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

[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 by Souldbyt

[Deicide4u]

@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.

[Dakara]

3 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

@guerringerrin merci pour la suggestion, j'ai peut-être un peu dépassé les bornes.

Cependant, il semble que j'ai oublié mon mot de passe MP. De plus, je ne pense pas qu'aucun d'entre vous joue à Alpha 9 en ce moment

Cela ressemble vraiment à un jeu différent. Si maladroit, si chaotique.

if i can change the setting of keybind for camera i can try  send some scrennshot

 

[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 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.

[Dakara]

34 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

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.

+20food and -1 piercing armor and it ok , start lighty

[Classic-Burger]

7 hours ago, Seleucids said:

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

Ideally, it should be a rush civ with an economy based on wood and food, and a little less on mining.

[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

[king reza the great]

8 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

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.

Why adding metal is lame?

Just add low metal like 50

Then the player in p2 has to send men to metal before spamming them. It make them slow. More ever he has to spend metal for fanas which means he cant upgrade them easily. It causes he not able to make mass fanas

[king reza the great]

11 hours ago, Seleucids said:

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.

The problem in this forum is that we have to argue with three group of people

1 people who never player multiplayer games

2 people who rarely play multiplayer games

3 people who play multiplayer games, but not op games. Only noob games

What we say is based on experience and observations and what they say is based on their dreams

[Dakara]

5 hours ago, Classic-Burger said:

Ideally, it should be a rush civ with an economy based on wood and food, and a little less on mining.

gauls were famous for iron and forge ,rome learnt from us

are you talking about iberians lol? 

[Servo]

2 hours ago, king reza the great said:

The problem in this forum is that we have to argue with three group of people

1 people who never player multiplayer games

2 people who rarely play multiplayer games

3 people who play multiplayer games, but not op games. Only noob games

What we say is based on experience and observations and what they say is based on their dreams

But players on OP team laugh at you! One host even threatened to ban you on his game if fanatics get nerfed. They think it’s your antidote of your cavalry. 
The champ really looks good with its attributes no need to nerf, I’ll second on just requiring them metal as probably in previous alpha. I only played this game up to A24 and really did not see much of fanatics being used too often. 
Now it’s really OP.

[king reza the great]

31 minutes ago, Servo said:

But players on OP team laugh at you! One host even threatened to ban you on his game if fanatics get nerfed. They think it’s your antidote of your cavalry. 
The champ really looks good with its attributes no need to nerf, I’ll second on just requiring them metal as probably in previous alpha. I only played this game up to A24 and really did not see much of fanatics being used too often. 
Now it’s really OP.

The guy who threatened me is a 1100 player, probablly your lvl too. and nobody laugh at me, as you see some are with me in this post.

[guerringuerrin]

It's a counter cav specialist unit. It should be fast and dangerous for cavs. 
It's too strong against infantry.

If you truly feel that something needs to be done about it, I'd slighty nerf it's damage against infantry and maybe make a slight adjustment on their resistance and will stil be a very strong unit and useful to counter cavs, which is their main purpose.

[TheCJ]

6 hours ago, king reza the great said:

The problem in this forum is that we have to argue with three group of people

1 people who never player multiplayer games

2 people who rarely play multiplayer games

3 people who play multiplayer games, but not op games. Only noob games

What we say is based on experience and observations and what they say is based on their dreams

The problem with you is that we have to argue with someone that doesnt understand that

1 singleplayer is an entirely valid way to play the game if they're having fun

2 people that dont play often still have a brain and can compare unit stats and costs

3 the game should be fun for everyone, not just ValihrAnt and borg

 

6 hours ago, king reza the great said:

Why adding metal is lame?

Just add low metal like 50

Sure, why not make it more expensive than any normal champion, after all its already weaker. Very logical... And then you would have the same problem with athenian marines and spartan hoplites, as after that change they would be cheaper and more powerful than fanatics.

 

4 hours ago, Dakara said:

gauls were famous for iron and forge ,rome learnt from us

Iberians were famous for metalworking aswell, one of the most prominent roman sword designs was inspired by them.

[king reza the great]

1 hour ago, TheCJ said:

The problem with you is that we have to argue with someone that doesnt understand that

1 singleplayer is an entirely valid way to play the game if they're having fun

2 people that dont play often still have a brain and can compare unit stats and costs

3 the game should be fun for everyone, not just ValihrAnt and borg

 

Sure, why not make it more expensive than any normal champion, after all its already weaker. Very logical... And then you would have the same problem with athenian marines and spartan hoplites, as after that change they would be cheaper and more powerful than fanatics.

 

Iberians were famous for metalworking aswell, one of the most prominent roman sword designs was inspired by them.

Well i believe only active op players who play or spec op games, able to balance the units not people who play vs bots and noobs Or people who are not in the op games.

People who have experiences and talk based on observation not people who talk based on their imagination!

Have you ever seen a noob abuse broken units? Of course not. because they have not the knowledge. Its the op players who abuse the broken units and we are here to report and lead the game to a balanced version.

Edited 2 hours ago by king reza the great

[king reza the great]

2 hours ago, TheCJ said:

change

I cant underestand how we make fanas more expensive. Just decrease wood and food and add metal.

We just want to stop players to abuse fanas.

Edited 2 hours ago by king reza the great

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Well they are not intended to be as expensive as champcav, plus re-introducing metal cost will make them just like a lot of the other champs, something we want to avoid. Diverse and unique units makes for a more enjoyable game.

With that said, one thing to consider would be to reign in the gaul eco a little bit, perhaps by removing the additional farm technology.

About the unit itself, I think the general speed balance complicates things. On the one hand, they need to be fast to act like a cavalry counter because cav are so fast, and on the other, they currently retain quite a lot of strength vs infantry.

In general, super fast units should not get high damage and high armor, and melee champcav are the prime example of this. By banning champcav, players will understandably go for the next fastest (and strongest) unit.

[Deicide4u]

1 hour ago, king reza the great said:

Well i believe only active op players who play or spec op games, able to balance the units not people who play vs bots and noobs Or people who are not in the op games.

I actually fully agree with you there. 

That's why I love that this game is open-source. If you don't like some unit, you're free to balance it however you wish.

You're also free to convince your friends that your balance is good and you should all play together with your fair rules.

EDIT:

You just have to change this one file.

Edited 1 hour ago by Deicide4u

[Seleucids]

Let me remind you, fanatics were designed to be a unit specifically for rushing enemy fields in phase 2. They were a funny rush unit to play with but had to be trained from the tavern. At some point, they were placed into temples and players discovered their anti Cav usage. Gaul temples are cheap and much more useful than taverns. These changes made them op.