Army Counter Planner
Tell us the army coming at you and the civilization you're playing — we'll work out exactly what to build to beat it: hard counters from the game's attack bonuses, the soft counters the numbers don't capture, and what to avoid because it walks into a counter of its own.
Pick a civ to filter answers to what you can actually build.
Cavalry ArcherBuild this
14 hard counters for your 1-unit army — across every civ. Each shows roughly how many to build to win the fight.
Spearman
Top pickNo goldInfantry· Dark Age· 35 food, 25 wood
- vs Cavalry Archer+15–32 vs CavalryBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Spearman folds to Cataphract, Jaguar Warrior, Cavalry Archer.
Camel
Cavalry· 55 food, 60 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+9–18 vs CavalryBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Camel folds to Spearman, Fire Lancer, Kamayuk.
Fire Lancer
Infantry· Imperial Age· 45 wood, 45 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+5–15 vs CavalryBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Fire Lancer folds to Cataphract, Militia, Jaguar Warrior.
Kamayuk
Infantry· Imperial Age· 70 food, 30 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+8–12 vs CavalryBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Kamayuk folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.
Mameluke
Cavalry· Imperial Age· 55 food, 85 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+9–12 vs CavalryBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Mameluke folds to Spearman, Samurai, Fire Lancer.
Huskarl
Infantry· Imperial Age· 75 food, 35 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+6–10 vs ArchersBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Huskarl folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.
Genoese Crossbow
Archers· 45 wood, 40 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+5–7 vs CavalryBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Genoese Crossbow folds to Samurai, Huskarl, Ghulam.
Camel Archer
Archers· Imperial Age· 50 wood, 60 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+4–6 vs Cavalry ArchersBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Camel Archer folds to Spearman, Samurai, Fire Lancer.
Ghulam
Infantry· Imperial Age· 30 food, 45 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+5–6 vs ArchersBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Ghulam folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.
Genitour
No goldArchers· Imperial Age· 40 food, 35 wood
- vs Cavalry Archer+4–5 vs ArchersBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Genitour folds to Spearman, Camel, Fire Lancer.
Skirmisher
No goldArchers· Castle Age· 25 food, 35 wood
- vs Cavalry Archer+3–5 vs ArchersBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Skirmisher folds to Huskarl, Ghulam, Genitour.
Eagle Warrior
Infantry· Imperial Age· 20 food, 50 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+3–4 vs CavalryBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Eagle Warrior folds to Cataphract, Militia, Jaguar Warrior.
Qizilbash Warrior
Cavalry· 45 food, 60 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+2 vs ArchersBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Qizilbash Warrior folds to Spearman.
Champi
Infantry· 50 food, 25 gold
- vs Cavalry Archer+1 vs CavalryBuild ~1· 1 left· trades free
Watch out — Champi folds to Cataphract, Jaguar Warrior, Scorpion.
Soft counters & tips
No bonus damage, but these still beat the matchup — splash, conversion, or raw speed the numbers don't show.
How the planner works
Counters in Age of Empires II aren't a matter of opinion — they're written into each unit's combat stats. Every recommendation here is computed live from those exact in-game numbers, so it stays faithful to the game even as units are rebalanced. Here's the math behind it.
Hard counters are real bonus damage
Units deal bonus damage to specific armor classes — a Pikeman's bonus lands on anything in the Cavalry class, an Archer's on the Spearmen class. We take the enemy's armor classes and surface every unit with a bonus against them. The figures you see (e.g. +15–32 vs Cavalry) are the unit's actual in-game bonus values.
Net of the target's armor
A bonus only counts if it survives the target's armor in that class — the same subtraction the game runs at hit time. A Camel's +18 vs Cavalry drops to just +2 against a Cataphract's +16 cavalry armor, so the planner won't tell you camels counter cataphracts. A Halberdier's +26 still nets +10 — so it does. The ranked number is always the net bonus.
Ranges span the whole unit line
A counter like +15–32 covers the line from its base unit (Spearman, +15) to its fully upgraded form (Halberdier, +32). Picking your civilization and age filters every answer down to units your tech tree can actually field at that point in the game.
How many to build
The Build ~N figure runs a real stand-and-fight between your counter and that enemy group — the same engine as our battle simulator — and reports the smallest number that wins, how many you'd have left, and the resource trade at that count. It uses each unit's real damage, fire rate and accuracy, with a head start for the longer-ranged side. Trades is the resource cost of your losses divided by the resource value you destroy: under 1.0× means you come out ahead (you killed more than you spent), and over 1.0× means you win the fight but lose more resources than you take — 1.4× is 140 of your resources spent for every 100 of theirs destroyed.
Soft counters are the human layer
Some answers the bonus-damage data can't see: a Mangonel's splash, a Monk's conversion, or Knights using raw speed to ride archers down. These are added as a small curated layer and labeled separately, so you always know which advice is hard math and which is strategy.
What the count assumes. Each Build ~N is a one-on-one fight against that single enemy group, with both sides on equal upgrades and no blacksmith bonuses — a clean baseline, not a full mixed battle. It doesn't model splash damage, monk healing, charge attacks, kiting or micro, so treat it as a starting point rather than an exact order. Units are fought at their upgraded form for the age you pick (their best form when the age is set to Any).
The hard counters and "watch out" warnings are derived from the game's data, never hand-maintained — there's no counter table to fall out of date when the game is patched.