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Deadfruit is an early Chinese top player, who is known by his wisdom. He is an eastern goodspeed from a certain point of view: he wrote many good strategies many years ago, and share some same views with goodspeed: the value of trading posts, choice between vills/crates/shipments, etc. Sadly, most of Chinese aoe3 players turned to the dark side, india 10/10 tigerclaw timing, later

Here's his own strategy, written at 2009:

I've played Chinese flamethrower for over 30+ games, and I'm sure that's flamethrower is NOT a troll playstyle. I only have one deck, FFF, with this account, but i still beat some elo top 25+ players, and keep myself a brigadier.

There're basically two BOs of flamethrower. Here's my own one:

deck:
age 2: 700f/w/g, 8ckn/9pike/7steppe, siege weapon atk/hp, 300e, 2 caravels
age 3: 10arq/11changdao/iron hat(12changdao+2flamethrower)/volley/5hammer/intervention/7mortar/9manchu, siege weapon combat(or frigate)

FF Flamethrower:

Age 2 porcelain tower, age 3 summer palace, refugee-700g-adapt. If you're rushed, send an age 2 unit shipment. if not, save it to age 3. If you have enough xp, send 700w.

After you reach age 3, send iron hat (12changdao 2flame) asap. If you can't gather 1000f, send 11changdao first. Then 11changdao, intervention, and train flames as many as you can. Train forbidden army with summer palace, and after they come out you can try to attack: now you have about 10 flames, 23 changdao, 15 redcoat, some cav. It's about 13:30, and you can try to put flames in front in a battle. (you can train flames continuously, but other units from shipments can't.) Try to snare opponent with your cav, but don't let them die too fast. Change redcoats to melee is also a good choice even versus skirms, cuz you can kill them in 3 seconds if they get snared.

If you win the first battle, rush into his base! Flames has INSANE siege ability, and you can kill tons of buildings before they die. After that you can macro your vills, send manchu asap, and train some cav, attack again after you have 10+ flames again.

Key points: use shipment units for anticav, and put all your resources on flames.
1z2z3z when fighting, do your best to snare opponent army (so uncivilized lol).
Try to beat him with the first 2 waves.

Colonial flamethrower:

age up with tower too. build a castle before age 2. send 700w (better) or unit due to your scout. Build village+war academy+market ups with 700w, defend first. Train ming army+flames mainly, and try to attack after 2 unis shipments (7steppe 9pike). Unlike FF flame bo, you can put flames in a safe place (as you can train anticav units with your rax now). 7 steppe is the best unit to snare, so don't waste them. Ming army has good anticav in fact, so you don't need to body block enemy cav with your steppes.
Still, don't forget that flames have great siege attack. You can try to kill his TC/wonder before his army come back in a few seconds!

Recs below:

You are a great guy.

Interesting. Thanks for keeping these lost strats alive

And a FI strategy at 2010:

Deck:


Basic bo:
refugee-summer palace/tower-700g-tower/confucian academy(vs aggresive)/summer palace(wanna go age 4 asap)-1000w(3TCs)-unit shipments(10arq/9redcoat/11changdao, etc)-saiga deer-white pagoda or 10v wonder-21pike then reform, or direct reform.

refugee: if you're afraid of fierce rushes, you can send boxer rebellion instead. This card is avaiable against india/ottoman/euro civs xbow+pike rushes, but it doesnt work vs musk rush. It's not a good shipment compared with other CM cards, cause it doesnt let you call a 2nd batch of minutemen for a strong defending. However, if you decide to send this, try to call the 4 ranged mm earlier: you can get some big treasures, or kill his fb vills with them.
Also, if your opponent is playing civs like port and you guess he will go ff/fi too, you can also send good faith xxxxx (sorry I forgot its name)-300e, and ally with french for 500f 500w 500g for an impressive eco.

1000g: after we reach age 3 we actually has nothing: so how to survive to age 4? A good choice is to build 3 town centres asap, and some villages, walls, or even 8 arquebusiers from academy, and 10 arquebusiers after that. But why do these turtle playstyles often fail? No food. Mills have poor cost-effect ratio. But China has Saiga deer card! 3tc 6village saiga=36 deers=14400 food! Spam vills from 3 TCs and imagine you're playing port.
If you wanna go age 4 earlier, you can age up with summer palace, send 1000f. So why not 1000g? Yeah 1000g mean more vs than 1000f, but a copper mine, 2000g, is enought for you to go age 4, while you usually have no food then.
However, aging up too fast is not always good. Without a good eco you can't support an age 4 old han army (50% more cost), and you still have no units during your age up. So age 3 boom for a while is usually better.

10 arquebusier is great behind walls. But if you dont really need unit shipments, save them to age 4.

when you are aging up, build rax, consulate, and such things. you'll need 2 raxs or even 3, train some old han and upgrade to veteran. I'm quite sure your opponent will do a timing push when he sees that you're in industrial, so you'll have to be ready to fight! You only have some age 3 units, 21pike/21ckn, disciplines, monk, minutemen, etc. Never fight outside your base!
After that, Boom boom boom spam spam spam, train TONs of old han, reform, 1z2z win.

However, Fi is not always available.
Yukon, great plains and painted desert is too dangerous for FI.
You have 90% possibilily to lose to india/iro (however you will lost to them too even if you play "standard", so you can try to be a hero sometimes).
Vs japan: most japan rushes can't really kill you before age 3. Go 3tc, wall+arquebusier, and go age 4. But sometimes you'll lose to naginata samurai rush... accept this. Send 11changdao and try to push back, then wall+3tc.
Vs french/german/dutch: they usually go cav semi, which can't really stop your dream. Send 7 mortar to kill 2 falconets. However... dutch may go pure pike rush, german may go dopple rush. Try to defender with boxer rebellion/8ckn, and if you still lost to this, accept it. This is life. A normal xbow pike rush is less scare: go boxer/8ckn or just ignore this. Even if you lost your tc you can still hold this with 8+10 arquebusers.
Vs spain: actually you can beat a spain ff in age 3 and you dont need to go industrial. If you really wanna do this, wall+arque+mortar, and go 3tc later. Don't forget that spain has age 2 too.
Vs otto: usually you can't hold a jan rush... try to kill his 3 hussars with your tc fire. If he go jan+abus you'll likely reach age 3, kill abus first with tc fire, and kill his hussars first. if he has many hussars you'll have to send 11changdao first. Kill abus with tc as many as you can, and after that go 3tc. If he's to revolt, go 3tc age 4, build a fort from russian ally, and defend with old han+mortar+fort+3tc.
Vs aztec: you'll need boxer to survive. If he go pure puma, send 8ckn instead.
Vs sioux: if he only raids, wall and win.
Vs port: Chinese FI>>>>>>>Port FI.
Vs brit: go age 3 and pray he doesnt have hussars. Defend with arques.
Vs russia: boxer. kill his cossacks with tc, and dont send 8ckn before they die.

Recs:

saiga OP

Thanks a lot, I'll add it to the strategy wall!

Wow, I did not see this thread, and flamethrowers are my favorite unit in this game, thanks a lot !

Flamethrowers exacerbate China's basic weakness. China has few good ways to counter cavalry, but flamethrowers are essentially an upgraded CKN. On the plus side, flamethrowers are somewhat underrated: they're meat walls for arquebusiers and chu ko nu, and in theory, a composition of mass flamethrowers + keshiks is vulnerable only to artillery.

Flamethrowers also have relatively mediocre siege, for food, it's about 11.76 damage per second per 100 res. In comparison, pikes are at base 16.67 dps/100res.

Flamethrowers, essentially, are a Fortress Age unit that relies heavily on high-quality anti-cavalry, which China doesn't have. You can't mass pikes, because they are built only in banner armies. Keshiks are okay acav, having a high 18 dpsr with Mongolian Scourge, but compare it to carded pikes: those offer 67 dps/res, even with colonial, with old han and manchu combat upgrades. Keshiks definiley need a buff.

Inst wrote:Flamethrowers exacerbate China's basic weakness. China has few good ways to counter cavalry, but flamethrowers are essentially an upgraded CKN. On the plus side, flamethrowers are somewhat underrated: they're meat walls for arquebusiers and chu ko nu, and in theory, a composition of mass flamethrowers + keshiks is vulnerable only to artillery.

Flamethrowers also have relatively mediocre siege, for food, it's about 11.76 damage per second per 100 res. In comparison, pikes are at base 16.67 dps/100res.

Flamethrowers, essentially, are a Fortress Age unit that relies heavily on high-quality anti-cavalry, which China doesn't have. You can't mass pikes, because they are built only in banner armies. Keshiks are okay acav, having a high 18 dpsr with Mongolian Scourge, but compare it to carded pikes: those offer 67 dps/res, even with colonial, with old han and manchu combat upgrades. Keshiks definiley need a buff.

well you should not depend with china on flamethrower, they are just a suprising unit you can add to your composition because no one really expects this (unless you play vs Aizamk). It is a nice to have unit but not more or less.

I believe flame BO is from when china FF was super OP and porcelain tower used to give 500f.
Anyway I'm not sure they're particularly good in age3, but it might be a decent addition in late colo after you have all other unit types. It basically gives China a way to crawl forward toward enemy's base vs typical age3 combos without having to engage with steppes. They're expensive tho.

The idea in age 3 is that you have flamethrowers being screened by the Forbidden Army or Imperial Army. The Flamethrowers counter Chinese cavalry's weaknesses quite well; Asian cavalry is alone in getting penalties vs heavy infantry, but flamethrowers deal maximum damage vs heavy infantry. It's like having falconets cover hussars, except that flamethrowers are significantly more mobile. On the other hand, Falconets are slow, and need to set-up to bombard. Flamethrowers can just go and chase the opponent.

That said, hardcountered by cavalry, which has essentially a 3x bonus against them, hardcountered by artillery, and notably hard-countered by Abus Guns, although they're useful for stopping a pure Janissary rush.