It’s just a theory anyway, but I think China should keep in mind how to stop it when it hits a fast early 2age rush with a flamethrower. Once they are siege units and have high ranged resistance, it is impossible to eliminate them with Xbow alone. Of course, it is stupid to defend only with Xbow to block the initial attack of the enemy, but the flamethrower is a unit capable of perfecting flaws in that it usually uses infantry to block the attack of the enemy. China also can’t just send flamethrowers only in the initial attack. They will also train old han to prepare for cavalry to protect the flamethrower.
If the developers buff the flamethrower, it would be best if their pops were lowered to 3 and the price was 300. If the developers were to make it even more powerful than that, removing their shipments, and they should be aware that they could do early attacks, including flamethrowers, when the opposing China built a castle.
The problem with flamethrowers is that they just do not fit into any age 2 composition that china goes for and in age 2 china have lots of units that covers the same niche.
Flamethrowers are anti-infantry, but there are already CNK for heavy infantry and steppe vs xbows and skirms.
As siege there are pikes and again steppe which has the same siege power as pike and much more easily massed.
For them to be used in mass you need a lot of anti cav which isnt easy to mass as china in age 2, like going ming army flamethrowers just feels bad tbh.
Their only real niche as far as I can see it is as a range tank and dealing a bit of splash in order to reduce overkill. Maybe in that role you can increase their range resist to that of a falc or something but its not something you want to build tbh, you only want at best 3-4.
They are also hard countered by falcs and leather cannons since they are classified as infantry so once you get to age 3 you have a very out of place unit.
This is not true. Sending in Mandarin Duck Squad at the beggining of Age 2, and queing up an Old Han Army, can be a very powerful Rush. Unless the opponent goes for Cavalry as his first production building, he will likely lose, as Flamethrowers do shred through any Age 2 Infantry.
The issue with Flamethrowers is that they cost too much pop and resources, not their stats. They are actually very good at Age 2 aggression, if you do it early enough, which is not hard, since Mandarin Duck Squad costs only 500 Food, which you can gather while Aging, and it gives you 8 Chuks and a Flamethrower, which will murder even French or Dutch Early Skirms.
But that requires upwards to about 800 food at the start for the mandarin duck squad and the banner army, I think thats a bit too much resources and will give too much time for the opponent to go cav, since many people like to go cav vs china in age 2 anyway.
Its more flexible to spam all the other unit shipments first then send mandarin duck squad later once your eco is up to scratch. Though that maybe just my playstyle but I prefer to just raid with steppe while building up mass.
China has an infantry advantage in age 2 so you want to do something that forces the opponent to respond with infantry instead of cav
Which is not very hard. It is a Rush, so you should have your vIlls on Food and Wood to support it, rather than shifting to Gold for an FF.
The purpose of a Rush is to delay your advancement while crippling or defeating an enemy.
True, but by then the opponent will have Hussar, and there will be no point to getting a Flamethrower in the first place.
This is a fast Rush that immediately pressures at the start of Age 2, when Mandarin Duck Squad cannot actually be countered.
Does not work, which is why China always goes FF. China’s Infantry is not strong in Age 2, it is just average, and any Early Skirms will just laugh at China.
Mandarin Duck Squad laughs at Early Skirms, instead.
I beg to differ, edit : CKN is imo the strongest infantry in age 2 maybe excluding Ashi and Yumi. 15 base atk with x2 against heavy infantry while other bow units only have x1.5. It deals about the same damage as the age 2 skirms that Dutch has and comes with 4.5 speed which means that the outspeed musks and other xbows
They speed tie with ashi meaning they can kite them and is only outsped by aenna which can be countered by steppe. Once they get to a sufficient mass they can steamroll ( with anticav or even just something to tank cav)
I think there is a point to sending mandarin duck squad though, even if its just a CKN top up, the flamethrower is there to help reduce overkill with aoe damage, in the same way as jungle bowman poison.
I have a hard time imagining this. Assuming you go summer palace ( so you dont need about 400 food), you would need to gather roughly about 400-500 food extra in addition to normal collection for vils (since china can train vils during age up) + 200 wood for a forward academy + 180 I think for the old han army. This is even assuming you go 2 villages with one of the village forward so you don’t have to collect an additional 180 wood for a forward village ( which means that you can get spotted more easily) . All by about 5 min-ish with like 20 vils and 4 of them on the wonder so 16 vils.
That feels like a tall order tbh, do you have a build order I can try, I would love to see if this works.
My MDS deck.
-First you drop a Village, send the free Market card, and get up to 15 Vills, all on Food.
-Then you shift a few to Wood and Coin just to get Hunting Dogs, then again all on Food.
-Drop Summer Palace and shift 5 Vills to Wood, train 2 more during Age Up.
-On Colonial, drop the MDS and get a Barracks + another Village.
-When MDS arrives, send it immediately to enemy Town.
-Train Old Han Armies in the back of this, and rally them over the enemy Town.
-Kill off their Infantry with the MDS, and the proceed to hunt Vills out of their distant resouces.
-When you have enough Pikes, siege down enemy TC.
Sumptuary Laws as 3rd shipments helps out a lot with resouces to do this, but you may also want to just send in the 8 Chuks.
Btw, with the current cost of village, you don’t need to send the free market to do a market start.
you have 300 wood in crate and is only need 5 wood + 25 coin to go market + hunting eagles. Combined with an inbase coin treasure you dont even need to gather anything 90% of the time to go market.
Well, as Chinese, you need to get Hunting Hawks + the all gather upgrade (I made a mistake when I said to get Hunting Dogs, I mean the Asian equivalent), so you do spend more Wood.
It also gives a very good exchange rate on resources, so you can play around with the Market quite a bit, to enable your Rush.
You could easily change my deck into a more competitive version, by taking out Boxer Rebellion and Village Defenses, and instead putting in Furrier and 700 Gold, so you can still FF if it goes south.
I just have those there, because with those 2 cards, you can actually overpop a lot with Sentries and Irregulars, as you get to summon them from every Village (smaller amount, however) and they no longer degrade HP.
It can actually become a very frail, but very opportune instant army.
So I tried a game using sort of your suggestion. It think it works here because the opponent was trying to go church FF and had very little buildings so taking those down helped a lot. Also I caught his falc and managed to flamethrower them before he gets a took a shot at the flamethrower
True though that upgrade takes really long to come so its only really worth getting opportunistically or like after the second hunt and 1st edit:gold upgrade is already researched I think.
I like getting it after Hunting Hawks, because it affects all gather rates, and gives you a little flexibility.
That guy must have FF’d hard, to be able to get to Fortress + 2 Falcs before the MDS hit.
Well, that is just asking to lose, then.
Unless the opponent is also going FF, a Church + 2 Houses will lose you the game, as you really have no defenses.
Heck, you cannot even win against the Hard AI with such a strat, since it always rushes with units!
In my opinion, you would have won it more easily if you entered the 3ages while training step riders and preventing enemy vills from coming out near the TC.
It is supposed to be an Age 2 Rush/All-in.
My deck is not great, and I am not a competitive player, but it does prove China can do a Colonial Rush, and actually win with it, rather than always go FF.
Flamethrowers are overpriced, but not bad units, which Mandarin Duck Squad exemplifies. Age 2 Infantry cannot counter MDS, it is way too strong for a 500 Food army that is not even hard to ship, unless the opponent goes for Cavalry first.
My thoughts are a little different. If it’s for China’s 2age rush, it’s better to buff Keshik. Spain’s response was too poor in this game. He sacrificed everything only for Guard hals. Rather, if spain had used resource box, lancer, or Falconet, it would have easily prevented an early attack from China. But he missed every opportunity because he was distracted by only 1000w collecting. Not even a wall was built.
What’s even more interesting is that Spain has a 1000w box. But I don’t know why the Spain didn’t put it in the deck.
I think you take mistake card with China.Didn’t take 700 Gold to FF???My elo is 1400.Chinese weakly is units disability.And weakly against cavalry.Thanks a lot
The resource box has the advantage of quickly collecting resources, and you can use it to train troops or enter the next era. Resource boxes give you choices, so you get a lot of choices. In particular, the 700w box makes it possible to quickly hold hard-to-collect wood, so it is a must-have card for all 1vs1 players.
