Fire Lancers are absolutely disgusting meta of team games

[Harris]

I'm sure all the China mains that frequent the forums will love this thread.

The consensus on Fire Lancers so far seems to be it's a niche unit - it comes late, tricky to unlock, isn't good in a straight up fight. This reality only extends to 1v1 though. What if I tell you Fire Lancers absolutely dominate team games right now?

Here's the thing - 4v4 maps are huge and take a while to traverse for cavalry, let alone infantry. Attacking someone is a commitment - you are leaving your base behind, open to all kinds of shenanigans. Here's where Fire Lancers come into play.

With Yuan speed bonus, these bad boys move fast like flies, and are similarly annoying. If you leave even a slightest gap in your defenses - a blob of these will exploit it, and then move around and simply snipe your landmarks. One after another. Then they'll proceed to your teammate and snipe his landmarks. Rinse and repeat. Even knights can't chase them. Keeps and outposts don't matter - the blob is too large for any losses to shut it down. The only counter to that is walls. And walls. And more walls. Or try to snipe the enemy's landmarks before he snipes yours.

I experienced this craziness both on dealing and on receiving end. Once my team was legit done for and I was only one left - yet I was able to Fire Lancer snipe 2 guys out of the game and almost sniped the 3rd one before eliminated myself.

Combined with the fact you can build them dirt cheap with Spirit Way and supervise 4 stables so they're vomiting them out full-speed you can probably see why folks have to go out of their way to knock out Chinese early game. The tactic is cheap and cheesy, and is not even fun. Yet it's ridiculously effective and I see more and more Chinese using it.

[RubTheDuck]

A group of fire lancers can take out a wonder in like 5 seconds lolol. Definitely needs some balance.

[Crokite]

My 2 cents of this "tactic"
This tactic works if there is no defence. Stone wall puts a stop to their "speed". I am glad if fire lancers move in a blob, the bigger blob of fire lancers the better it is for me. This means less other big blob units that actually are a real threat.

[Viscule]

Literally all you need is stone walls and they're dead in the water.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Viscule:

stone walls

Literally all you need is 1 (one) bombard to crack an opening, then ignore all the troops waiting for you inside, rush past them and snipe the landmarks.

This means either several layers of walls or make a point of walling in your landmarks specifically.

[Crokite]

You told in your opening post that fire lancers are fast so units do not have time to counter them. but if they use bombard that is not a fast move unit. now we are talking about different approaches.

/typo

[CiiRCllE]

Yea and there's no way to play Chinese late game on 1v1. OH i forgot there's no late game for Chinese. Good work balance team.

[-SNiGS- JAM]

I've only ever countered this with rams filled with spearmen, and with keeps + springald mass. And even then it was only trading back and forth, i never gained any ground until i back door'd them with knight spam and ended the madness.

[SchwarzerBonbon]

Originally posted by Crokite:

My 2 cents of this "tactic"
This tactic works if there is no defence. Stone wall puts a stop to their "speed". I am glad if fire lancers move in a blob, the bigger blob of fire lancers the better it is for me. This means less other big blob units that actually are a real threat.

Ye, who doesnt know the legendary stone walls of Mongols or Rus

Edit: And lets not forget that chinese player can't built rams or any kind of siege unit, which makes stone walls the natural enemy of chinese players, right ;)

[Harris]

Originally posted by Crokite:

You told in your opening post that fire lancers are fast so units do not have time to counter them. but if they use bombard that is not a fast move unit. now we are talking about different approaches.

/typo

Not really.

1. Bring a single bombard and a bunch of any units, like spearmen, to make it look legit
2. Keep your fire lancer blob behind in the fog of war
3. Breach a single piece of wall
4. Rush the blob inside, passing by whatever army is waiting inside due to superior speed
5. Do your thing

A single piece of wall is everything what's needed, and you don't even need a bombard, ram or treb can achieve the same, especially if your enemy's caught off-guard. My point here - even walls do not offer a lot of protection on their own.

Originally posted by Espodat:

Ye, who doesnt know the legendary stone walls of Mongols or Rus

Edit: And lets not forget that chinese player can't built rams or any kind of siege unit, which makes stone walls the natural enemy of chinese players, right ;)

Pretty much this, yes. Rus can't counter this tactic at all w/o walls and Mongols' only chance is to pack and seek refuge behind teammate's walls - or ask him to build some.

And with how walls are weak (unless you're China yourself and enjoy those 9.1k hp walls) and siege is meta and widely available.

Originally posted by Vongire:

Yea and there's no way to play Chinese late game on 1v1. OH i forgot there's no late game for Chinese. Good work balance team.

This only works in team games, obviously. In 1v1 China would be punished fast and hard for doing something like that.

[Crokite]

Originally posted by Espodat:

Originally posted by Crokite:

My 2 cents of this "tactic"
This tactic works if there is no defence. Stone wall puts a stop to their "speed". I am glad if fire lancers move in a blob, the bigger blob of fire lancers the better it is for me. This means less other big blob units that actually are a real threat.

Ye, who doesnt know the legendary stone walls of Mongols or Rus

Edit: And lets not forget that chinese player can't built rams or any kind of siege unit, which makes stone walls the natural enemy of chinese players, right ;)

Walls are only for defence purpose. A choice. Now, if you are a player without a game plan vs what civ you are up against. The result will be exactly as OP did describe in hen's original post. ;)

[Crokite]

I do not agrue ageinst with the abilty fire lancer have. it is stong vs buildings and siege units. if you use it right it becomes a real threat. Fire lancer alone can not do real threat if opposite player handel the cards right. What i do not understand is why leave base unguarded. Have at least a scout, tree/stone wall, keep, lol-towers or even cheep lol-buildings to give a early warning. This give you a choice what you want to do. Move back to defend or build up a defence gruop (if you do not have it already) or continue with your gameplan.

sry if my grammar are off. Using google translate

[Harris]

Originally posted by Crokite:

What i do not understand is why leave base unguarded.

Alright, let me break it down to you.

1. 4v4 maps are huge, and it takes a lot of time to go from between your base to the enemy's base when you attack. This period of time makes you vulnerable. If you attacked while you're away, you simply won't be able to go back with your troops, you won't make it on time.

2. With Yuan speed bonus, Fire Lancers move faster than any cavalry of your own. Meaning you will have a hard time chasing them around while they do their thing of sniping landmarks.

3. Early warning with an outpost and such would do you little good, as you just won't have enough time to scramble a response with how fast this guys are.

Long story short, it is a combination of several factors that make Fire Lancers problematic in 4v4:
- huge maps
- excessive speed
- excessive damage to buildings

[Crokite]

I fail to see the problem more than it is well played from the player side who is useling fire lancer. Huge map or not. Your side are leaving a gap for the enemy to pass through.
You are 4 vs 4. And yes, any kind of warning give you heads up that something are about to happen or at least someone is sniffing around that area, gota to pay attention or the ♥♥♥♥ will hit the fence quickly, as you have experienced in 4 vs 4.
Anyways, as i told in my first post. "My 2 cents of this "tactic"
-

There are players who are so freaking fast at mico their units it is scary :). gota practise more.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Crokite:

I fail to see the problem more than it is well played from the player side who is useling fire lancer. Huge map or not.

There is factually nothing well played about this. Just had another game like that on Boulder Bay. I walled up the approach to land sacred site as English, and my teammate French wrecked any incoming rams with his knights.

As a response, they built a wonder and when we moved to attack China sailed a fire lancer blob to our shores. Then he proceeded to snipe French's landmarks and he was out in less than a minute.

What were we supposed to do? Wall off the coast entirely? Cover the huge 8 player map in walls? Even some cannon towers I placed along the coast were ineffective.

Unless this gets adressed I can see China banned in team games because of this nonsense.

[TheDiaper]

Cant wait OP dominate the TG ladder with them!