Command An Army Star Limit — Why You Cannot Field Your Best Units

The rule that confuses new players

Command An Army lets you own every unit in the game and still not field them. The star limit is a cap on the total star rating you can bring into a single match, and every unit spends part of that budget just by existing.

A 4-star Spartan costs four against the cap. A 2-star Halberdier costs two. If your cap is 13 stars, you cannot run a Spartan, another 4-star and a 3-star together — the total has to fit inside the number.

That is why the standard beginner advice sounds contradictory. Creators tell new players to grab Spartan and Samurai and ignore almost everything else, then in the next breath tell them they cannot field both. Both are true: the units are worth chasing, and the cap decides when you can actually use them.

How the cap grows

The limit scales with your account level, at a rate of one star per five levels. The account level cap is 50, so the budget grows steadily as you play rather than jumping at a milestone.

The practical consequence is that the star limit, not unit quality, is what gates your early lineup. A player with three S-tier units and a level-20 account fields one of them plus filler. A player with the same units at level 45 fields a real army.

Rank up before you evolve

This is the single most actionable rule on this page: rank up first, then evolve.

Evolving a unit raises its star cost. If you evolve early, you can evolve a unit straight out of your own lineup — it becomes unaffordable against a cap that has not grown yet. The unit got better and your army got worse.

The same logic applies to investment order. A creator’s example: a Knight is the final evolution of Mercenary, so ranking it up before evolving keeps it fieldable through the whole process instead of pricing it out mid-way.

Building a lineup that fits

Three rules that follow from the cap:

One expensive unit, then filler. Spend most of the budget on the unit that wins the matchup, and fill the remaining stars with cheap units that do one job. An all-star lineup that does not fit is worse than a mixed one that does.

Prefer units that stay cheap. This is a real argument for the shield line: Shieldman, Sentinel and Imperial Wall give you a frontline at 1, 2 and 3 stars. You can hold a line without spending four stars on it, which leaves budget for the damage unit that actually decides the fight.

Check the cost before you fall in love. When you are deciding between two units, compare star cost as well as tier. A B-tier 2-star that fits often beats an S-tier 4-star that does not.

The best units tier list ranks the units themselves; this page decides which of them you can actually bring. The evolution guide covers the evolution paths and their star costs, and the unit counters guide covers which of your affordable units wins the matchup.

A worked example

Say your cap is 13 stars and you own a Spartan (4★), a Samurai (4★), a Halberdier (3★) and a Shieldman (1★).

• Spartan (4) + Samurai (4) = 8 stars, leaving 5.
• Halberdier (3) fits, leaving 2.
• Shieldman (1) fits, leaving 1.

So you field Spartan, Samurai, Halberdier and Shieldman with a star spare — which is a genuinely strong composition: an unbreakable frontline, a damage carry, a cavalry counter and a cheap body.

Swap the Shieldman for an Imperial Wall (3★) and you are at 14 stars against a 13 cap. The upgrade is real and you cannot bring it. That is the star limit in one sentence.

Where this fits

If you have not played yet, start with the beginner guide and redeem the working codes for extra summons while your cap is still small. Once you are fielding real armies, Update 2 added Ranked and Guilds, which reward the same units you have already been building.