Units

The follow table uses the unit types from the civilization builder. There is a list of civilizations on the Heaven Games EE site which lists the unit bonuses for each civilization.

Comments often assume a pre-nano game.

Civilization Builder Unit Class	Comments
Aircraft - Bombers	Essential attack units for all WW1 and later games. Area affect looks tempting, but consider speed upgrade. Speed may avoid loss of costly planes to AA
Aircraft - Fighters	Generally defensive units. Speed bonus may prevent enemy fighters staying on your tail.
Aircraft - Helicopters	Useful against tanks, workers and especially submarines. Transports are of best use in huge maps or islands. If you will need transport, speed or hit points upgrades may save you from loosing the entire platoon to AA
Archers - Foot	These are great support troops for the stone age onwards. They become useless at renaissance, as the guns arrive. For relatively small maps, or for standard games, these are especially useful, in combination with Sword an Melee units. You generally need hand to hand combat units to keep enemy troops in bunch, while these fire from afar. Also near useless in "no rush 1 hour" games. Better to spend resources on Epochs. Range is an important attribute, and may help them to destroy towers, without being seen.
Cavalry - Ranged	Cavalry are expensive. The are similar to Infantry and Archers, but with a huge speed bonus. If your enemy likes towers, they are worth the cost to run past the towers. They can also be quickly pulled away. Also consider if nearing population cap, as it is better to use the last few units on stronger army.
Cavalry - Spear (Melee)
Cavalry - Sword
Citizens & Fishing Boats	Cost reduction is very popular, but expensive. It is more useful when there are fishing boats (islands, med, continental), saving wood. It speeds up entry into copper age. It becomes of little value later on, and possibly farming (economy) bonus is better for long games, as that effectively reduces cost of all units, and speeds epocs.
Civ - Buildings Walls & Towers	Towers may survive longer with a Range bonus, including destroying enemy towers. For a Tower rush, attack bonus may be better. Hit points is tempting, but difficult to justify. In general, a building in range of field weapons will fall sooner or later. The 11 points are an expensive defensive option.
Civ - Economy	Very important. Because mines can be hard to find, mining upgrades are very popular. For rush games, hunting gets you started. For large maps or no rush, farming is better.
Civ - General	Pop cap is tempting as an upgrade, allowing to to make that extra farm, or 20 more troops. Especially if the game unit limit is small, or has a large number of players. With 350 units per player, for example, this is not so useful.
Cybers - Combat	Not all games get to cyber, but no rush and island games commonly do. Hyperion is great in island games, crossing the water and fighting on land. Air support is often needed. Ares particularly is vulnerable to planes and AA.
Cybers - Ultra	These are difficult to manage, as you must be around to use their special powers. Armor upgrade is cheap, and may give them longer to perform tasks. Conversion of enemy robots could pay back the cost of these.
Filed Cannon & Anti Tank Guns	These are like advanced archers. Range or attack bonus are suggested. Like archers, they should be used with Melee units, to keep the enemy from rushing into them. Useful from renaissance onwards. Forget these if you expect a rush game.
Infantry - Ranged	For ranged units, range bonuses! If you plan to fight in renaissance or later, a 20 range bonus may keep your army alive, while the enemy stands still and get shot. Good when backed up by long range arterially (such as bombard cannon)
Infantry - Spear (Melee)	Use in combination with Archers.
Infantry - Sword	Definitely needed in the early epochs, but useless by renaissance. Protect with archers.
Religion - Priests	Priests are not very commonly played. They are expensive, and not that hard to kill. They can delay your epoch because of the cost.
Religion - Prophets	Prophets are useful against many uints. Range may keep them undetected. Storms at sea can save you in an islands game. Plague can kill a huge army.
Ships - Battleships and Carriers	Make sure that you are playing on water before selecting a civilization with shipping bonuses! Since you need to win on land, it is not clear that shipping bonuses pay off, except maybe in island games. Submarine range is helpful, for sinking enemy subs, and long range nukes.
Ships - Frigates and Cruisers
Ships - Galleons, Transports & Subs
Siege Weapons and Mobile AA	Mobile AA is very useful for protecting ground troops. Range and Rate of Fire are good bonuses. If your task is removing towers, consider these. Also note that Siege weapons use gold and wood, like archers. If you have upgraded gold and wood, upgrading siege and archers makes more sense. Another point is that this unit class spans all eras from dark age onwards.
Tanks	Tanks are quite vulnerable, to field weapons and bombers. They can wipe out farms, but are not much use against buildings. They are somewhat slow. They can be used to take out AA, so planes can do the real damage. Speed may help you get them to the target area in time.