it at all.
Multiple types of materials can represent different types of people,
so for example there could be one type nomad with 10 people/material,
and another type urbanite with 10,000 people/material.
The basic cell capacities for materials also constrain people materials. There can be an additional limit on the number of individuals.
TerrainTypeProperty: people-max n
This property is the maximum number of individuals allowed
in a cell of this type of terrain.
This is checked at the end of each turn;
any excess will be moved into adjacent cells or disappear entirely.
Defaults to -1, which allows any number of people in a cell.