Continuing with Lunatic's guide, we will learn about build orders through the ages, matchups and he will show us some of the matches he played while climbing the ladder.
Build orders
4:02 Classic without Garden:
4 food, hunting dogs1 gold1 wood4 food, outside of basehouse -> gold1 woodTemple with gold vill asap, before 2:243 to any resource, depending on your needsStart advancing after next villager at 3:02Rearrange your economy depending on your Classical Age goals. Recommend 7f 5w 4g, 1 vill builds manor and house then goes to gold. After advancing instantly make 1 immortal and make a war academy and train 2 halberdiers use call to arms on them then grab a second TC after at ~5 mins.
4:16 Classic with early Garden, 2 food storage pits:
4 food, hunting dogs1 gold1 wood3 food, preferably on a new hunt sourceNext vill builds garden, house next to garden, then goes to wood (you have 12 population after this villager comes out)1 food1 gold3 foodvill builds temple then goes to gold2 goldStart advancing at 3:16Move 1 food vill gold, and 4 food vills to wood for 6 villagers on each resource.House with gold villAfter advancing, queue 2 Immortals, instantly build either a Stable or War Academy (Using Fu Xi’s faster building) train 2 units and use Call to Arms on them and your free units and then build a TC.
4:30 Classic with early Garden, 3 food storage pits
Use if your starting hunt is small. This build advances later but gets you extra storage pit for food. Good for Alfheim, Oasis, Savannah, Ghost Lake.
4 food, hunting dogs1 wood1 gold3 foodGarden -> foodHouse -> wood1 gold4 food, temple with gold villager as soon as you have the resources to3 woodWhen you start advancing move 4 villagers from food to gold.Classical Age plays similar to the 4:16 advance variation
4:30 with 2 early Gardens:
Useful for Monkey King spam4 food, hunting dogs1 gold1 wood3 foodgarden -> goldhouse -> woodGoldgarden -> food2 foodbuild temple with gold villagerlast 4 villagers to wood/gold depending on what you are trying to do in classical age
Oasis with no starting Zebra in vision:
5 berries/chickens1 wood1 gold4 food on outside huntGradually transition your villagers off of berries/chickens onto forward hunt in such a way that your TC has no idle time (try to keep 5 villagers actually gathering food at all times)House -> gold1 woodGarden -> food, berries/chicken leftovers2 food, berry/chicken leftoversMove your 3 berry/chicken vills to gold once you are confident you will have enough food to advance.3 wood, temple with wood villager when you have the resources to1 gold
While aging up you should have 5 wood and 6 gold when advancing at 3:44, and 9 food villagers outside your base. If you run out of hunt, move those food villagers to wood and get domestication, then switch the wood villagers in your base onto berries/chickens.
This sets up your eco to go for fast 2 tc when advancing. If you are advancing with Sun Wukong, build an extra garden while advancing with a wood villager.
After advancing, grab 5 hunt villagers and build a 2nd Town Center. If through Huang Di, make a War Academy or Stable next to the 2nd Town Center so you can make soldiers to defend it and use call to arms on it if needed.
You can also aggressively try to deny the enemy TC with this build if they are slow because they have problems finding their 2nd Zebra or don't have a good build order for this kind of map.
Standard Mediterranean:
4 vills goats, 1 dock that goes to wood after1 vill wood2 vills pigs
3 vills wood, house with wood vill after 2nd fishing ship (shouldnt need to turn autoqueue off)
Keep putting vills to pigs
After 5 Fishing Ships stop making them and build a temple and house with 2 different wood vills, then queue one more fishing ship after that before you start advancing.
Prepare to age up at 4:02 by force dropping fish, then ringing the Town Bell twice quickly at 4 minutes.
Re-distribute your villagers to 5 on gold (6 if you will make 1 immortal to protect against potential myth unit raids), 1 building a 2nd Dock, and rest on wood split between 2 woodlines. Get Hand Axe and 1 more fishing ship (after you started 2nd dock, for a total of 7 fishing ships) while advancing.
Once classical loop junks from both docks and put the first 3 new villagers to gold for a total of 8 on gold, then switching back to putting more and more on wood until you can afford third dock/pickaxe, building houses with your gold vills when necessary.
Use Call to Arms on the free Terracotta and 2 Scouts to apply pressure on Docks or exposed wood/gold.
Standard Midgard
3 vills berries, building a Storage Pit, 1 builds Dock that goes to wood after, scout for a fish trio near the shore, if you cant find one by 43 seconds then just put the dock down anywhere.2 vills to goats (using year of the goat power)3 vills wood (4 total)Next vill builds house, then goes to woodForce drop vills on goats at 1:36 into the tc1 wood (6 total now)Force drop vills on goats at 1:50 into the tcWood at new woodline2 wood (9 total now)Next vill builds 2nd dock1 woodNext vill builds 3rd dockNext vill builds temple to tc then goes to gold (latest temple start time 3:34)2 food2 gold, start advancing at 4:12
Move your 4 cow vills to gold, move 2 berry bushers to gold and 1 to wood so you have 9 on gold and 12 on wood
New vills food until age up
While aging up 8 vills on gold, rest on wood, get Hand/Pick, after aging up queue an immortal, get purse seine, a war academy and queue 5-6 junks and halberdiers, then grab a 2nd tc. New vills go to gold.
Move along the sides of the water to find dock places for 2 more docks while aging up
Anatolia
First 3 vills food, 1 goes to make a dock, then house, then storage pit at a forest near the shore1 food1 wood2 food4 wood (for a total of 6 on wood)4 foodStop fishing ship production at 6 fishing ships, then make a temple near the shore and a house with a wood villager at home before continuing production until 9 fishing shipsWood, at a new woodline with new storage pitStorage pit on goldStart advancing at 3:16
While advancing, send 1 villager to the other side to make 2 docks, put 5 villagers on gold, rest on wood (11 on wood) and position scouts to get ready to attack docks. Do not get Economic upgrades.Build 2 ImmortalsBuild a War Academy next to Temple with Fu Xi’s build fast and train HalberdiersTrain 2 Junks on both sides of the water before getting more fishing ships and Purse SeineUse Call to Arms as soon as you have 2 halberdiers on your free units and halberdiers. By 5 minutes you should have 12 military units clearing out your opponents docks and 3 docks and 4 Junks out. Start to expand your economy with more fishing ships, secure the water with more docks, get economic upgrades and TCs.
For opposite sides docking, make the following modifications to the build:The first dock villager does not make a storage pit after docking (still make the house), but instead walks to the other side of the water (where your opponent docked) and builds a 2nd House, Temple and Dock. Otherwise the build order is more or less the same, just build your military buildings on the side your opponent docked in order to be able to pressure their water.Ideally, you don’t want to have opposite sides docking, so if you have a good idea of where your opponent will dock then try to dock that side.
General Greek:
The main strategy against Greek would be to try to outboom them and get an earlier Mythic, then push on their gold or TCs before you get overwhelmed by their better late game.
It is generally disadvantageous for you to fight against Greeks in the mid game, because their units are better than yours with their base stats. Your advantage as Fu Xi is you can win fights in early Classical with Call to Arms, and you also boom faster than them because of your cheaper buildings and Domestication technology, which allows you to hit Mythic earlier and be at a tech advantage where you can use your Mythic Power and more upgraded units to secure an advantage.
For unit composition, open with a mix of Scout Cavalry and Chu Ko Nu and use Scout Cavalry to raid. Depending on their unit composition, you should also mix in Cataphracts or Mounted Archers later on.
Zeus:
Zeus will most likely do one of three things: Boom, Centaur raids and boom, or Athena aggression.
Against a boom, play similarly as you would do against Hades or Poseidon, by booming yourself while using Scouts to raid, and go for a strong push when you hit Mythic.
Against Centaurs, make sure to wall up and make multiple immortals early to prevent raids. The Centaurs will become useless when it is time to fight since they die very quickly to Immortals, so as long as you don’t suffer too much economical damage you will be at an advantage.
Against Athena aggression, it is still good to try to go 2 TCs. Go for Scouts/Chu Ko Nu and attempt to defend while raiding, branching out at multiple gold mines and raiding him when his army leaves his base. If he goes for a Minotaur heavy army with Toxotes, you will be at a huge disadvantage in fights, so try to raid and not get gold starved, towering up your gold with wall connectors protecting the Towers if necessary.
Regardless of what strategy he goes for, always open with 2-3 Immortals instead of just 1, since he is likely to use Bolt on an Immortal. Avoid fighting him in general in the mid game (unless he goes Centaurs) and wait for Mythic to be aggressive.
Poseidon:
Because of his Militia, Poseidon is much harder to push against than the other Greek Gods, especially if he builds lots of buildings around where you want to push. The Militia also make Uproot unusable and Great Flood very dangerous to use. I would recommend always advancing through Dabo Gong against Poseidon though Great Flood is still good for taking out an exposed TC.
On maps with forward Settlements, try to use Call to Arms to prevent him from taking his forward without Ceasefire, and if he takes his back TC then take both forward Settlements and secure a 4-2 TC advantage.
On maps with backwards Settlements, securing a 4-2 TC advantage is extremely hard. Going for a fast Titan is likely your best option, using Imperial Examination to build it quickly. Poseidon doesn’t have Underworld, but he does have Earthquake. You can counter Earthquake by placing lots of buildings around your Titan Gate to soak up the Earthquake damage or walling up your base securely using Immortals to pick off any Pegasi that he tries to fly over to make sure he doesn’t get vision of your Titan gate.
Hades:
Most Hades players will simply spam Toxotes against you, which you don’t actually have any counters for in fights. Unless you get a good surround even Scout Cavalry are unable to beat just mass Toxotes, but a mix of Scout Cavalry and Chu Ko Nu is usually your best option regardless of what army composition he ends up going for.
Avoid big fights in the mid to late Classical age, and wait for Mythic Age and push with Great Flood along with Uproot. Toxotes are low health so they are particularly susceptible to getting wiped by Great Flood. Once you start pushing, never take the pressure off of him, because if you are unable to secure an advantage you will get demolished in the late game even harder than against the other Greeks. His Shades, strong archers, strong buildings, Underworld Passage and Helepolis all are amazing late game advantages that he has over you.
General Egyptian:
Egyptians in general have a very very strong mid-game Heroic push with Ancestors, Siege Towers and Migdol units (Ra doesn’t have ancestors, but still has a very strong Heroic timing), and a strong early Mythic with Osiris or Horus. Their gather rates are more or less the same as yours in late mythic, so if they have a good TC to merc from you cannot win late game, but your Stable units are more pop efficient than their units if they don’t and you should be fine in that scenario.
The general goal when playing against Egyptian is surviving their Heroic push while outbooming them. To do this you will need to strike a balance of both booming and making early army to gain map control and delay their push, and the right balance will vary from map to map.
Scout Cavalry are your go to unit in this matchup, since they do well against Siege Towers and Chariot Archers and also trade evenly with Camelry. Against Spearmen you will need to mix in Chu Ko Nu and against War Elephants Mounted Archers, Halberdiers and Towers with Crenellations are all decent options.
Well microed Scorpion Men will be a huge problem in fights. You will need to body block retreating Scorpion Men really well so the slow Immortals can actually hit them.
Ra:
Difficult matchup. The early map presence Call to Arms gives is not very useful vs Ra, and even with 3 vs 2 Town Centers you won’t be outbooming him because his economy is so good.
Trying to rush Ra does not work, Shifting Sands can remove too many units and you don’t have a good way to take down buildings until much later in the game. This means you need to go either 2 or 3 TC, and try to mass Scout Cav to make sure he does not get complete map control after going Heroic, walling up the map in the mean time to control your part of the map and stop Chariots/Camels from just going wherever they want.
With the bonus to his Migdol units and the naturally weak Chinese units, Ra’s units are naturally much better than yours, so you should usually avoid fighting him unless you have a huge numbers advantage. Control the map with walls, but keep in mind that Ra can get around them to push on weak spots with sneaky side builds using Rocs and Shifting Sands.
If you don’t have a decisive push with Great Flood, you will need to control both the Gold Mines and the corners of the map to eventually Gold starve him to win. The exception to this is to go for a Titan Gate, but that is very risky against Tornado/Shifting Sands, keeping in mind it is easy for him to get vision of it with his Roc.
Isis:
Almost always you will want to take a fast 2nd TC while using Call to Arms to push him off of hunt. If it is an aggressive map and he goes for a 1 TC fast Heroic then stay on 2 TC and mass Scout Cavalry from 3-4 Stables, making Chu Ko Nu only when you see Spearmen, and trying to always have 3-4 Immortals out to handle Scorpion men. If he tries to build forward, then try to keep the pressure up on him and make him use Ancestors and Eclipse before he is ready to actually attack. His gold mine is often a good place to attack, try to place your army where you think he will move out to build the Migdol so you can catch him while he is building it, and even after he has built it if he hasn’t gotten out many units yet then you can still be attacking that area.
On defensive maps or if he chooses to boom instead of fighting for map control, it will be similar to playing against Ra, but easier since his units and economy won’t be as strong.
In all cases, since his Monuments shield from Uproot, you will want to age through Dabo Gong even if you don’t use Imperial Examination for a Titan Gate simply because Uproot is almost completely useless.
Set:
Advance quickly, either at 4:02 or 4:16 and get out 1 Immortal and 1 military building straight away to defend against Shifting Sands then go for your 2nd TC. Most of the time you won’t be able to deny his 2nd TC, so just boom on 3 while trying to prevent him from hunting/converting hunt with your free units and the ones that call to arms gives you.
He will likely try to push you sometime between the 10-12 minute mark, so stay classic and get as big an army as you can around that time to survive that and eventually go Mythic and push back with Great Flood and Uproot.
General Norse
The only matchups where Scout Cavalry are not that good. You have to establish an advantage in the early game otherwise you will just lose to their very strong Heroic Age God Power and heavy myth spam.
If the map allows it, you want to put as much pressure as possible on the Norse. Stopping them from hunting sets them back significantly, and if they don’t have safe gold you will want to pressure that as much as you can as well. Even if you choose to take a 2nd TC while they stay on 1 TC, pressure on early hunt with call to arms and later on, attacking their 2nd gold is often still possible, but if the map is extremely aggressive then it might be better to just stay on 1 TC to get as strong an army as possible.
All three Norse Gods are likely to try to raid you, so build buildings around your base in such a way that protects your villagers from raids as best you can, and be on the lookout for good wall spots to prevent raids.
Odin/Thor:
Admittedly, I have not had the chance to practice this matchup much against strong players, so what I say here is purely based off of theorycrafting.It is very important to stop them from hunting early, so open with 2 War Academies and use Immortals and Call to Arms to kick them off of hunt ASAP before pausing unit production taking a 2nd TC (preferably forward) hopefully before 6 minutes. In the meantime, try to retain map control, do not let them freely take a 2nd TC and when their Gold runs out fight on their 2nd Gold Mine with Immortals and War Academy units.
It is very important you establish an advantage against them before they reach Heroic, otherwise you will lose to heavy myth spam and/or Ragnarok.
If the game gets to the point where you will need to be defending Ragnarok, the best defense is spamming layer after layer of walls and having buildings everywhere. Use Chu Ko Nu to defend alongside these walls and in gaps between buildings with some Cataphracts to trade on the front lines.
In Theory, Monkey King classic fight to Gold Starve on 2nd Gold may be possible vs Odin/Thor if their 2nd Gold is really bad, but I have not tried it. Going for Monkey King spam will mean you won’t be able to push them off hunt in early classic unlike with Call to Arms so should be used only on maps with a lot of base hunt/not much forward hunt to compete over anyway, namely Tundra, Oasis, certain Alfheim variants and Ghost Lake only on 1 Gold Mine spawns with bad 2nd Gold and low/difficult to contest Caribou spawns.
Loki:
Similar to Thor and Odin, open with 2 War Academies early and use Call to Arms to pressure hunt while taking your 2nd TC reasonably quickly. You will need a few Immortals at all times when fighting Loki to deal with random myth spawns.
Build buildings using Forests as walls in such a way that they protect your villagers, and make sure your base is raid-proof so your army is free to be aggressive without worrying about counter raids from the Loki.
Once again, it is very important you establish an advantage against them before they reach Heroic. Pressure their hunt early with Call to Arms and then their 2nd Gold Mine at around ~10 minutes, if you don’t you will die to Flaming Weapons. Stay in the Classical Age until you reach full population with War Academy units before going Heroic.
While Loki does not have Ragnarok, you are still under big pressure to beat him before the super-lategame, since you don’t have a way to deal with his myth spam in the long term and will lose eventually.
Don’t make Myth Units against Loki. After getting enough favor for Domestication, switch your Garden to generate food, and only switch it to favor again later if you need to build a Castle.
General Atlantean:
The only civ you actually outboom in the late game, but that doesn’t mean aggressive play isn’t an option.
Scout Cavalry mixed with Halberdiers in roughly even amounts is the unit composition you generally want to be aiming for, mixing in Chu Ko Nu at around 8-10 minutes as that is when Turma start to fall off. Add in Cataphracts once you have access to them.
VS all Atlantean, you will want to grab a fast 2nd TC if through Huang Di, or be doing an all-in very aggressive Monkey King classic fight to gold starve on the 2nd Gold Mine if the map allows it. You can also be doing 2 TC Monkey Kings on big maps such as Watering Hole, but Monkey Kings lose value quickly if you don’t get any good fights in the Classical age.
Gaia:
Gaia will usually go Leto and spam Automatons. It is very hard to put on an sort of early aggression against, so simply grab a fast 2nd TC (and 3rd if they are not aggressive) and boom, raiding with Scout Cavalry in the meantime. Wait until you can push back with Great Flood in the Mythic Age to make a move, or turtle into a Titan Gate with Imperial Examination on more defensive maps.
A lot of Gaia players like to go for 2 TC Archaic, so try to scout that out and deny it if possible, if you can’t stop it then you should take 3 TC yourself and attempt to keep map control.
Before you do fight with an automaton spamming Gaia, make sure you have all 8 Immortals. You don’t want to be making too many Immortals early since this will hurt your boom, so wait until you are at or near maximum villagers for a big fight.
You can go for Monkey Kings in this matchup for a strong mid/late Classical Age, but don’t rely on an all in Gold Starve because Gaia can spider her Gold Mine and if she is playing defensive she can repair fallen Automatons easily.
Oranos:
On maps where your 2nd TC is decent, taking a fast 2nd TC defended by Call to Arms should be your go to play, then raiding with Scout Cav until you can boom to a Great Flood push. Take your 3rd TC as well if he isn’t being overly aggressive.
Otherwise, on very aggressive maps, you can go for an all-in Monkey King classical fight and try to Gold Starve on his 2nd Gold Mine. Make sure to have all 8 Immortals before that fight since he will likely make Prometheans against you, and also try to get medium upgrades for both your Scout Cav and Halberdiers.
Against Chaos, try to split your Myth Units from your main army, using them either to raid an area on their own, or with a small raiding group of 3-4 other units.
Beware of Vortex in the Mythic Age if you do choose to go for a Titan Gate.
Kronos:
Similar to Oranos in terms of how you should play, but he can potentially rush you or try to deconstruct your temple.
Unless you are going for Monkey Kings, try to either go for a 4:02 advance so you can get your Terracotta out before his Promethean can scout your Temple (if he goes for a 4 minute advance, be aware that Kronos can do this with hunting dogs on high hunt), or build your Temple in an unusual location you don’t think he will be able to scout.
Kronos has faster Siege and Myth Units, so he might go for a more Cheiroballista heavy strategy against you. Against Cheiroballista + Infantry do not fight him in the classical age (Unless you went Monkey Kings) and just try to play defensive and boom/raid until Great Flood can clear out the Cheiroballistas and hopefully a TC also.
Chinese
I won’t be talking too much about the Chinese matchup here, mainly because from what I’ve seen, there are very few other Chinese players right now so you won’t be encountering them much.
But remember that Chinese have a weakness to fast melee Myth Units, so Monkey King spam will win you fights in the mid/late Classical age and is a good option on aggressive maps, but Call to Arms fast 2 TC is still very effective on the other maps where you have a decent 2nd TC to take.
Get as many Gardens as you can while going Mythic so you can spam Azure Dragons since these will carry fights and make your Great Flood push much more potent.
All of Scout Cavalry, Chu Ko Nu and Halberdiers should form part of your Classical Age army composition. Add Mounted Archers in the Heroic Age if your opponent is making Scout Cavalry, while Cataphracts are likely unnecessary since you will need the food to go Mythic and Chu Ko Nu can counter Halbs just fine.
Against Nu Wa, note that you don’t want to fight them right after going to the Heroic Age since Geyser is very very good for winning a fight and you don’t have anything like that. Expect Qilins and always be on the lookout for when they use the Barrage God Power so you can try to dodge it. Avoid long drawn out fights since that favors her, instead try to turn the game into a more boomy TC-grab direction, since that favors your playstyle more.
Against other Fu Xi avoid bunching your buildings together too much to play around Uproot. It would likely be a very boomy/raidy game and whoever can push with Great Flood first would likely be at an advantage.
Against Shennong, well in my opinion Shennong is pretty bad right now and I’ve never seen him played once. Think of him as Nu Wa but worse I guess if you do encounter him.
Recorded Games
30 recorded games from my recent Ladder Climb with Fu Xi to #1. (In 6 of them the opponent instantly resigned without explanation, but I included these anyway for the sake of completion)https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/640517428920451073/680376970386866201/Fu_Xi_Ladder_Climb_3.zipStats: W - 23 (+6 where opponent instantly resigned) L - 1 Starting rating: 1871 Rating after these 30 games: 2220 (+349 rate change)Matchup Breakdown:Isis 5-0, Oranos 3-1, Zeus 3-0, Loki 3-0, Odin 2-0, Poseidon 2-0, Kronos 2-0, Thor 1-0, Ra 1-0, Gaia 1-0
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/489825773734199307/680439594835247141/Gold_Hyena_Tournament_Finals.zip
Includes 8 games. I played Fu Xi in 7 of them.
My opponent realised after a few games that Ra is a very hard match up for Fu Xi, so began to lean towards playing Ra halfway throughout the series.
At the time I did not have a strategy prepared for Ra, and even now I still consider Ra to be Fu Xi’s hardest match up, so I struggled a lot in those games. The strategies in which I chose for the games where I was against Ra were fundamentally quite wrong in my opinion, however the games against the other Gods and the Midgard game I could stick to my preparations so those were played better by me and more worth learning from.
Note that this happened quite a while before my Fu Xi ladder run and I believe I have improved since then/was able to play better not under the stress of needing to play a Tournament BO9, so these games may be a bit lower quality (from me at least) than the ladder games.