Troopers

Troopers are your basic soldiers — the cheapest and weakest fighting unit. They fight on both attack and defense, with an offense of 1 and a defense of 1.

They are cheap to buy and cheap to keep. About seven troopers cost as much as one tank, but a tank is worth several troopers in a fight. Troopers are the better value early in the game, and tanks become stronger later.

Every military unit eats, but a trooper eats fifty times as much as any other: one unit of food feeds 200 troopers, or 10,000 of anything else. So a large trooper army needs a strong food supply, and a large armored one barely registers.

A large trooper army also discourages enemy R5-Slappenheimer strikes. The more troopers you hold, the more likely that missile is to backfire onto the empire that fired it. Troopers are a common target of enemy covert operations, which can make them desert.

Buy troopers early to survive, and build more tanks as your economy grows.