Wow, so much great info here! I feel so much more prepared!
Are all of these counters true for Age of Empires 3 (2007)? I just want to make sure everyone understands I am playing that version, NOT the Definitive Edition.
@M00Z1LLA I have both, I bought the one where you get both expansions. But I never play the asian dynasties one. We only ever play The WarChiefs one.
ff of cannons is it a classic or was it the classic of ottomans
Yes the counters are the same and apply in both versions of the game.
If you select and play Asian dynasties you can play all the civs from the base game as well as the war chiefs civs and the Asian civs. Also there are more people who play Asian dynasties online.
@Jamesagraham5 In the diagram that m00z1lla posted, it shows that Strelets would have an advantage over my Muskateers. What is your reasoning behind using them against Strelets?
Artillery (Falconets) shreds Strelets, you can use the musketeers as meat shield to protect your your artillery as brits, especially because brits get lots of upgrade cards for their musketeers making them trade better against anything, but in age 2 you’ll need to build hussar as you don’t have artillery before age 3. Musketeer alone won’t help in any case.
Theoretically they do have an advantage over musketeers but strelets are the weakest unit in AOE3. So musketeers don’t trade awfully against them.
This is the general idea.
I’d always have a few musketeers in my army just incase of a Cossack charge which can occur quite rapidly when playing a Russian adversary.
Don’t make the Musketeers to fight the Strelets. But you still want some Musketeers to back up your army since Hussars aren’t great at sieging buildings and Falconets need some units to protect them.
And Musketeers will actually beat Strelets in melee mode.
@wkriegermusic when planning your first army, its normally advisable to create an army composition of three different types of units. This allows you to have a counter for anything your opponent might try and through at you.
The most common unit combinations are:
Some other typical army compositions:
Some civilisation have standout units. These are normally the nation’s “Royal Guard” units. These units are normally the best of their unit type. For example both hussars and musketeers are Britains Royal Guard units. So you can get away with two unit compotition armies, such as…
But these can only be effective executed against an opponent that happens to have a particularly weak counter unit. So Russia doesn’t really have an effective “anti-light cavalry” unit so you could exploit this by making lots of dragoons and pairing them with an artillery unit such as horse artillery. Although the dragoon isn’t a British Royal Guard unit it is still the second best in the game (only behind Portugal) because of three home city cards that upgrade it.
When creating an army, ideally you’d have lots of variation but this would cost a lot in research techs. So in a real game scenario its better to create an army composition of only 2-4 different unit types. In this way you’ll have a quality unit roster that effectively counters everything.
hussars, but you need to know “kitting” when anticavalry melee units like mosqueteers come to you atacking you meele
taunt 21 taunt 21 20 characters
?? explain your idea
Don’t worry just playing with you 
Combining 3 unit types is almost impossible unless you play 40 mins treaty or have gotten really late in the game. It is far to expensive to maintain 3 unit combos in age2 or age 3 combat situations, and it isn’t even necessery. 2 unit comps can counter almost everything, and usually their counter becomes obsolete if you slightly change the composition.
In the examples I gave above with the musket + artilery comps, if the enemy switches to culverins, they may be able to kill your falconets, but the culverins become dead pop after that, and a switch to unupgraded hussars is more effective than having fewer upgraded muskets and extra hussars from the begining.
In most early game skirmishes you will find 2 unit comps.
Even in industrial age, you should avoid 3 unit comps. Switching between 2 different 2 unit comps is normally more pop effective, because it allows the 2 units to reach critical mass.
Everything you said I agree with but for a beginner it best to get used to the rough “rock, paper, scissors” counter system before developing a more cost and time effective strategy. Having three unit types ensures you have a hard counter for every eventuality.
Hello again, everyone! First of all, thank you so much for all of your responses. As a player trying to get better, these responses help me learn fast.
I played my friend again using hussars and longbow-men. They work well, but I get overwhelmed the the amount of Strelets he has after a couple minutes. By the 8:30 mark, I have around 30 longbows and 5-7 hussars.
One of my problems is, once he attacks, he continually sends in more Strelets as I kill them, and I don’t have the economy to continue producing units, because I have spend all my resources on my army. I can stop his initial attack, but then I run out of recourses. Hussars are expensive.
I feel like I must be doing something wrong.
What cards would you use/put in your deck? When would you send them? I feel like what I need is one of those videos online I find on YouTube where a guy shows exactly the sequence of events for a scenario.
I am hoping you guys can help me. I will be so thrilled if I can find a way to beat my buddy!!
P.s. side note, when I am playing and I put my mouse of hussars, it says they are LIGHT cavalry…?? Online, it says they are heavy cavalry. Not sure what’s going on there. But they do do well against the Strelets.
Maybe I need to use a different strategy entirely? Maybe, there is a civilization that would have a better match up against Russia? I am willing to try anything. 
Focus more on hussar production over longbow if your mate is ONLY training strelets.
Some economic help…
I’m presuming you’re still playing Brits.
At some point during this transition point between Ages you want to send these two cards
The first card will send you a 7 sheep and a homestead wagon
The second card will upgrade your gather rate for livestock food collection to 300% faster than before.
Task the sleep onto a livestock pen and and leave them be
Maybe research some other livestock techs if you got the time and resources
Continue play how you would have before by training lots of hussars and musketeers.
KEEP UP YOUR CONSTANT FLOW OF SETTLER TRAINING
So after your mate has finished his first big push your sleep would have full fattened.
Task a couple settlers on the sleep and you’ll suddenly have a food spike.
Use this to either Age Up or train more units.
Its never a bad idea to have any of these cards in your deck either. (but this is just my personal option)…
Let me know know if you don’t have any of these cards as I haven’t played the original game in a while
Yeah, they changed the labelling system in the DE to make more sense. The old system is a bit weird so don’t worry too much about it.
You can easily win with the British civ once you get the right strategy but if you feel like a change, try the German civ. You get free Uhlans (hand cav) for every age 2 shipment and above you send. The Uhlans will be a great counter to your mate’s strelets. The basic concept of the German civ is “Quality over Quantity” which is the opposite to the Russians. This means that they can be quite micro intensive.
Hope this all helps 
I will try all this out! Thanks!
Also build some walls in your town they will slow him down and bog down his army.
I don’t think it’s wise to go for a livestock build as a brand new player. It requires a lot of attention that would be better spent on the fundamentals.
He should be most focused on keeping up villager production and building Manors. Also focusing on hunting instead of Mills.