There's a lot of emphasis on shades in this thread. And a lot of it's justified. But there hasn't been much acknowledgement that copters can see shades, and they're produced by the same building as tanks. i.e. a lot of the advice regarding shades here *isn't* justified. If the human is copter-savvy your shades will probably only be good for patrolling the map and scouting unclaimed expos. You can't just stealth his base or follow his armies around and expect to get away with it. In fact, even shades on patrol could get sniped heavily if he's playing the same recon game you are. Copters are better at it than shades.