So I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how military units work in HK. I like the idea that they are your population, you can't just pump out a crazy amount of war units in a few turns, you need the population for it. And each unit is now quite precious, at least early on.

But how do you manage? I've started a new game, easiest difficulty, peaceful mode so I can just build up and try to figure it out but the issues I'm running into is the battlefront being on a newer city that doesn't have the extra pop for units without starving. OR the terrain between that city and a city with the pops is too far, 4+ turns away. 

The balance is where I'm struggling the most between new unit vs. food to make new ones, while still having industry enough to make the units.

Any tips for that? How many units would I need early game, like, around turn 30-40, second era?

You will need to keep a few things in mind :
- An army can get reinforcements once you research a certain technology. Having at least two armies close together is advisable.
- Units get passive healing when in supply (your territory). Thus you want to have reserves - a third army that stay close to your border and can rotate units with your front line troops.

- You can use mercenaries from Independent people. While you can not merge and upgrade them, they do not cost you population. You can use them to ransack your opponents lands for example. :)
- Units in the first two eras are usually cheap enough to produce. Focus on food as you will need the extra population for other things, including Era stars. The extra population can also be used to complete anything if you have plenty of food.
- Make use of defensive buildings and walls to whittle down your enemy and then go on the offensive. This will give you both time to amass your troops and also a numerical advantage once you launch your attack.

Melliores wrote:

You will need to keep a few things in mind :
- An army can get reinforcements once you research a certain technology. Having at least two armies close together is advisable.
- Units get passive healing when in supply (your territory). Thus you want to have reserves - a third army that stay close to your border and can rotate units with your front line troops.

- You can use mercenaries from Independent people. While you can not merge and upgrade them, they do not cost you population. You can use them to ransack your opponents lands for example. :)
- Units in the first two eras are usually cheap enough to produce. Focus on food as you will need the extra population for other things, including Era stars. The extra population can also be used to complete anything if you have plenty of food.
- Make use of defensive buildings and walls to whittle down your enemy and then go on the offensive. This will give you both time to amass your troops and also a numerical advantage once you launch your attack.

Thanks! Can you upgrade troops? Like my scouts to warriors? I looked and didn't seem like I could unless that's a building.

TheAtm wrote:

Melliores wrote:

You will need to keep a few things in mind :
- An army can get reinforcements once you research a certain technology. Having at least two armies close together is advisable.
- Units get passive healing when in supply (your territory). Thus you want to have reserves - a third army that stay close to your border and can rotate units with your front line troops.

- You can use mercenaries from Independent people. While you can not merge and upgrade them, they do not cost you population. You can use them to ransack your opponents lands for example. :)
- Units in the first two eras are usually cheap enough to produce. Focus on food as you will need the extra population for other things, including Era stars. The extra population can also be used to complete anything if you have plenty of food.
- Make use of defensive buildings and walls to whittle down your enemy and then go on the offensive. This will give you both time to amass your troops and also a numerical advantage once you launch your attack.

Thanks! Can you upgrade troops? Like my scouts to warriors? I looked and didn't seem like I could unless that's a building.

Click on an army, if there's a lil upward arrow on any of the individual unit icons then click on that icon, 4 or 5 options will appear underneath and the 2nd or 3rd one in will allow you to upgrade for an amount of gold as long as you have

1) the next unit unlocked in the technology tree (e.g you have an archer and you've researched War Summons, unlocking crossbowmen units)

2) the strategic resources you'd need to build them in a city, like iron or horses

Click on an army, if there's a lil upward arrow on any of the individual unit icons then click on that icon, 4 or 5 options will appear underneath and the 2nd or 3rd one in will allow you to upgrade for an amount of gold as long as you have

1) the next unit unlocked in the technology tree (e.g you have an archer and you've researched War Summons, unlocking crossbowmen units)

2) the strategic resources you'd need to build them in a city, like iron or horses

Thanks! I thought I had to send the pop back to a city, and make a warrior separately and was like "wow... that's a lot of steps..." 

Yeah it just has to be within your territory, unless you have an ally with the treaty where you can upgrade units in theirs