Info: Unit-types

Level
Basic

Land Unit-types
Descriptions of the different types of land units

Some of the land units currently available in Empire are:

infantry
The Bloody Infantry. Lotsa guys on foot with guns. They're slow, and they carry their supplies in horse-drawn wagons, which slows them down even more. Slow. They're also not terribly good at scouting. They don't attack very well, with a multiplier ranging from 1 to 1.5 or so with better tech. However, they really shine on defense, with a multiplier from 1.5 to 3.0. If you want to hold a line... use infantry. They're fairly resistant to shelling and bombing, with the later types of infantry units being better.

cavalry
Empire starts just at the end of the age of cavalry. They're quick, and they scout pretty well. They're better at attacking than defending. They are pretty easy to kill with shelling or bombing. Still, if you want a low-tech unit to go somewhere quick, they're the guys.

supply
Supply units range from horse and wagon to truck units. Early supply units are slow, but the later supply unit types are motorized and are faster. Supply units carry a bunch of stuff, but try your best not to get them in combat, because they don't enjoy it, and they're REALLY bad at it. Supply units can give supplies to land units, as well as forts/ships/sectors. See Info: supply.

armor
Armor units may be light, medium, or heavy. Light armor units have much the same uses as cavalry, although they are a good bit less fragile. Medium armor is medium-fast, good for general attacking, while heavy armor is slow, but good for assaults, any situation where you need to destroy a heavily-defended fixed point.

All armor is better at attacking than defending. Higher tech types of armor units are better at defending, however. Armor gets much of its combat advantage from its mobility, being able to attack and move in, severing supply lines & blocking reaction & reinforcements.

Armor is fairly resistant to shelling/bombing.

artillery, lt artillery, hvy artillery, mech artillery
Artillery is a long range killer. You can use it to shell sectors, but it can often be more effective when used as support for your attacks. Lt artillery has more mobility but less damage. Hvy artillery has less mobility, but more damage. Mechanized artillery gives you good damage and good mobility, but is very expensive.

The better the accuracy of the artillery, the better it is at assisting your troops or shelling ships. The better the damage rating, the better the damage done. High-damage, low accuracy artillery is mostly good for shelling sectors, while high-accuracy artillery is good at supporting your troops, or shooting at ships.

All artillery is bad at attacking, but can usually defend in a not-horrible fashion. Artillery units are, however, pretty vulnerable to shelling and bombing. (except for mech artillery)

engineers, mech engineers
Engineers are the most versatile unit. They can lay mines,  clear mines, defend well, attack well, work on sectors, etc. The drawbacks? Well, they're VERY expensive and not very big. Mech engineers have vehicles and are much faster and more resistant to damage.

mech infantry, mobile infantry
These two types of infantry are faster. Mech infantry is also more resistant to damage and even better on defense.

marines
These units are like improved infantry, but more expensive and harder to make. Their best use is for assaulting beaches, but they do make superior infantry if you have to use them that way.

security
These units are good at fighting guerrillas, but not for much else. They fight about as well as low-tech infantry, and their smallish size makes them not worth much.

They do help you when shooting helpless civs (see Info: shoot), and fight guerrillas during the update. The security troops get a chance to 'raid' the guerrillas and kill some of them before the guerrillas fight. This will reduce your casualties from guerrilla war.

radar units
These units are high-tech. They give you the ability to map the enemy easily as you advance. Try not to get them into combat, as they're horrible at it, and they're very costly.

They're generally motorized, so they're pretty fast, and they all get shelled/bombed hard.

aa unit
These units are good defensively, and fight planes well. They are a mechanized unit, and move & survive pretty well. Only units with the FLAK ability can fire AA.

Use the "show" command to see units stats and capabilities.

These units types differ in their fundamental capabilities; some can fire guns, some cannot; each has it's own specific abilities & roles. The capabilities of each unit are given by the show command. The headings are as follows. For the building data: [##:##] Command : show land build The headings for the stats listing are [##:##] Command : show land stats Each land unit can carry a certain amount of products and has certain capabilities. These are listed under the cargoes & abilities  section. The  cargoes give the number of each product that can be carried. The abilities are as follows. [##:##] Command : show land capabilities Some examples of the output: [##:##] Command : show land build
 * lcm  The lcm required to build the land unit.
 * hcm  The hcm required to build the land unit.
 * guns  The guns required to build the land unit.
 * avail  The avail (work) required to build the land unit.
 * tech  The minimum technology required to build the land unit.
 * $  The cost of the land unit.
 * att  the attack multiplier of the land unit
 * def  the defensive multiplier of the land unit
 * vul  the vulnerability of the unit to bombing/shelling (1-100)
 * spd  the distance/mu for moving (in relative units)
 * vis  how visible the land unit is, (relative units)
 * spy  how far the land unit can see, (i.e. how good the  reconnaissance  equipment is), again in relative units
 * rad  the unit's reaction radius
 * rng  twice  the  distance  the  guns  can fire, The range formula is (rng/2) * ((tech + 50) / (tech + 200))
 * acc  the firing accuracy of the unit
 * fir  the number of guns that fire when the unit fires
 * amm  ammo: the number of shells the unit uses when fighting or firing
 * aaf  the aa fire rating of the unit
 * xpl  The number of extra-light planes the land unit can carry.  (If the XLIGHT option is enabled)
 * lnd  The number of land units the unit can carry (no 'heavy' units)
 * engineer  the unit can lay/sweep mines, work on sectors/fortifications/etc.
 * supply  the unit can supply other units
 * security  the unit is good at fighting guerrillas and shooting helpless civilians
 * light  the unit can be carried on ships that don't have supply capability
 * marine  the unit is good at assaulting
 * recon  the  unit is good at gathering intelligence. It will do better using
 * llookout, and will report enemy units in battle better.
 * radar  the unit has radar capability
 * assault  the unit may be used in assaults
 * flak  the unit can fire 'general unit flak' (see Info: Flak)
 * spy  the unit is a spy
 * train  the unit is a train, and can't be loaded on land  units  (see  Info: Railroad)
 * heavy  the  unit  cannot be carried on land units or ships, not even supply ships

lcm hcm mil guns shells avail tech  $ War band                    5   0 100    0      0     1    0  $500 Supply Wagon                5   5  50    0      0     2    0  $500 GPG Commandos              15  15  25    1      2     5  150  $800 artillery 1                40  60  70   20     40    17  100  $1000 Jump infantry              35  25 100    5     10     9  400  $3000 marines 1                  20  10 100    2      4     5  200  $2000

[##:##] Command : show land stats

s  v  s  r  f  a  d  a  a  x p  i  p  a  r  c  a  m  a  p att def vul  d  s  y  d  g  c  m  m  f  l War band                  1.3 1.0  99 23  5  1  1  0  0  0  0  0  0 Supply Wagon              0.1 0.2 100 15  6  1  0  0  0  0  0  0  0 GPG Commandos             1.0 1.0  70 30  1  2  1  0  0  0  5  1  0 artillery 1               0.0 0.5  50 15  6  1  0  6 40  4  5 15  0 Jump infantry             5.0 6.0  20 55  1  4  4  0  0  0  5 35  5 marines 1                 1.0 2.0  70 23  3  3  2  0  0  0  5  5  2

[##:##] Command : show land cap

capabilities War band                   5f engineer light recon Supply Wagon               50s 5g 100f 200l 100h 100r 200d 10b 100i supply light GPG Commandos              5f security artillery 1                5f 10g 20s Jump infantry              5f 2g 10s xlight marines 1                  5f 10s xlight light marine