Part of the Troops & Combat Series:

Quick Answer

Power comes from five stacking sources, roughly in order of return:

  1. Troop quantity and tier — the largest single contributor
  2. Research — slow, compounding, and the biggest gap between accounts of similar age
  3. Hero levels and skills — concentrated investment beats broad
  4. Buildings and HQ level — the gate on everything else
  5. Behemoth, chief gear, talents — deep late-game headroom

The uncomfortable truth: power is a vanity metric. A well-countered march beats a higher-power one routinely, and inflating power without troops to back it makes you a target. The formations guide will win you more fights than another million power will.

Overview

"How do I get to 90 million power" gets asked constantly, and the honest answer is that it's the wrong question in two ways.

First, power is an aggregate of things that don't behave alike in combat. Troop power converts directly into fighting strength. Building power mostly doesn't. Two accounts at identical power can be wildly different opponents.

Second, chasing the number encourages exactly the behaviour that gets accounts farmed: pushing HQ and buildings for a bigger score while troops and research lag. What you'll find is that the players who grow power fastest are the ones who stopped optimising for it and started optimising for troops and research, which raise it as a side effect.

Here's the thing about big milestone numbers: they come from months of compounding, not from a trick. Anyone selling you a shortcut is selling you a scam.

The Five Sources

1. Troops

The dominant contributor and the one that actually fights.

  • Train continuously. Idle training capacity is wasted, exactly like an idle builder.
  • Upgrade rather than train where you can. Upgrading existing troops is usually more resource-efficient than training fresh ones, and it scores better during upgrade events.
  • Push tiers. Higher-tier troops carry far more power per unit, gated behind research and buildings.

2. Research

The slowest and most consistently underrated source. Research runs in the background permanently and compounds, and it's where accounts of the same age diverge most.

Keep something researching at all times, prioritising combat and troop branches over convenience ones once the basics are covered.

3. Heroes

Levels, skill upgrades, and star progression all feed power. The principle from the heroes hub applies: concentrate. Three finished heroes contribute more power and far more combat value than eight half-done ones.

4. Buildings and HQ

The buildings reference covers which buildings contribute and which merely gate. VIP levels add troop attack on top, around 12% by the upper tiers.

Raises power directly and gates everything else. Necessary, and the least combat-relevant of the sources, which is precisely why pushing it alone is a trap.

5. Behemoth, Aircraft, Chief Gear, Talents

Deep systems with substantial headroom, and mostly late-game concerns. Chief gear in particular is unglamorous and adds up more than people expect, and the aircraft and war vehicle track sits alongside it. At Plasma, the Special Forces Engine becomes one of the larger troop stat sources available.

The Fastest Realistic Route

For an account that wants power to climb steadily:

  1. Keep training queues and builders running at all times. Uptime beats optimisation.
  2. Never stop researching. Something should always be in progress.
  3. Bank everything for SvS preparation phases and fire it inside the scoring window. Same work, plus milestones.
  4. Concentrate hero investment rather than spreading it.
  5. Buy builders and march slots before anything else with biocaps.
  6. Run every gathering march so resources never bottleneck the above.

None of that is clever. All of it compounds, and it's the entire difference between accounts.

[!IMPORTANT] Power gained during a scoring event is worth roughly double, because you get the power and the event rewards. An account that only grows during events outpaces one that grows steadily and ignores them.

Why Chasing the Number Backfires

Three specific failure modes:

Building power without troop power. Your profile looks strong, your defence isn't, and you become the easiest target in your neighbourhood.

Training low-tier troops in bulk. Power goes up, combat effectiveness barely does, and you've spent resources you needed for tier upgrades.

Spreading hero investment to raise the total. Eight heroes at low stars adds power and wins nothing, because you field three heroes at a time.

The reliable check: ask whether a given upgrade makes you win fights, not whether it raises the number. Research and troop tiers pass. A decorative building doesn't.

F2P vs Spender

F2P accounts grow power through uptime and event timing. Builders always running, research always running, everything banked for scoring phases. That combination is genuinely competitive within your bracket and costs only attention.

Spending accounts should still follow the same order, since it's about return rather than scarcity. The advantage money buys is reliably hitting event milestones, which compounds faster than the purchases themselves.

Common Mistakes

Optimising for the number rather than for fighting. Fix: ask whether an upgrade wins fights.

Idle training queues and builders. Fix: always have something running.

Neglecting research. The largest hidden gap between similar accounts. Fix: never let it sit idle.

Mass-training low-tier troops. Power up, effectiveness flat. Fix: push tiers via research, then train.

Growing outside events. Forfeits milestone rewards on work you did anyway. Fix: bank and fire in scoring phases.

Rushing HQ ahead of troops. Makes you a farm. Fix: grow them together.

FAQ

How do I increase battle power in State of Survival? Train and upgrade troops, keep research permanently running, level heroes you actually field, and raise HQ and buildings alongside. Troops and research contribute most.

What's the fastest way to increase power? Continuous uptime on training, building and research, with everything banked for SvS preparation phases where the same work also pays milestones.

How long does it take to reach 90 million power? Months of consistent play for a free account, faster with spending. There's no shortcut, and anything claiming otherwise is a scam.

Does building power count as battle power? It contributes to your total but does little in combat. Troop power is what fights.

Why do I lose to lower-power accounts? Usually a troop-type counter, sometimes better hero investment. Power is one input among several.

Should I train more troops or upgrade existing ones? Upgrading is generally more efficient, and considerably better during events that score upgrades.

Does chief gear matter? Yes, more than most players assume. The percentages are individually small and stack meaningfully.

Key Takeaways

  • Five sources: troops, research, heroes, buildings, and late-game systems. Troops and research dominate.
  • Power is a vanity metric. Countering beats out-powering, routinely.
  • Uptime is the whole game: builders, training queues, and research always running.
  • Bank growth for SvS phases. Same work, plus milestone rewards.
  • Concentrate hero investment. Eight half-done heroes add power and win nothing.
  • Building power without troop power makes you a target, not a threat.
  • Big milestone numbers come from months of compounding. There is no shortcut.