my ally did this in a game today in arena, and either dropped, or more likely quit, as soon as he saw the enemy wasnt just surrendering after about 10 min of us attacking together
so possibly adds proof that you just need to survive the initial impact and out eco the crippled turk eco, especially in a tg
Fast imp might be the most fun strat but it’s indeed very fragile, escpecially if you’re up against a good archer civ (which aren’t all that rare on arena). I, at least, can’t recall the last time I saw fast imp in an arena tournament and the pros that frequently play arena usually go for some form of janni push. Jannis+mangos even take down walls quite fast and also you see a lot of forward castles.
On open maps like arabia fc into jannis only works if you have the perfect map otherwise you will be dead before you even have a castle up. I think it should be possible on maps like golden pitt or maybe hideout, though.
If the player knows how to use turks FI in a map like arena is not easy to defeat him, because bbc will destroy xbow and skirms with few attack ground shoots.
Monks have always been the best counter to turks in a map like arena, but thanks to WK there is a better option.
Pick burmese and go for arambai, arambai is insanely good vs HC or jenyz, it fires faster and fails even less, i am really surprised how bad hc and jenyzaires dies vs arambai, due their fast mobility they can clean the hc and bbc.
But because of only 1 Armour upgrade, even Turk Skirms can wipe Arambai fast.
lol in fast imperial the resources are limited, making all upgrades and food/wood on skirms is not an option.
You do not need all upgrades, Arambai only have Padded Archer Armour.
Even gewtting Bodking Arrow will already allow Turk skirms to beat them easily.
You cant go siege towers, they still crash the game after a few uses.
I think the strategy has appeared more OP than it is in the games I’ve seen because it has been used by significantly better players. A player ranked 30th or so is very good, but it can be a pretty big gap from there to a top 5 player. The top 5 player could possibly have used other civs and turned up with a different army at minute 22 that would still have been significantly stronger than the army the lower ranked player had at that time.
Re FC into Jans, when I tried Turks Fast Imp against the AI, and gave the AI Turks to see how I matched up against the Extreme AI’s timings, the AI actually went for Jans rather than HCs and they destroyed my HCs.
Do a 23/24 pop feudal archer build then go up as fast as you can maintaining archer production. You’ll get some map control early and have a way to mitigate any turk strat:
A good turk player will then be forced to pivot to build 3, CA/hussar. If you don’t kill the boom that’s needed for that, you’re dead. But it’s your best and most flexible option.
All in knights with chain barding. The units theyre going for are only pwoerful in mass and if they don’t have a mass, which they wont because they sacrificed their eco for imp. As it progresses, though, they’ll have more and more units - so it’s imperative to kill them while theyre in low numbers
I was in a 3v3 arena as tatars pocket and enemy flank did turkish fast imp. Had to haul ■■■ to save my ally, and a few times it got pretty clutch, there were 3 different waves. It’s also important to not panic and be patient - taking a bad fight against fast imp vs turks can be the gg right there. Wait until you’re sure you have the numbers and upgrades.
As long as you’re adding economy and can at least stall the push, you’ll be fine.
Alternatively you could go for skirmishers/xbow to kill jans but aside from crossbows taking so much longer time to train, any decent player is gonna know how to take that fight. bbc vs the ranged units and add hussars (which are free). Knights are much better in low numbers and you can’t run from them
Jans completely destroy Hcs, even Turk HCs. The only reason why Turks go for Fast Imp HCs + BBc, is because they do want to spend all that Gold on the Elite Janissary upgrade, when HCs can just be massed right away, from Archery Ranges, and are already good enough for them.
The best defence IMO is monk plus redemption to keep away mangonels and eventually defend against bombard cannons. You have to be really careful with the space in your base, because you are going to be cornered for several minutes, so at the start of the game, try to build your houses as part of the wall and don’t place buildings randomly, be efficient.
Don’t stay in castle for too long or your oponent will start to treb you down. Your economy should be better when he starts to push you. Castles are fine to defend but make sure you build your defensive castle far enough from the enemy, so he can’t protect his trebs while treb your castle down. I think onager and scorp works the best against janissaries. Take some vilagers to repair siege, mix some pikemen if he switches into light cavalry.
Said that, if you have your resources forward you will have a hard time. It’s a dificult civ to deal with in Arena.
Jans slaughter Monks though, and Turks have the Scout line upgrades for free.
A Turks player that sees you going for Monks, will just go for mass Light Cav/Hussar, and beat the Monks with the best counter to them, in the game.
You will be defending next to your TC, so you can jump into it if needed. Jans have less reach, so you can micro them, even try to convert them if the oponent doesn’t have the right numbers yet. If they get close, garrison the monks into your TC. You won’t be randomly walking through the map because you will be forced to stay in your base until the push is stopped. Your oponent won’t have enough economy to switch into light cav if he wants to go fast imp and jans. He can make one or two but you can make a few spearmen too.
My tips are not meant to be a hard counter to turks because I think there’s no hard counter. It’s a decent way to make things dificult for your enemy.
the range of a bbc is 12, the range of a monk is 9, besides kiting you the HC can kill your monk in 2 shots, oh wait you meant tech for hp, speed, and range as well? that starts to add up and takes time, for such a risky counter? you gonna hide in your tc while he uses his bbc on it as well?
the point of the fast imp is bbc + hc, not trebs, not jans, its HC and BBC since he can kite them, and mass them 1000x faster than trebs and jans since his eco is already crippled, and if anything you SHOULD stay in castle so you can out eco him instead of spending a horde of res and idle time while he pushes you… and if you let your opponent fast imp AND get a castle AND mass jan + treb, then there is too much of a skill differential
yeah thats true as well, thanks to weird match making an opponent of much higher skill can turn any specific build into a seemingly unsurmountable obstacle… i did a twr rush on 18 pop, and my opponent of equal elo, thought i mustve been 500 elo higher than him just because it was so unexpected, but if i had done any normal build i couldve been worse than him even…
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the point of the fast imp is bbc + hc, not trebs, not jans, its HC and BBC since he can kite them, and mass them 1000x faster than trebs and jans since his eco is already crippled, and if anything you SHOULD stay in castle so you can out eco him instead of spending a horde of res and idle time while he pushes you… and if you let your opponent fast imp AND get a castle AND mass jan + treb, then there is too much of a skill differential
Hera played in a way most players don’t do because it’s a total bet. If your enemy had already an army prepared he will die instantly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a96cpnv_49A
Even on Hera’s match, if his oponent keep their archers alive he will be able to defend quite well. Obviously, the target shots from Hera are pro level and he killed half his oponent’s crossbows but not every player can do that.
Usually the turk player will place a forward castle in castle age, start to pressure you with jans and mangonels and try to go up to imp faster than you playing 1 TC to start trebing you down. That’s the tipical scenario I was talking about and that’s the common play with turks in arena.
Well, then there is a misunderstanding from your side here, I guess. The term fast imp (at least with gunpowpder civs on arena) denotes a strategy where you click up to imp right after reaching castle age to be in imp around min 20. Once you reach imp you make hc and one bbc and start pressuring immediately. You don’t have the resources to make a castle with this one.
However, monks with redemption can also work to defend from that. But you need a lot of skirms in front to defend from hc and also you need to constantly micro your monks and skirms away from the bbc which is quite difficult so you usually see archers or cav archers as a defense.
There is a lot of nonsense in the replies here. To respond to fast imp you need to first know it’s coming. As others have said look for the late up time to fuedal. Try to use your scout to see if they are on stone (this would mean fc Castle drop). Second you need to fc and boom a bit. Do 3 TCS total not 4 try to grab a relic or 2 but make sure the boom is smooth focus on food and wood then gold do not take stone. Third is delay. Think about fortifed wall. Use up buildings and houses to form second layer of wall in base, put TCS in good places to defend key recourses. (put army production buildings at back though). Once they get into your arena move any more exposed vils to take res further back repair tc a bit to buy more time. Finally (start this before they get in) you stop vil production and make army. Either knts or xbows. This part is hardest as the timing is tricky. Prioritise armour and bloodlines for knts and attack for xbows. Wait until you have a mass before you attcck. Use staggered stance or good micro for xbows you must not take big bombard hits. Win the fight and the game is yours. Do not do these things: make ca this is dumb they need too many upgrades, drop a defensive castle this will not work. A castle must be placed as soon as you hit Castle age so you can produce uu for this to be effective and only with the right civs. Do not make seige it will die, and do not try to go imp it will not work. Also monk defense is normally pretty useless. Maybe as aztecs but even then its hard.
I agree with most of what you said but I honestly don’t get where statements like …
… stem from. Since the op linked one of Hera’s fast imp vods, you see vivi going for ca in another one, for instance. Also Hera himself said in one of those something along the line “ca is your best bet”.