Introduction

This article gives an explanation of various things to consider for troop compositions for attacking players (pvp) in State of Survival: Zombie War, including a few suggested troop compositions.

Scope of this Article

The inner workings of the State of Survival combat engine are not known, so don't see this as the definite guide on making troop compositions providing you with the perfect solution.

Very early on in the game you probably don't worry too much about the troop mix, you unlock new troops faster than you can train sufficient amounts, and you might not even have enough troops to fill a complete march. The information in this guide is more useful at a later stage, once you reach tier 7 or higher troops and it becomes more time consuming to unlock new troop types. This guide should help you understand your troops better, help you compose (and save) a troop composition, and give you focus for troop training.

Explanation of Attack, Defense, Health, Lethality

Looking at the basic stats of the troops, there are 4 relevant for doing combat: Attack, Defense, Health and Lethality.

When doing any battle the difference between Attack of one party and Defense of another party results in some basic damage. The Lethality and Health determine in how many casualties this damage results. So far increasing the casualties you inflict, your Attack and Lethality are important, and for minimizing the casualties you take, your Defense and Health are important.

Realize that whether you attack or are attacked does not matter, during either battle you will inflict and take damage according to above rules. So make sure your defense and health are also ok when you attack, or you might lose lots of troops.

Basic Stats for Different Troop Types

When we look at the basic stats for Infantry, Hunters and Riders we can see they don't differ as much as they do in similar games. Still, each of them are different. Infantry are more focused on minimizing the casualties you take, they have high Defense and Health, low Attack and Lethality. Hunters are the opposite, their specialization is inflicting damage, they are high on Attack and Lethality, and lower on Defense and Health. Riders are also focussed on inflicting damage but not as much as Hunters, their Attack and Lethality is a bit lower, but Defense and Health a bit higher.

Troop Subtypes

Each of the three different troop types, have two subtypes. For Infantry these are Shields and Shotguns, for Hunters Bows and Snipers and for Riders Bikers and ATVs. Each of these subtypes has an increased stat against one of the other troop types.

Best PvP Troop Compositions

As a guideline I work with 40% Hunters, 30% Riders and 30% Infantry in my marches. This means I am a bit more focussed on the troop type that is most suitable for attack. Depending on the strength of opponents you can tweak this a bit, by having for example less Infantry and more Hunters against weak opponents and more Infantry and less Hunters against stronger opponents.

There are different theories with respect to using only the highest tier troops, or a mix of different tier troops. Initially I liked to use a the two subtypes of every troop type, but I have seen no indication this makes a significant positive difference, and it is cumbersome to arrange this because I have only a few presets and always change between economy and war talents.

If you prefer the two subtypes, you could use a 2:1 ratio for each troop type. This is a trade off, you use the special skill of each troop type to do more damage/have better defense, but your stats are not as high as when you would use only troops of your highest tier available.

Some players believe it will help them in the overall performance in battle by having small amounts of all lower tier troops, or add those lower tiers to make sure they lose less higher tier troops. I do not, I have seen no indication this helps.

As an example assuming you would have unlocked all tier 8 troops (and nothing higher), when using both sub troop types the composition could be:

• 20% Tier 8 Infantry (Guerillas/Shotguns)
• 10% Tier 7 Infantry (Hackers/Shields)
• 26.7% Tier 8 Hunters (Hawks/Bows)
• 13.3% Tier 7 Hunters (Sharpshooters/Snipers)
• 20% Tier 8 Riders (Banshees/Bikers)
• 10% Tier 7 Riders (Raiders/ATVs)

For me at the moment with TIer 9 unlocked I use:

• 30% Tier 9 Infantry (Maulers)
• 40% Tier 9 Hunters (Nightstalkers)
• 30% Tier 8 Riders (Demon Raiders)

Troop Composition Presets

The way to specify a troop composition preset is a bit tricky. In the screen where you specify your march composition when you send out a march, you first select the flag of the preset slot you want to use (there are 3, but the last one only unlocks at VIP 7, so you might only be able to chose 2, the first two unlocked at HQ5 and 10).

After selecting the Flag, select your troop composition (including heroes), and to save you can click on another Flag after which you will see a message that the preset is saved. The composition also seems to be saved when you send out the march, although I did not get the saved message.

Training Considerations

Once you have determined the possible troop compositions that work for you, you know what to train. It is always good to make sure you have plenty of troops so that even if you take some losses you can still use your preferred preset. You wouldn't want to get in a situation where you would have to send out a march without Infantry because you are all out.

Unless lower tier troops are required it is best to always train the highest tier troops for your daily training sessions. If you have a lot you can opt to upgrade troops instead of training them from scratch as soon as you have unlocked a new tier of troops, so that you can start benefiting from them in battle as soon as possible.

Troop Compositions for other Activities

Above troop composition is for pvp and for player vs engine (pve) where it is also important to not take casualties, like fighting infected. There are some events where pve battle is done and it is just about doing damage, casualties are irrelevant. Influencer Trap is such an event, in which case I leave infantry out of the march. I am very heavy on Hunters in such events.

I am at this moment still experimenting what gives the best result when fortifying players and the alliance HQ during infected horde. So far I have assumed it was the same as Influencer Trap (no infantry), but I have seen some results in the Alliance HQ battles that seem to point out there should be a better tactic that just sending the highest tier Hunters and Riders. If anyone wants to share experiences or theories, please do.

For gathering it does not matter which troop types you send to which tile for the gathering rate.

Conclusion

This article should introduce you to many key concepts in determining your PvP troop composition, and give you some starting point for what troop composition might work as well.