Troops

Troop Types

The Basics

There are four classes of troops available in Game of War: Infantry, Ranged, Cavalry and Siege. You can see the strengths and weaknesses of each by going into your Barracks and clicking on a troop type. For instance Swordsmen are strong vs. cavalry and siege, and weak vs. ranged and wall traps. Each troop type has its strengths and weaknesses, and most people use a mixed force. Siege troops are useful for attacking cities, especially destroying wall traps.

At the early stages of the game you can only train first tier troops: Swordsmen, Slingers, Outriders and Battering Rams. These are the lowest level troops, and are usually called Tier 1 or T1 troops. Swordsmen are T1 Infantry, Slingers are T1 Ranged, Outriders are T1 Cavalry, and Battering Rams are T1 Siege.

T1 troops are useful at the beginning stages if you are fighting people at the same level. But one of your biggest goals should be to get your Stronghold to level 8 ASAP, when you can get T2 troops. As you might imagine, T2 troops crush T1. But remember that when you get to level 8, T2 troops are not automatically available - you have to do combat research in your Academy in order to unlock them.

At stronghold level 15 you can get T3 troops, and finally, at level 21, you can get T4. They're brutal.

Upkeep

Is your food number flashing red at the top of your screen? That means you are producing less food than you are eating. Who eats all that food? Troops! Every troop you train eats a certain amount of food per hour. For example you can go into Barracks, click on Swordsmen and click on the Stats button. Upkeep is how much food each Swordsman eats per hour. It should be 1.

So if you have 5,000 Swordsmen, you need to bring in 5,000 food per hour to stay even. You can see your current food status by clicking on your Stronghold. Under Food Production, you will see how much your city produces, and how much is being consumed. As an example, I have a level 13 city which produces 36,000 food per hour (Overall Income). However my 60,000 T2 troops are eating 120,000 per hour (Upkeep of 2 food per hr per soldier). Obviously that's a problem. How do you fix it? Mostly by gathering. A lot. The farms in your city probably won't be able to keep up with the monster army you're building, so get used to seeing that food number flashing red and doing lots of food gathering.

There are Items you can buy that reduce Upkeep for a period of time. Under the Items button, under the Special category, you will find Items like the 24 Hour Small Upkeep Reduction, which reduces your Upkeep costs by 25% for 24 hours for a cost of 500 gold. I haven't used them or the other Upkeep Reduction Items available yet.

Load

Load refers to how much stuff each soldier can carry. Swordsmen can carry a load of 7, Slingers can carry 6, and Outriders can carry 5. You can see these numbers by going into the Barracks, clicking on a troop type, and then clicking the Stats button. Troop Load is important. When you go out gathering or attack a city, your troops' Load capacity will determine how many resources they can carry back home.

To increase your troops' Load, you can do research in the Academy. Under the Economics category you will find Troop Load on the left side. There are also Gems which can help.