Fanatics Are Broken Beyond Repair — The Real Spam Nightmare After Champ Cavs

[Servo]

Dakara illustration is better than yours @Deicide4u. Somehow you can’t make sense because you don’t play multiplayer.

Regardless of any illustration here you can’t compare the devastating effect of fanatics in game on TG. It’s a game changer. From starting at P2 up to the end where you can spam up to 25 fully upgraded (from blacksmith) infinitely, how can you stop it? I’ve seen it. Cavalry being microed as well as infantry they just dropped and when they killed all fanatics another more than 20 sets comes in again and again. 
as I’ve said they might get countered in 1v1 but in team game it’s going to be pain. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Servo said:

Dakara illustration is better than yours @Deicide4u. Somehow you can’t make sense because you don’t play multiplayer.

Yeah, I regularly use mass archers in my games without support. I also conveniently position them so that each Fanatic can reach them just fine. Oh, and I'm not even microing my units, because why would I? After all, I am not playing multiplayer, so I can't grasp such tactics. 

/s just in case, and I won't feed the troll anymore. I rested my case. 

[chrstgtr]

19 minutes ago, Servo said:

Dakara illustration is bette

The key to beating fana is to not get into a bad fight. 

Dakara straight up said he didn’t have enough melee. 

No one is saying that fana are an awful unit. It’s the opposite where reza is saying that fana are always the best unit, which just isn’t true. 

[king reza the great]

3 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

8 basic spearmen and 12 javelineers destroyed seven fanatics, with all javelineers and 3 spearmen remaining. It took 5 minutes to setup the demo.

This is not how u balance units. Are you a dev?

Its simple, fanas run fast, they run. They are not going to attack cs like what u tested. They target women on field for example. Or a small group of men which are mining etc. That totally will destroy enemy eco. Then at a critical moment the fana player send all soldiors and kill his opponent. And both are still in p2.

Other problem is that u cant counter fanas with cavs. And its very hard to micro with cavs vs fanas because they run fast. As chris himself in his first post said, a group of fanas easily can kill lot of cavs! Which show how broken they are.

Moreover why only gaul should have a super op anti cav unit? Because its favorite civ of chris he bonused it? Fanas already required metal in last alphas. Why they dont require it now?

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, king reza the great said:

Other problem is that u cant counter fanas with cavs

Of course you can't.

20 minutes ago, king reza the great said:

Moreover why only gaul should have a super op anti cav unit?

Going for a cavalry rush is almost always wrong, especially if you don't have enough APM or micro skill to use them. I sense that is your problem. Once the Fanatics arrive, you don't have enough infantry to stop them. 

[Servo]

Deleting

Edited August 8, 2025 by Servo

[Servo]

deleting

Edited August 8, 2025 by Servo

[real_tabasco_sauce]

With fanas, I would say we are looking at a very strong unit, but not really "broken OP". "OP" gets thrown around a lot, but you have to remember that gauls are still pretty much the best eco civ. If you moved them over to carth for example, the balance would be very different. Lastly, I would say that since they are a specialty of the gauls, I think they deserve to be pretty strong. I'd sooner nerf the champ cav play for gauls than fanas.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Dakara said:

then how you go attack his base for stop the fanatic spam?

We can argue about minor details for days, but until you show me some replays, I'm not going to reply to questions that have obvious answers.

[Arup]

@Dakara you can stop arguing with a guy who has never played a lobby tg lmao.

and it's not fanas that are op, it's THE CIV. THE GODdarn CIV ITSELF IS OP. THEY GOT THE BEST CHAMP CAV, BEST ECO, BEST HERO, MOST ECONOMIC CHAMP, SLINGERS! ONLY WAY TO SAY THEY'RE WORSE IS THAT THEY DON'T HAVE BOLTS OR CATAS

[TheCJ]

Well, fanatics do lose against sufficient infantry. But that doesnt mean its not a very strong tactic. For one, as reza mentioned, the rushing player will often head for the food economy first, as women cant defend themselves very well. And for that use case, having more power in fewer units is very strong, as a larger force gets noticed sooner and suffers more from blocking each other/pathing issues.

Also, while it is definitely defendable when you pull together some troops, you have to consider two problems:

1. When the fanatic rusher has massed about ~20 fanatics, they can take on any soldiers you put on any extra metal/stone or a small woodline. And given their speed, you cant really get your main force, thats working somewhere else, to help in time.

2. There are major economic implications in fighting with all your cs. Of course, he invested a lot of resources to make the fanatics aswell, but if you are chasing 20 fanatics with 40 cs and fight them for like, 30s, you already lost 40•30•0.75=900 wood just by not using them to gather.

 

That being said, fanatic rushes are not as easy to pull off as reza implies. They are quite costly and its not as easy to micro as cav (since they are still slower). Its a strategy that needs a lot of investment and skill and has potentially massive reward. Such strategies are very good for a video game and the fanatics shouldnt be touched at all imho.

[king reza the great]

2 hours ago, Dakara said:

you picked mercenary XD plus how you do with a civ of archer? i'm agree fanatic OP on situation, not all time . 

If you build wall, have a civ with good civ, didnt start spam cav in 4vs4, etc, etc etc etc

 

plus we don't know why gauls has a extra tech of food. You know this kind of bonus don't make civilizations unique, it just makes them unbalanced.

Yes exatly. My point is that there are group of ecobot celt players who bonus celt for their wishes.

[Servo]

I’m not a pro but what Aslan did using fanatics can be done by any decent player. Gauls in the pocket and no one disrupt him (there was an attempt but foiled by fanatics), he just simply use fanatics and imo with less micro. He’s just attacking suicidal and imo he doesn’t care if they die because he can simply easily produce them “non-stop” with only food and wood which he has abundantly.
Metal were just for upgrade and a couple of stone for temples (8). Before researching P3 ahead of anybody all cavalry rushers are already neutralized. 
Now pumping minimum of 24 fanas fully P2 upgraded and CS and women were just gathering, his teammates can just relax and building up forces for continuous assault.
Fanatics are not fighting main frontal forces they simply disrupt your game and without metal requirements imo they are OP (mostly on TG).

Meanwhile opponents are still trying to upgrade their units.

He never use cavalry except his starting one. 
The game I spectated was 7/26, players were Mcaurell, Atric-lll, wolf, storm on T1. Aslan, Havran, potato and Docorgans on T2.

I just don’t know how to upload it, trying but failed. Please moderator delete my empty posts above. 

[TheCJ]

5 hours ago, Servo said:

I’m not a pro but what Aslan did using fanatics can be done by any decent player. Gauls in the pocket and no one disrupt him (there was an attempt but foiled by fanatics), he just simply use fanatics and imo with less micro. He’s just attacking suicidal and imo he doesn’t care if they die because he can simply easily produce them “non-stop” with only food and wood which he has abundantly.

That can totally be the case. But in this specific game, he could most likely have achieved the same (or more) by going cav. Just because they worked in one game, doesnt mean they are broken. He just chose a good strategy for this one game.

[guerringuerrin]

I think it's too hasty to say that Fanatics are OP and should be nerfed. I believe the adjustment made to them actually enriched the game and introduced a new strategy that forces all of us out of our comfort zones and encourages more creativity.
As @chrstgtr mentioned earlier, I think what we’re seeing here is the typical panic from a player when a strategy they’ve perfected and repeated countless times is suddenly put at risk.

I don’t feel the same way about champ cav, particularly Gauls and Seleucids, and I still believe it would be good to slightly adjust their stats or improve a unit that can serve as a counter to champ cavs. This doesn’t mean a nerf so strong that it renders a costly late-game unit useless — one for which a player clearly deserves to be rewarded — but in its current state it feels more like the endgame goal that everyone rushes to in order to decide the outcome of a match, and personally, I find that dynamic boring.

A parallel reflection that comes to mind from this debate is that, in many multiplayer RTS games, a certain strategy often becomes the meta and seems unbeatable — and this leads other players to develop new strategies to counter it, which enriches the evolution of the game. There are many examples of this in 0 A.D., but I won’t go into detail to avoid making this too long.
I believe the current dynamic in many multiplayer matches is to ‘play it safe’ — which basically means booming — and this stifles creativity and discourages players from trying new things out of fear of completely failing and being seen as weak players.

 

 

8 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

We can argue about minor details for days, but until you show me some replays, I'm not going to reply to questions that have obvious answers.

What if u go play some multiplayer and see how it goes by yourself?  No trolling intended here, but I find very difficult to achieve that players start sharing replays to make the point. Replays aren't even named, so it's a tedious job to identify them. And it's not very motivating to go through all that work just to show it to a singleplayer-focused player, since — at least with the current state of the game's AI — multiplayer and singleplayer feel like completely different games.

Edited August 8, 2025 by guerringuerrin

[Player of 0AD]

This replay isn't that great, but it might be better than nothing.

Imo it shows rather that fanatics are expensive and hard to get than that they are op. Which they aren't.

 

commands.txt

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I've got a good one somewhere, but it was only because my opponent was very predictable. A lot of different p2 rushes are devastating if your opponent is doing the same strat over and over.

[Souldbyt]

I personallly think that cav javeleneers are broken. 100 food+50 wood is insanely cheap for such a good unit.

Also, try melee units. They are a good counter

Edited August 8, 2025 by Souldbyt

[Guest]

@guerringuerrin thanks for the suggestion, I might have overstepped a bit.

However, I seem to have forgotten my MP password. Also, I don't think any of you guys play Alpha 9 right now

It really feels like a different game. So clunky, so chaotic.

[ffm2]

On 08/08/2025 at 8:29 PM, Souldbyt said:

I personallly think that cav javeleneers are broken.

No man... Spear cav are better than them. Everyone calls everything OP.

 

Also marines are better than fanatics. Not fanatics vs cav, but in general. 9 marines beat 10 fanatics.

 

+-------------+----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Attribute   | Marines                    | Fanatic                     |
+-------------+----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Cost        | 60 Food, 40 Wood, 60 Metal | 120 Food, 100 Wood          |
| Total Cost  | 160 resources              | 220 resources               |
| Train Time  | 15 seconds                 | 15 seconds                  |
+-------------+----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Attack      | 16 Hack                    | 10 Hack, 8.5 Pierce         |
| Interval    | 0.75 seconds               | 1 second                    |
| DPS         | 21.33 Hack/sec             | 10 Hack/sec, 8.5 Pierce/sec |
+-------------+----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Health      | 200                        | 200                         |
| Resistance  | 3 Hack, 5 Pierce, 20 Crush | 3 Hack, 2 Pierce, 20 Crush  |
+-------------+----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Speed       | 11.4                       | 13.3                        |
+-------------+----------------------------+-----------------------------+

 

+ Athens have Hippo in p2 in combination

+slingers that can rank up from the back

This is ok imo, since athen have no champ cav at all.

 

The play style in the community is very conservative and a bit uncreative.

 

Meow came along and showed everyone how good elephant archer can be when utilized right.

Stockfish rolled over other players with 30 rams.

My point is not that any one of these is OP, but that a lot of units can be very good.

Edited August 14, 2025 by ffm2

[Senator_LEVi]

12 minutes ago, ffm2 said:

No man... Spear cav are better than them. Everyone calls everything OP.

 

Also marines are better than fanatics. Not fanatics vs cav, but in general. 9 marines beat 10 fanatics.

 

Wow, marines OP let's ban.

[Seleucids]

When there is champion spear cav, the naked fanatics are an effective counter. 

But now the champion spear cav is banned, the power of the naked fanatics begin to show in TGs. Their problem is speed, damage and decent durability combined together. Although less unbeatable than champion cavs, they have no particular weaknesses and are cheap to make. There are no parallel units for any other civs in phase 2, which makes them OP. 

In the past, they were truly fragile and costed metal, so they weren't great as late game units / meatshields. But now, it's too easy to spam them and Gauls just got a hypercharged spearman unit that nobody has. This breaks the inter-civ balance. 

Suggestion: 

1. Fanatics cost metal. 

2. Fanatics get no shield, or at least are not affected by shield upgrades.

[Seleucids]

One additional point, Gauls are already OP civ with their other bonuses, so this fanas is a particularly op unit. If more civs had it then it's fine, or if it is given to a civ with less economic strengths, e.g. Carthaginians

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Adding a metal cost would be lame. A small adjustment to armor values or hp or speed or a combination would be all that’s needed if anything at all.

[Seleucids]

3 hours ago, Classic-Burger said:

rush civ with an economy based on wood and food, and

Then you must nerf their champion options and late game farming bonus. Right now they have both strong early game and late game, making the civ generally op