Good Question Indum, I was wondering this myself. I think the ranged units are going to be what wins the battles in AoE3. I was a player of Rise of Nations (alot of gunpowder units in this game) and it was always the ranged units who won the battles. You loose so many men running up to the ranged units, that there are so few to actualy fight the gunpowder units, its a clear win for the ranged units. I believe the best combination of units would be 30% meelee, 70% ranged. This is great so the melee units will get wasted, but buys the ranged units alot of time to kill off the enemies.
Great question, hopefully this answered it!
[This message has been edited by Canadian_Bro (edited 05-29-2005 @ 10:34 AM).]