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.

Your civilization

Pick a civ to filter answers to what you can actually build.

Your current age

Enemy army

Eagle Warrior

Build this

22 hard counters for your 1-unit army — across every civ. Each shows roughly how many to build to win the fight.

Cataphract

Top pick

Cavalry· Imperial Age· 70 food, 75 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+9–12 vs Infantry
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Cataphract folds to Spearman, Samurai.

Jaguar Warrior

Infantry· Imperial Age· 60 food, 30 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+5–6 vs Infantry
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Jaguar Warrior folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Scorpion.

Militia

Infantry· Dark Age· 50 food, 20 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2–6 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Militia folds to Cataphract, Jaguar Warrior, Scorpion.

Teutonic Knight

Infantry· Imperial Age· 85 food, 30 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+4 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Teutonic Knight folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Berserker

Infantry· 65 food, 20 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2–3 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Berserker folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Champi

Infantry· 50 food, 25 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+1–3 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Champi folds to Cataphract, Jaguar Warrior, Scorpion.

Huskarl

Infantry· Imperial Age· 75 food, 35 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2–3 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Huskarl folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Obuch

Infantry· Imperial Age· 55 food, 20 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2–3 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Obuch folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Samurai

Infantry· Imperial Age· 45 food, 30 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2–3 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Samurai folds to Cataphract, Jaguar Warrior, Scorpion.

Serjeant

Infantry· Imperial Age· 55 food, 25 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2–3 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Serjeant folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Urumi Swordsman

Infantry· Imperial Age· 65 food, 20 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2–3 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Urumi Swordsman folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Woad Raider

Infantry· Imperial Age· 70 food, 25 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2–3 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Woad Raider folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Chakram Thrower

Infantry· Imperial Age· 65 food, 30 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+1–2 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Chakram Thrower folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Ghulam

Infantry· Imperial Age· 30 food, 45 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Ghulam folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Karambit Warrior

Infantry· Imperial Age· 25 food, 15 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~2· 2 left· trades free

Watch out — Karambit Warrior folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Organ Gun

Siege· Imperial Age· 80 wood, 70 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2 vs Infantry
Build ~2· 2 left· trades free

Watch out — Organ Gun folds to Battering Ram, Armored Elephant, Cannon Galleon.

Plumed Archer

Archers· Imperial Age· 55 wood, 55 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+1–2 vs Infantry
Build ~2· 1 left· trades 1.6×

Watch out — Plumed Archer folds to Samurai, Huskarl, Ghulam.

Scorpion

Siege· Castle Age· 75 wood, 75 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+1–2 vs Infantry
Build ~2· 2 left· trades free

Watch out — Scorpion folds to Battering Ram, Armored Elephant, Cannon Galleon.

Shotel

Infantry· 50 food, 30 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+2 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Shotel folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Throwing Axeman

Infantry· Imperial Age· 55 food, 25 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+1–2 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Throwing Axeman folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Gbeto

Infantry· Imperial Age· 50 food, 40 gold

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+1 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~1· 1 left· trades free

Watch out — Gbeto folds to Cataphract, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior.

Spearman

No gold

Infantry· Dark Age· 35 food, 25 wood

counters 1

vs Eagle Warrior+1 vs Eagle Warriors
Build ~2· 2 left· trades free

Watch out — Spearman folds to Cataphract, Jaguar Warrior, Cavalry Archer.

Soft counters & tips

No bonus damage, but these still beat the matchup — splash, conversion, or raw speed the numbers don't show.

Mangonel

Castle Age

vs Eagle Warrior: Lobbed shots wipe out clumped infantry.

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.