@general-spengler Very interesting. I think having conscripts cost only $1 and be totally unable to attack is both a little sleepy and tends to give too much of an advantage to the defenders.
What about conscripts that cost $2, move 1, defend at 1 each, and attack at 1 as a stack? In other words, no matter how many conscripts you have in an attack, they all collectively only roll one die per round of battle, which only hits if the die is a 1.
This should naturally discourage players from building too many conscripts, since a stack of 5 conscripts is less cost-efficient than a single conscript.
You could also limit production of conscripts to 1 per factory and/or recruiting center per round. So if you have both a factory and a recruiting center in the same territory, you could buy up to 2 conscripts there per turn. If you have only a factory or only a recruitment center, then you could only buy 1 conscript per turn in that territory.
