some basic thoughts on counters. First off, sorcs with poly counter anything tier 3. I'm not saying like 4 sorcs I'm saying at least 8. It's a manual cast and you may want to turn slow off beforehand but if you get some sorcs and run into some frost wyrms, taurens, knights, whatever, turn em into sheep. Chances are your opponant isn't good enough to dispel and it'll render their army useless. Human vs Human: Human vs Human ends up being pretty boring early on. Generally it's just outmass footies against the other guy and get the advantage (i use blizzard to help). Usually in Hum vs Hum the first person to knights wins. I suggest mass footies with a fast switch to knights, and then worry about spellcasters or seige depending on your opponants defenses. Human vs NE: This game can go either really well, or really poorly. If your opponant goes archers, and you have defend, the game is yours off the bat. Hint: always defend only the footmen getting attacked, not your entire army, because while in defend your attack is halfed so why half everyone when you only need to half one? If your opponant goes mass huntresses you're going to have a much harder time. Again, lots of footmen and fast tech to knights. Footmen just aren't going to hold up against huntresses for long, so the knights are a must. Blizzard can help or you can go MK and stun/focus on his hero. Against NE i would suggest getting at least 1-2 guard towers up to run to in a fight you can't win. Maybe even go so far as to place a couple towers in the path between your towns and use them as sentries to fight in front of, because losing to huntresses when human is annoying. I'm not sure if defend works against huntresses, if someone knows I'd love the info. Human vs Undead: There are a few ways to deal with undead. If the enemy goes fiends your mass footmen will walk all over them, though I'm not sure if defend works against them. Against ghouls your mass footies will prove their equals, though cannabalize will make your life harder. Blizz will mess them up if well placed, and once you get second tier if they go mass ghouls I suggest mortars instead of fast knights. Seige in general TOTALLY messes ghouls up. Once you have 3-4 mortars and enough footies to guard for them, press or go knights from there and kill exps while teching. Human vs Orc: 1 rule, do NOT let them get lust. Keep in mind you'll have to make a lot of footmen to make up for grunts, and you may want some fast mortars to take out orcs easy to build static D. Keep your opponant contained and do everything in your power to make sure they don't get lust. If they DO get lust, make sure you have priests and sorcs to poly and dispel. You can dispel lust easily with priests, and if you have poly to morph his melee tanks, your footmen and knights will walk over them. Having 2-3 mortars to support your army may make all the difference in the world due to damage output. I tend to always go mage first but in this case you may want to consider MK for storm bolt, to stop annoying chaining farseers or stomping TC's. Grunts are hard to kill and pretty powerful, so if you can catch a hero by itself take him out first, or try to manuver to create that opportunity, but if it's not possible just overwhelm and then contain. Any questions/senarios you can think of where things are unclear, let me know, or if you have other strategies to deal with these races. -Ari