With Age of Mythology being likely to make a comeback after Adam Isgreen declarations, I asked Lunatic for permission to publish his thorough guide, he is a competitive supremacy player on AoM:EE and at the time of this article's publication, is the rank 1 supremacy player on ladder, playing Fu Xi from 1871 rate all the way to rank 1 at 2220 rate.
August 4th update: Meta changes caused fu xi to no longer be a good option, below the opinion of the author of this guide:
"Hi, I'm the author of the guide. Although I'm currently not actively playing right now, the guide heavily focuses around a Mythic age timing push with great flood. With the damage of great flood HALVED in 2.8, the guide is outdated in terms of strategy.
The build orders may still be useful to players trying to play Fu Xi.
I would not recommend playing Fu Xi in version 2.8"
Because China just had a massive rework (as well as a lot of players not being very familiar with it previously), I have included an about section on many things in the new expansion to explain important details about them that you may or may not know, and make comparisons with existing things in the original 12 Gods to make an educated guess about how “good” they are.
This guide is intended for both new and experienced players, if you are already familiar with Chinese you can skip through the guide to save time or go to part 2.
How good is Fu Xi really?
There are a lot of people with widely varying opinions on how good Fu Xi is. Most of these players, however, have actually played very little Fu Xi themselves, and likely not played much against it since Fu Xi isn’t played very often. There are many people that claim that Chinese as a civilization is incredibly overpowered and ban people from playing them in their lobbies and make a big fuss whenever they run into one in ranked, however there is actual little solid evidence to back up this claim.
There have been several tournaments so far on EE since the new 2.7 patch at the time of writing this guide.
The largest one was EE League, where we saw two notable uses of Fu Xi from the players NyanRacingCat and Lara. NyanRacingCat ended up finishing top 4, a reasonably good but not dominating performance, while Lara only played Fu Xi for a few games before deciding he had better chances with Zeus, (also notably there was a balance change nerfing Great Flood halfway through the tournament which may have also caused the God Switch.)
In the Gold Hyena tournament, China saw almost no play throughout the whole Tournament, until the finals, in which I (playing under the name Sword of Scarlet) decided to test Fu Xi against Hagrit in 7 out of the 8 games we played, of which Fu Xi won 4 and lost 3 of them. Our score throughout the Tournament playing other gods was 2-2, so my performance didn’t significantly improve or decline compared to my other Gods as when I was playing Fu Xi.Lastly, EE Showdown 1 was a mono-god tournament with 11 participants, and we did not see any Chinese players make it to the Round of 8 in that tournament.
Given that all of these Tournaments allowed players to play Chinese (and Fu Xi) yet we barely saw this God being played, it is safe to say that Fu Xi is not overpowered to the point that picking Fu Xi is a free win, like some people (who again, likely have played very little as/against Fu Xi) claim.
Fu Xi is a God that is quite un-explored and his potential is mostly unknown After thinking about and testing various strategies for him and trying him out over the course of many game since the 2.7 beta went live, I would put him in Tier 1, (the top tier of Gods) alongside Set, Zeus and Ra. There are situations where he really shines in but he also has some very glaring weaknesses, and on average that is roughly how good I think he is..
In the meantime, since Fu Xi is so underexplored, your opponent likely won’t understand what he is playing against at all, which will help you win. So right now is going to be the easiest time to win games with Fu Xi, as over time as people understand him better they will come up with more and more counter-strategies to beat him.
About: Chinese Gather Rates
Chinese villagers have the same food gather rate as Greek villagers, but their wood and gold gather rates are worse in the mid/late game.
As shown by the tables, China benefits a lot less from the Bow Saw and Quarry techs compared to the Greeks, and so you will want to delay getting these technologies to the very late game, unlike with Greeks. These weak gather rates are similar to Egyptian gather rates in the late game, hence China will fall off in the late game quite significantly compared to Greek.
About: Year of the Goat
Year of the Goat spawns 3/5/8/12/15 goats in Archaic/Classical/Heroic/Mythic/Titan age. These goats start with 100 food each.On land maps, typically you want to use Year of the Goat in the Classical age, since you tend to spend a lot of time in the Classical Age as Fu Xi, fast heroics aren’t really a viable, and by the time you reach Mythic you don’t have the time to wait for 12 goats to fatten up.On water maps, if you don’t have starting hunt that you can hunt right next to your TC, you want to use Year of the Goat straight away and start gathering from those goats. If you do have starting hunt, it may be wise to use it straight away also since your starting hunt might not be enough for Archaic.
About: The Immortal
Take 9 seconds to train which is 0.64x the train time of a Villager.Will use their ranged attack against most ranged units, which does a base of 6 Pierce damage per second (42 against myth units), has 14 range, and never misses except at units moving at over 6 speed.
Uses their melee attack against most melee units, buildings and Siege Units, which does a base of 9 Hack Damage per second (63 against myth units)
4.5 Speed, slightly faster than Hersir (which are 4.3 speed) but that’s still very slow and so they often can’t get in range to kill most melee myth units in fights, especially when they get focus fired by archers as they move to the front lines.
About: The Garden
Each Garden generates 0.05 favor per second, or 0.5 of any other resource. For Comparison, Monument to Villagers generates favor 2x as fast as that, Atlantean Town Centers 1.8x as fast, and Monument to Soldiers 1.64x as fast.Each Garden takes 30 seconds to build, and you can build up to 10 Gardens.
The cost of the 1st Garden is 25 food/wood/gold (20 wood for Fu Xi)The cost of the 2nd Garden is 40 food/wood/gold (35 wood for Fu Xi)The cost of Gardens after that is 60 food/wood/gold (55 wood for Fu Xi)It is generally worth trying to get the first 2 Gardens out quickly, and then building the rest while going through mythic.You can use your Gardens to generate food/gold in matchups where myth units are not valuable, such against Loki or Egypt.
About: The Halberdier
The Halberdier and the Hoplite are very similar units (though not the Zeus Hoplite), with the Halberdier being cheaper but worse in stats overall, especially in damage. However, the Halberdier does have a +10% bonus against cavalry so their damage against cavalry is almost matches the Hoplite in that scenario.Overall, Hoplites are slightly better units, but the Halberdier isn’t terrible and is still good in the situations where Hoplites are typically used, such as against Atlantean in the Classical age.
About: The Chu Ko Nu
The Chu Ko Nu is more expensive than the Toxotes, has 0.5 higher damage per second, 1 less range, and a significantly longer animation length. This higher animation length means that the Chu Ko Nu takes longer to build up the accuracy bonus units get for repeated shots and increased wasted damage with arrows on already dead units. This means that despite the Chu Ko Nu’s higher base attack, in practice they do similar or even less damage than Toxotes., so the Chu Ko Nu is worse than the Toxote in every way. However, they are usually still worth making because they don’t cost food, and sometimes you just need archers in your army.
About: The Scout Cavalry
The Scout is the Chinese equivalent of the Greek Hippikon, but because they have such different costs and stats, it is hard to see side by side how the Scout compares with the Hippikon. A better comparison would be the Scout Cavalry is the cavalry version of the Egyptian Spearman. They have the same total cost, but the Scout is a bit better at aiding thanks to its high speed and 30% bonus against villagers, as well as being much much more population efficient. The Spearman is much better in fights against infantry and cavalry with its higher base attack, although the Spearman is more susceptible to being mowed down by archers. The Scout also has a 30% bonus against archers, similar to the Hippikon which has a 25% bonus.
Overall, a great unit, and in many ways better than the Greek Hippikon, but the train time is quite long so you will need to make lots of military buildings to be able to mass them.
About: The Monk
When tasked with attacking a human soldier, the Monk will attempt to convert the Human Soldier. This has a range of 11 and takes 11 seconds. Some facts to note about this are:Multiple Monks converting the same unit has no effect, it does not speed up conversion or interact with the other conversion in any way. They convert independently.If the Monk cancels the conversion either by receiving a new command (even if the command is to convert the same unit) or if the unit escapes the 16 line of sight of the Monk, the “conversion timer” will reset. However, escaping the range of the Monk but not the line of sight and having the Monk automatically stop converting to chase the unit does not reset the “conversion timer” when the Monk gets in range to begin conversion again.A Monk cannot complete the conversion if it means you will go over your population limit.
The Monk has a base hand attack of 9, which it uses against myth units, villagers, siege weapons and buildings. They have a x4 multiplier against myth units like Jarls, but the Monk is not a reliable way to deal with myth units because of its very low speed.The Monk also can heal at the same rate as the Priest at 7.5 HP/s on idle units.
Stat wise, Monks are reasonably durable, slightly more so than Priests and about 30% less-so than Hersirs. Like Priests, they also train quickly and can be a good way to refill population during a fight if you have the resources but not the production buildings.The Monk is a highly situational unit. It is useful against tanky and expensive human soldiers such as Jarls, Hippikons and especially War Elephants, but requires good micro to get the best out of them and can also be countered with good micro. They are also very useful as healers. They can also be extra Heroes, but should only be used for this purpose when 8 Immortals aren’t enough or you can’t afford Immortals.
About: The Cataphract
The Chinese’s anti-infantry unit. The Cataphract is very expensive and somewhat fragile, but makes up for it with its speed and damage. The Cataphract only gets a 2.5x bonus against Norse infantry and Hersirs, but is still very very good against Norse because they don’t have good options in countering the Cataphract. Cataphracts also have a 2x bonus against siege units and are thus very good anti-siege.An overall good unit, useful in a large number of situations and matchups, but keep in mind it is less specialized/effective at dealing purely with Infantry than Hypaspists.
About: The Mounted Archer
The Mounted Archer has a 3x bonus against Cavalry, but because it does pierce instead of hack damage, its actual damage is about 20% less than a Katapeltes. (Though in practice it would likely do more damage in a fight simply due to the fact that it is ranged.), and is arguably a better counter to cavalry than the Katapeltes.It is very expensive for a 2 population unit and has miserable damage against non-cavalry units. However, its high speed lets it avoid being attacked by infantry and allows it to raid well, and it is quite durable for an archer, but if the opponent isn’t making cavalry it won’t pull its weight in fights and the Chu Ko Nu is simply far superior in those situations. Despite the fact that it is a good raider the chinese Scout already fulfills that role better, so the Mounted Archer should be used strictly as a unit to pick off cavalry in fights, and only be made when up against cavalry.
About: The General
The General is the most expensive human soldier in the game, costing 180 food and 140 gold. It has a special attack similar to the Einherjar that boosts nearby allied units (within 2 and a half storehouse lengths) attack very briefly as well as doing some area of effect damage.
Due to its high cost, I don’t think they are worth making before the Mythic age and until you have at least copper armory and heavy line upgrades, since those are better investments, but after that they are great for winning fights.
Because they are so expensive, it is worth keeping an eye on them and pulling them out from fights to be healed by Monks, which is made a lot easier thanks to their high speed.
Note that Generals are considered as cavalry, so they will die quickly to Cavalry counters such as Katapeltes, Prodromos and buildings with Crenellations.
About: The Fire Lance
The Fire Lance is a siege unit. 3 Fire Lances do approximately the same amount of damage as 1 Petrobolos to buildings and cost a similar amount, but take 45 seconds to train instead of just 19 seconds, and have only 20 Range. They are however more mobile and can double as anti-archers, but aren’t particularly exceptional at that role.The Fire Lance benefits from a wide variety of upgrades, including Armory upgrades (though note weapons upgrades only affect their pierce damage), Castle Line upgrades, Levy/Conscript Castle upgrades, Siege upgrades such as Draft Horses, Engineers, the relic Dwarven Calipers, and they also benefit from the relics Trios Bow (+2 Range), Toothed Arrows (+5% Pierce Damage), Scarab Pendant (+50% Bonus Damage vs Buildings), and also get +25% Crush attack from Burning Pitch.Because of this, they are a strong option in the very late-game and can raid buildings very effectively.The largest drawback of the Fire Lance is its long train time, so building Castles for sole the purposes of training them is usually not a good choice until the late game.
About: The War Chariot
Requires a Castle to train, and is roughly equivalent to 3 Scout Cavalry. I wouldn’t recommend making this unit because there are better units for your Castle to be training, 3 Scout Cavalry fulfill the same role as the War Chariot and have much cheaper production buildings.Not exactly a terrible unit overall, but China’s Scout Cavalry fills the same niche as the War Chariot and is easier to produce, so there is little reason to use this unit in games other than if you have a free Castle and you aren’t interested in making Generals/Fire Lances/Sitting Tigers for whatever reason.
About: The Sitting Tiger
The Sitting Tiger is identical to the Catapult in every stat, including cost, and is China’s primary siege unit. However, because you are required to build a Castle instead of a 75g Siege Works to train them, they are in practice a bit harder to produce than Catapults.To make the best of the Sitting Tiger, always try to protect them with walls, and sometimes even Towers. Look for natural walls such as forests and cliffs as well. Build your Castles close to the area you want your Sitting Tiger to attack from. Sitting Tigers are slow and fragile and not meant to be moved long distances across the map so it is important to build your Castles close to the area you want to lay siege to.
Classical Age, About: Huang Di
Huang Di’s God Power, Call to Arms, duplicates 4 human soldiers and a myth unit, which gives insane early map control and makes you unbeatable in fights in the early game. If your opponent avoids fights, you can save it for later ages and duplicate an even stronger myth unit. Overall a very good God Power that will always be useful in every map and every matchup.His myth unit, the Terracotta warrior, is slow and fragile and usually not worth making, except in the case where you lost your free one and need a myth unit to use call to arms on. It deals 15 Pierce damage to enemies within about 2 Storehouse-lengths of it upon dying. It isn’t much damage, but makes a big difference if applied to a large number of enemy units in a fight. You will also be refunded about 20 wood and 1.7 favor upon losing the Terracotta Warrior, but for unknown reasons this value seems to be inconsistent each time.
Huang Di’s most useful technology is the Oracle Bone Script, which reduces the cost and train time of your War Academy units by 15%. Although the tech is very expensive, 15% is a significant saving that will last throughout the entire game and a very big deal. If you intend to use a high proportion of War Academy units throughout the game, you definitely want to research this technology when you can afford it.Five Grains reduces the wood cost of your farms from 60 to 42, a saving of 18 wood. For its cost, you would need to make approximately 20 farms for this to break even, which you won’t usually need to go Mythic thanks to Year of the Goat. This technology is not worth getting.The last technology is Stone Armor, which doubles the miserable 15 “explosion” damage Terracotta Warriors deal upon dying. A very expensive and useless technology that you should never get.
Classical Age, About: Sun Wukong
Sun Wukong’s God Power, Great Journey, gives all your units 1.4x the speed for 1 minute. While this is a very impressive bonus, it may be hard to find a practical use for this in a game. Often you will just end up using it in a fight to help your Monkey Kings move in and out quickly and for Immortals to catch their target.The Monkey King myth unit has the exact same cost and stats as the Anubite, but its special is to stun human soldiers and myth units within about a storehouse distance from it for 3 seconds, with a 15 second recharge time. This is a great special, but needs good micro since if the Monkey King uses its special on units already stunned by another Monkey King, the stuns do not apply over each other and the special does nothing. They are excellent to make against Atlanteans, Thor, Odin and other Chinese, but get picked off too easily against Egyptian, Loki and sometimes Greek.
The Paper Talisman technology increases the effective health of Halberdiers by 10%, for both hack and pierce. This technology is very expensive for what it does and is less efficient than Champion War Academy units, and should only be considered once you are in the very late-game and already have Champion War Academy units and most armory upgrades.Pillar of the Ocean increases Fishing Ship and Junk health by 15%. It is a good investment if you have at least 12 or so Junks and need a little bit of a boost on water, but not strong enough to be a big factor in your God choice.
Classic Age: Huang Di vs Sun Wukong
Usually Huang Di is the prefered choice because of how powerful Call to Arms is. If it is used early, you can win just about any fight in the game and therefore control hunt and deny fast settlement grabs. Oracle Bone Script is also very useful in the long term if using War Academy units. On water, you will typically want to pick Huang Di as well and use Call to Arms on your 2 scouts and Terracotta Warrior to take down and defend docks or go for early raids while your opponent is focusing on water.Sun Wukong’s main advantage over Huang Di is that the Monkey King is a much better Myth Unit to make, and Monkey King classical fight is quite potent, especially against Atlantean.On some maps where you won’t be fighting for early map control and don’t need the early power spike Call to Arms provides, Sun Wukong is also good. Typically this will be a map where most of the forward hunt will be gone by the time you reach Classic such as Oasis, or when you just want to sit back and boom on a map where you have a back settlement that secures gold.
Heroc Age, About: Dabo Gong
Dabo Gong’s God Power Imperial Examination increases the build speed of most buildings by 40%, with the exception of TCs and towers, and reduces the train time of units by 40% for 1 minute. Overall this is quite weak for a Heroic Age power, but it does have its uses, which is to refill army quickly in a fight where you did not make enough military buildings, to get a side-build up quickly, to queue villagers quickly, and to speed up building the Titan Gate or Wonder.
Do not use this God Power when you are at or near your population limit, since you will lose units already queued in buildings without getting the resources refunded.
Dabo Gong’s myth unit is the Pixiu, which has the stats and cost of a Nemean Lion, but instead of having the Roar special, it generates 2.5 gold per second while fighting. The gold generation is very miserable and much less powerful than the Nemean Lion’s roar. This is a myth unit that is not worth making.
Burials reduces the conversion time of human soldiers by Monks from 11 to 7.7 seconds. While this is a very substantial time reduction, this is only a useful technology if you are massing Monks, which is almost never a good strategy.House Altars increases the resource generation rate of Gardens by 20%. This technology costs 150 of each resource and 10 favor, which is extremely expensive, and usually will take too long to pay off for it to be worth it. It is only useful in the very very late-game to get more favor for myth units.
Heroic Age : About Zhong Kui
Zhong Kui’s God Power Uproot is pretty hit or miss. It doesn’t do much against Atlantean, you can’t use it against Isis, and you don’t want to use it against Poseidon as that will give him a lot of militia. However, against other civilizations, if your opponent has his houses bunched up close together, especially around towers, uproot will destroy them easily and be disruptive, but overall it’s still not that great for a Heroic God Power.
The Jiangshi is a decent myth unit, capable of surviving for very a long time if not focused because of its lifesteal. However, if it is focused down by multiple heroes, it falls quickly before it can make use of its lifesteal ability and is rather underwhelming. It is expensive but good if your opponent isn’t making heroes, but even against just 2 priests or an Odysseus the Jiangshi loses a lot of its value.
Zhong Qui’s most useful technology is Unbridled Anger, which gives your Halberdiers +20% Hit Points, which makes them much more viable into the late-game, and is worth getting after your Heavy Upgrades.
Demon Slayer boosts the damage bonus of Immortals to myth units from 7x to 9x, which might be useful in the very late-game if you need to deal with Colossus or Fire Giants, but the tech is too expensive to afford until then and is basically a worse version of Funeral Rites.
Finally, Life Drain boosts the special damage of your Jiangshi from 50 to 75. The special has a recharge time of 16 seconds and overall the tech is too expensive for what it does, even if you are making a lot of Jiangshi.
Heroic Age: Dabo Gong vs Zhong Kui
Most of the time the God you pick here should depend on which God Power will be more useful. Uproot is useless or weak against many civilizations, but can be situationally decent if there is an opportunity to push with it.Imperial Examination is a great God Power for defensive games where both players are just booming and there is not much action going on, mainly because you can save it for a Titan Gate and win that way, but apart from that, it isn’t a very useful God Power.Most of the time Uproot is better than Imperial Examination (except against Poseidon and Isis) despite it being sometimes very underwhelming, and the Jiangshi is a better myth unit as well, so Zhong Qui is usually the God to pick. However, if you have no intention to push and just want to go for a Titan or if you are against Poseidon and Isis, you should pick Dabo Gong.
Mythic Age: About Ao Kuang
Ao Kuang’s God Power, Great Flood, is an amazing power that is similar to Earthquake and half a Lightning Storm in the same power. Angle it so that it starts on the enemy army and goes through their TC to do as much damage as possible. This makes up for the fact that your Heroic God powers are weak and makes Fu Xi’s early mythic timing incredibly strong.
Ao Kuang’s myth unit, the Azure Dragon, has the same stats and cost as the Greek Chimera, and is a solid unit overall that is definitely worth making. They are solid in both fights and raids. It can also travel on water.You will also get a Dragon Turtle for free on water, in the unusual scenario you are still fighting water in the Mythic Age, it is definitely very helpful.
The tech Nezha’s Defeat improves the special attack damage of your Azure Dragons by 50%, and costs as much as an Azure Dragon itself. In most scenarios it is likely better to train more Azure Dragons than get this upgrade, but if you have 3 or more Azure Dragons it may be worth picking it up.Dragon Scales has the same effect as a hack armor upgrade at the armory except it doesn’t affect heroes. It is similar in cost to the final hack armor upgrade, Iron Mail, and so has roughly similar priority to research, which means it’s not worth getting until the very late game when you’re just getting every remotely upgrade for the sake of it.East Sea reduces the cost of ships by 20%. It is far too expensive and not useful since by the Mythic Age you tend not to be fighting water too hard anyway. A tech that might only be more useful for scenarios such as Settlers, perhaps.
Mythic Age, About: Chongli
Chongli’s God Power is Inferno, which is very similar to Lightning Storm. It will repeatedly deal 40 hack and 50 crush damage to units in its area, and attack buildings if there are no units left. It will kill more units than Great Flood but is a lot worse against buildings, and is on average a weaker God Power. Unlike Great Flood, it does not damage allied units.
The Vermilion Bird is similar to the Phoenix, but instead of doing an Area of Effect attack, its attacks summon mini-tornadoes that last 5 seconds and continually damage nearby enemies. With this ability, the Vermilion Bird does approximately twice as much damage than the Phoenix, and is also slightly more durable, and is good in most situations.
Landlord Spirit reduces the train time of villagers from 14 to 9.8. Because of how expensive it is, in the mid-game building TCs to boost your villager production is always the more preferable way to boost your villager numbers quickly. In the late game, you should have maxed out your villagers anyway and should not need this technology.
Mythic Age : Chongli vs Ao Kuang
Chongli has better techs and myth unit, but Ao Kuang’s Great Flood is almost always much much better than Inferno. In the vast majority of situations, Ao Kuang is the better choice because of how significant the difference in strength of the God Powers are.The only situation where Chongli should be taken is when there are no useful buildings for Great Flood to target, which is very rare, since even if you are playing defensive it would still be useful to destroy aggressively built fortress type buildings.
Go to the next post for part 2 of this guide
Mythic Age : About Ao Kuang