Greek Flamethrowers a little too powerful?

[Surgeon]

Playing as Byzantium, I left two units of Greek Flamethrowers and a broken Ballista in a fort, thinking it was out of reach of the enemy, who would rather concentrate their efforts on my main army which went on ahead to pillage some city of theirs. Well, for some reason or other the Turks turned out to be prejudiced against flamethrowers and descended upon the fort with one of the most terrifying AI armies I've ever seen. It was a full stack with about 4 units of Hashashins (who can usually take down just about anything else in the game), among other top-notch Turkish infantry and cavalry, and one catapult.

Well, battle starts with "Only a military genius could win this battle" and I decide to take down as many enemies as possible before my guys are messily slaughtered. My one remaining ballista destroys their catapult and tries to take out the ram in an attempt to steal home base, but keeps missing and only kills 20 or so men. Meanwhile, I position my Flamethowers at the gate, one unit directly in front and one to the side. Their archer cavalry rains arrows, but since they can only reach my Greeks by shooting in an arc, it doesn't do much.

After a few hits the gate flies open, and just as the ram is rolled away to clear the path, the entire enemy force storms in, Hashashins up front, charging my hopeless flamethrowers. So the Greeks open up into the mass of people that's formed in the gates... "Our enemy is badly blooded! They have lost HALF their men!" That's right, half of the entire enemy force, including just about all four units of Hashashins and a ton of cavalry are incinerated in one fell swoop, and my Flamethrowers skip over four ranks to earn three silver chevrons.

Now the Flamethrowers' weakness is their range and reload speed, so after the first volley the Turks manage to break in and engage my first unit of Flamethrowers, however the fighting doesn't last long because that is when the second unit of flamers start firing, and the attacking Turks begin to rout, creating a traffic jam. The Greeks immediately take advantage of this and toast the poor souls stuck in the gate, reducing the entire enemy army of 1200+ men to cinders in just a few volleys of burning death. Survivors break and run for the hills.

In the end: Heroic Victory with 16 casualties and over 1000 kills. Now is it just me, or are Greek Flamethrowers a little overpowered when behind walls where you can't pick them off with arrows? Maybe things would have played out differently if I was in a city and they had brought seige towers and ladders as well, but appparently forts + flamethrowers are the ultimate defense.

[Kiki52]

Yeah they can be a bit too powerful in a city of castle. I think the AI should have brought catapults to blow down your walls and enter multiple areas if you had a flamethrower. That is what I do so they don't come all in the same way.

[Erwin Rommel]

aren't you glad that scenario is good for flamethrowers.........note to self lots of flamethrowers at exposed cities and forts...........hmmmmmmmm

[Sher Khan]

Really, this sounds like a bit of luck, as flamethrowers aren't that effective at killing on an open field. Their morale hit is impressive though.

It sounds more like a case of 'you-lucked-out' on how to exactly exploit these units in a siege, and that they fired at just the right time at just the right pack of guys to score insane kills en masse.


No, not really powerful, but this sounds more like an exploit than an indication of strength, hahah.

[kelvintyk]

I have never really successfully utilized flamethrowers on the field. At the most they fire a shot before being engaged by wave after wave of enemies.

[Gaius Baltar]

I had 2 units of flamethrowers positioned at an angle to my main defensive line, composed mostly of infantry. The Turkish units charged staright at my main line, Im guessing because my general was positioned just to the rear. As they swept past my flamethrowers, they opened fire...instantly burning and routing at least 6 units of infantry. Soon thereafter a unit of cav reached one of the flamethrower units, and the other unit opened fire on that melee, killing everyone, including all but 2 or 3 of my engaged flamethrower units. Eventually they were overran but they made a hugh impact on the battle.

Perhaps flamethrowers should be a ballista type unit, with a single nozzle manned by a few men, with 20 or so backups.

[suntaiguy23]

r u kidding if used right flamethrowers are the single most powerful weapon in the game

thier use in settlement defence is common knolledge but in field battles they are masters of death,

my strategy for them is to have two units at the back of my army

my first line being spearmen/pikeman or heavy infantry, the second line being medium light troops, with my archers behind, and calvary behind but on the flanks, as my front line engages my second line will reinforce where needed while my archers do there work, after a minute or so have ur flamethrowers engage the flanks or even better rear if u can manage it. the flamethrowers will scorch hundreds of the bunched together already engaged enemy one or two volleys is usually enough to cause an army wide rout, have my calvary finish the job and defeat the more brave of the enemys who fight on

[Nevins]

I just think that they are just exceptional city defense units, like pikemen. I can hold off an almost unlimited AI army with 3 scottish noble pikemen and 2 units of noble swordsmen and they carnage at the gate is incredible (note that this is at the little stone forts in the brittania campaign.

[Okocim]

I had 1 unit of flamethrower kill 600 men in a defensive battle... this was with the Guard pikemen unit that came with Stainless steel... that was just brutal... I was shocked... yet giddy at the same time.

[Lord Firkraag]

They are not overpowered, it's just the AI that is dumb. C'est la vie.

[NobleNick]

I would say your story is not so much an example of the flamethrowers being overpowered as it is an example of a niche situation where they are exceptionally effective.

I had something like this happen to me in RTW: I attacked a city which had a small defense force, but another full enemy stack was next to the city on the campaign map and arrived as reinforcements. My force easily and very quickly overcame the defenders. My men ran around the city, quickly securing all the gates except the one I had knocked down. With spears blocking the road on both sides of the open gate and with archers also poised inside the walls, I waited. The reinforcing army came at me and were butchered just inside the gate. The interesting thing is that when they routed, they tried to get INTO the city. Of course, the only way to do that was to impale themselves on the spears. And before they died, they influenced their fellows to also rout and try to run to the city square. It was a bloodbath. The spears killed hundreds and hundreds per spear unit; and the bodies of over 10 enemy units piled up in an area normally taken up by one unit in close formation.

[Boz]

I think that they are not overpowered. It's one of those units that makes great the saga Total War.

Actually, only two times I've managed well with the flamethrowers. One attacking a enemy city, with a break in the walls they passed and burned a whole Dismounted Ghulam's unit.

The second time was when the egypt's sultan (not saladin) attacked my troops when I was besieging them. I've putted all the infantry with the battering rams and the tower, and the flamethrowers back. The cavalry was of missile attack and it remained in the flanks. They charged with the Sultan's Cavalry and the infantry by all parts, and when one of Tabardariyya infantry where winning (this means only two o three byzantinians alive) I've burned out them totally. After I moved them to the flank and burned another unit of Tabardariyya. But then, the general seeing that all is lost, retires from the engagement, and recharges ¡versus my poor flamethrowers! in a twinkling my flamethrowers are totally disbanded, but I moved the infantry and cavalry to finish off the Sultan.

Conclusion: They are very hard to handle them in open combat, and the more normal thing is that your enemy sacrifices one or two units in destroy them, or with catapults or missile troops. If you have managed to burn two or three enemy units before they are crushed, better. In defensive mode (that after a whole campaign only the AI besieged me twice, witout flamethrowers), I think is the definitive weapon when defending.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Naftatuns (correct me) are better. Way better than Greek flamethrowers but they don't fear units. Why? GF is hard to handle but unit of Naft. can do seriouus damage to any incoming enemy so the fear factor is not so important.And they beat GF (tested 3xgf vs 3x Naft.)

[Lord Firkraag]

The thing is that Naffatuns fire over your own guys, while Firethrowers don't...

They also refuse to fire through your guys, at least that's what I see - even if I put expendable soldiers on the front row, my Firethrowers seem too concerned to burn them along with the enemy and just stand there and don't shoot.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Naffatuns rock(Correct me again). Greek flamethrowers suck .

[Surgeon]

Um, in my tests Naffatun lost vs flamethrowers up to 5v3 (didn't go any higher than that though). :hmmm: Naffatuns don't seem to be very effective against higher tier infantry as they need more than one "grenade" to set people on fire, whereas flamethrowers tend to set multiple people alight with only one burst. Add to that their ginormous morale hit and they easily beat multiple enemies unless you take them out quickly.

Unless you edited your Naffatun, I'm not sure how you're getting such good results with them. Naffatun also seem to be unable to destroy an entire enemy army stuck in the gate as the flamethrowers did.

The thing is that Naffatuns fire over your own guys, while Firethrowers don't...

Interesting, it seems that this counts only for the player I've seen the AI flamers fire in arcs over their own troops. Maybe they can fire over 2 lines of men but not more?

Anyhow, I agree with some of you that this is probably an exploit of AI stupidity more than anything else. When confronted with flamethrowers you need more entrances than there are GF squads, so bring along those seige machines.

Another exploit I found that can be used in accordance with this is that, when flamethrowers are engaged in melee, if you select them and tell them to attack the attackers, they will drop their swords, switch back to flamethrowers and start pumping fuel right into the enemy's face. Usually causes mass routs.