Turtling

[Lord Thurlvin]

One of my favorite things to do in an RTS is to turtle, and I've been trying to find an RTS where turtling is an effective tactic. Any suggestions?

[Corlindale]

In multiplayer turtling is rarely efficient - and that's probably a good thing, as games might become very long-winded and boring if that was so.

For single-player games, I found that the campaign in Sacrifice actually tended to reward turtling gameplay. This is because you don't really need any resources from the map, since all manaliths do is increase your mana regen - your most important resource is the souls of enemy units. You can thus safely just Guardian a couple of artillery unit to your starting manalith, and wait for the enemy army to arrive. With a judicious use of wall spells and Guardianed artillery it is usually pretty easy to decimate the enemy army - even if he's got initially superior numbers - and after a couple of runs you'll have collected a good deal of souls and can start to dominate the map. That's how I managed to beat the campaign with relative ease, at least.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Most RTS against computer you might turtle. One of the nicest turtle I`ve had was Supreme Commander, and I used to expand advanced artillery outposts near the computer to slowly make him slowly crumble.

[Stormthorn]

Works to some extent in Sins Of A Solar Empire with Entrenchment installed.

You expand till you find a good chokepoint and turtle in that planet. With the Entrenchment micro-expansion in place you can defend better and also inflict horrible harm on ships that try to rush through the gravity well and escape into less well defended systems.

[Mando Knight]

AoE II with the Teutons and Castles. Their castles have sufficient range to punish anything short of Trebuchet or Elite Cannon Galleons, and the same tech that grants them that advantage allows their speedy-spawning uber-tough unique infantry to count as civilians rather than non-ranged units for purposes of garrison attack bonuses. They've also got double the garrison capacity in their archery towers, as well as being one of the civs that has access to cannon towers...

Basically, build yourself a wall and a castle near a chokepoint. Then find another chokepoint closer to your enemy and build a few castles and walls there. And so forth. :smallamused:

[Flarowon]

Okay, could someone please tell me what the heck 'turtling' is?:smallconfused:

[EleventhHour]

Okay, could someone please tell me what the heck 'turtling' is?:smallconfused:

Defensive playing ; Building walls/long range support and not actively running troops out. All advances in territory are made slowly, and with fortification almost every step of the way.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I think Dwarf Fortress might be considered to be the ultimate Turtle Game..

And if you like defensive position, it's the point of the game Stronghold.

[EleventhHour]

And if you like defensive position, it's the point of the game Stronghold.

...Not in online play. Freaking people and thier trebutchets...

[Dhavaer]

Total Annihilation rewards turtling. Seal of choke points with plasma cannons/missile towers/heavy lasers and then sit back and pump out nukes.

[Xefas]

Dawn of War is a terrible game for turtling, especially in Multiplayer, as your most important resource is gained from Strategic Points placed in various places around the map (though many are inherently defensible, with natural walls and/or cover nearby).

However, perhaps due to its inherent inefficiency, my most epic turtling experiences have come from Dawn of War.

One time one of my friends and I, both playing Eldar, fought against 3 Harder mode computers; all Space Marines. We initially had a computer ally, but they died within the first 5 minutes of the game.

My initial base was wiped out, but I managed to get a few builders into my friend's base and make a meager attempt to survive. Neither of us thought this was going to last much longer.

Six hours later...we win. 9pm to 3am. It may have been the most epic fight I've ever experienced in a video game (most definitely in an RTS).

I've had several other similar experiences with the game. So, if you like Warhammer 40k, it might be worth a try.

[Cespenar]

As said, in almost every single player RTS, turtling is not only a valid strategy, it's the strategy, since the computer starts with a load of advantages to compensate its AI.

In multiplayer it's usually the opposite. Speed is primary.

That said, I prefer Bretons to Teutons when turtling in AoE II. Fully upgraded longbowmen not only have a great range, they are mobile so are not easily picked off by trebuchets or cannons. But Teutons are one of my favourites too.

[AgentPaper]

See: World War 1.

[Bouregard]

...Not in online play. Freaking people and thier trebutchets...

Thatswhy the experienced player uses Byzantine Empire for turtling. Double HP walls and buildings are VERY usefull to survive trebuchets long enough to send in the special cavalry. Or the arguable best counter to trebuchets: Bowcavalry/Cannoners.


I remember quite some epic 8 hour battles in a big langame *hrhr*

[Triaxx]

I don't Turtle. I Porc. As defined:

Turtling: A heavily fortified and generally impenetrable base which is usually destroyed by massive enemy forces after they control the resources.

Porcing: A well defended base that slowly advances gobbling up territory and resources until it gains map control. As in a Porcupine, or Hedgehog.

Most turtles don't do it well, and don't advance, but depend on building an impenetrable defense to tech up to the most powerful units.

Porcing is basically the opposite of Zerging, which is a rush of thousands of cheap, low powered units. Instead it's a crawl of very powerful units or turrets. Done right, and enemy units end up tossed uselessly into a meat grinder of defenses.

To answer the original question: Total Annihiliation has okay turtling. Supreme Commander has awesome Turtling with shields.

But Porcing is much easier than turtling in either.

[Yora]

Defensive playing ; Building walls/long range support and not actively running troops out. All advances in territory are made slowly, and with fortification almost every step of the way.
In german we call it hedgehoging. :smallbiggrin:

[Gamerlord]

I turtled all the time when I was younger, now? Not so much, but I still do it often, but nowadays, rushing is my thing.

[Kzickas]

Turtling is viable in most games I think, but it usually requires more skill than most other strategies, therefore you probably shouldn't try until you've become at least decently good at the game by playing other strategies

[GolemsVoice]

You can do some excellent and very fun turtling in Company of Heroes. Fortify a position, occupy buildings, purchase artillery and other indirect weapons, both on the field and for command points. Place mines and defenses. Watch as the enemy runs into the grinder. First, tear apart his forces with artillery fire set before his troops. Then let your direct weapons open fire, and see him activate your mines. Pin his infantry, and disable his tanks. All that is left now is to destroy fleeing units with artilelry fire and hunt the shell-shocked survivors with your fast tanks.
Of course, many missions aren't laid out for this kind of play, either because you have to attack fast, or because you lack the units to do this.
But "porcing" mostly works. Advance very slowly. You ahve all the time in the world. Every position is shot to smithereens by your artillery. Pound them again and again. Leave no cover. Stomp their hideouts into the ground. Now move forwards, slowly. Try to get them into your sight, see if anything's still standing. If yes, retry step A, as laid out above. If no, move in and take what is left. Rinse and repeat!

[shadow_archmagi]

In any RTS whatsoever, the campaign mode generally features you, a tiny green ink spill, against the entire map which is totally covered in enemies, and leaves you to hack your way through.

Building up huge defenses is basically a given, since you first have to defend against attacks from the entire map, and THEN slowly progress.

I particularly enjoyed my turtle experiences in Age of Mythology.

[Setra]

I turtled all the time when I was younger, now? Not so much, but I still do it often, but nowadays, rushing is my thing.
I'm the opposite, I used to rush all the time but now I favor defensive tactics.

I'm horrible either way though :smalltongue:

[Grumman]

I prefer the "safari" over turtling. I like building 3-6 battlewagons, loading them up with infantry, then driving around shooting people, kiting or rushing as the situation requires.

[SolkaTruesilver]

The funniest games of Warcraft II against the computer was turtling the AI. I built a network of towers on the shoreline of his base, and progressively conquered closer and closer.... not using a single thing except destroyers and peasants. (and transports, off course)

[TheSummoner]

Theres a custom Warcraft III map called Fortress Defence (or something like that, its been quite a while since I played). Turtling is essentially the entire point of this game. At the beginning of the game, each player is given one builder unit and not much time... Then monsters spawn. The game lasts 45 minutes, during which tons of monsters attack your base (which consists of little more than some barriers and attack towers), and then the final boss comes, who is impossible to kill by yourself. (Hes strong enough that he will eventually break through even the best constructed bases and has enough health that he will survive your towers until its too late. To win, you typically need two people with adjacent bases... the first one he goes to softens him up and after he breaks through it the second one is typically enough to finish him off. This of course assumes the two people next to eachother were smart enough to build walls between their bases and have them able to function separately... Not just essentially have one big base like idiots).

It has a kinda steep learning curve, but its one of the most fun custom games out there.

[Oslecamo]

Turtling is a quite efecient tactic when you do free for alls.

I won a lot of WC3 games on the basis of focusing on protecting my base while spying on my enemy with mortars/shades. When I detected two armies fighting I would wait for them to weaken each other and then advance and massacre them both.

Actualy, turtling was essential in free for all, because if your base wasn't well protected, when you went out to attack someone a third player would sneak in and wreack havoc. Sometimes I was that third player. Fun times!

Altough I guess the above strategy isn't exactly turtling as it's based on a fast attack force to attack when the enemy is with the pants down, but it isn't hedgehong either.

Anyway, the basis of turtling is normaly to buy you enough time to build uber late game units and then roll over the rest of the map.

[The_JJ]

I'm weird. In generic RTS I like both turtling and 'normal' play (not uber defensive but not early game rush happy either)

In Total War, I'm hyper agressive in the campaign map, mostly because I know I can level the AI even with bad odds. But the thing is, I am best at that 'leveling' on the defensive. I've been known to, when I really need a town quickly, remove troops from the beseiging army the better to lure the defenders into a sally.

[Artanis]

Look for Tower Defense games. There's a lot of maps like that floating around in SC and especially WC3, and you can usually find several on flash-game sites like Kongregate.

[Blayze]

I love turtling. Many happy hours have been spent, building solid defence after solid defence -- and punishing all who would pierce or avoid said defences.

"Artillery, eh? SCRAMBLE THE AIR UNITS!"

In fact, the best moments are when your opponent underestimates you and calls you out on your turtling -- only to discover that you don't only have that base. You've got that one. And that one. And that one.

I actually did nothing but expand with turrets and crystals on one mission in Starcraft. Them Protoss sure can build...

As for Dawn of War, I always play Necrons when available. You pretty much HAVE to turtle, since your economy takes years to get off the ground and your troops are that slow. Ah well, at least it's effective.

[Lord of Rapture]

Turtling is fun in most RTS's for me, but for Dawn of War, it's absolutely insane to turtle for most maps. To gather resources, you have to go and capture more points than the enemy, which means that you have to be on the offensive in order to get more money. Firestorm Over Kronus makes this especially apparent.

That said, I find turtling to be a highly effective strategy in the Age of Empire games. Man, don't I love building that impenetrable fortress for the AI to crash its paltry units against and die.

I am an evil person. :smallamused:

[Vitruviansquid]

<== Plays boom, the natural enemy of a turtle :smallamused:

It seems these days that RTS's are moving away from the rush > boom > turtle > rush dynamic and moving into the rush > all mindset.

Anyways, for a born turtler, I would highly recommend Stronghold (though I'm not sure about its sequels. I've heard they all basically suck) because its single player campaign stands very well on its own. The Age of series also allows turtling strategies, and so do the Rise of series (though if you get Rise of Legends, you basically have to play it on its own ever since Big Huge Games shut it down)

[EleventhHour]

Turtling is fun in most RTS's for me, but for Dawn of War, it's absolutely insane to turtle for most maps. To gather resources, you have to go and capture more points than the enemy, which means that you have to be on the offensive in order to get more money. Firestorm Over Kronus makes this especially apparent.

That said, I find turtling to be a highly effective strategy in the Age of Empire games. Man, don't I love building that impenetrable fortress for the AI to crash its paltry units against and die.

I am an evil person. :smallamused:

It is not truely possible in Dawn of War, unless you... Aggressive Turtle, lunging out first to righteously claim Requesition Point, then building your wall of steel about them. Likely, it would still be a superior strategey to get the 5-minute-army and mob up the map.

Oh, I <3 AoE so much... Except the silly Age of Mythology...

[Lord of Rapture]

It is not truely possible in Dawn of War, unless you... Aggressive Turtle, lunging out first to righteously claim Requesition Point, then building your wall of steel about them. Likely, it would still be a superior strategey to get the 5-minute-army and mob up the map.

Oh, I <3 AoE so much... Except the silly Age of Mythology...

I play Firestorm these days now. Only one turret allowed per base. Makes it really hard to turtle and forces you to go aggresive.

[Oslecamo]

I play Firestorm these days now. Only one turret allowed per base. Makes it really hard to turtle and forces you to go aggresive.

Ah, so you instaled it! Great! Now how about joining our Xfire room, "the fok spot" and playing some matches against other fokers?

Altough I must point out necrons must turtle at the begining of the game, as they can upgrade their LPs to LP turrets right away at T1, but their basic squads cost 900 req, and suck horribly at melee, so you really can't rush anything as the other races starting squads will kick your undead metalic butt if you try to face them. Of course when you reach T2...:smallbiggrin:

[Johel]

As said, in almost every single player RTS, turtling is not only a valid strategy, it's the strategy, since the computer starts with a load of advantages to compensate its AI.

In multiplayer it's usually the opposite. Speed is primary.

A friend of mine (let's call him X) learned it the hard way in Red Alert II.
He took the americans and went for a "fast special attacks" kind of play, investing most resources in the right constructions and recruiting nearly no troop. He thought that, by the time I would come, he would have the potential to nuke me from the distance with the weather control-thing.

2 minutes, 15 seconds
That was about the length of the party.
A first conscript rush crippled his base and he only survived because he kept recruiting dogs...which crippled his economy too.
The second rush was tanks + conscripts and had such an overwhelming numerical superiority that there was no way for the tiny US base to survive without special weapons.

The next battle lasted a little longer, since there WAS an actual army to stop the russian tidal wave. Yet, in the long run, being able to just block your enemy isn't enough.

(X) DID turtle in DoW and very efficiently. I never played against him in DoW but other friends reported me that memorable skype exchange after a 4-players game.
He had kept setting mine fields around and sitting in his corner (as usual...).
All 3 players were mainly ignoring him and fought among themselves, as it was useless to rush his defenses, which ironically kept increasing because people ignored him. Then, suddenly, as a player assaulted another, leaving himself wide open, there was a lag, followed by alarm message : (X) was attacking the attacking player...
"-(X), what are you doing ?"
[High pitched, madly laughing voice]
"-I'm zerging you, ******* !! MOUAHAHAHA !!"
"-...Oh sh--."
With the 1st player down, a 2nd player half-dead because of the 1st player's attack and (X) with a VERY impressive defense still intact, he just couldn't be defeated by the 4th player, which wasn't that good anyway.

[Triaxx]

C&C isn't very turtle friendly anyway. If I remember correctly there aren't any tower defenses. And sandbags don't count.

Booming is more the middle ground between rushing and turtling than the direct enemy.

The nature of the combat is cyclic. Booming beats Turtling. Rushing beats Booming. Turtling defeats Rushing. But each defeats the first in a manner that makes them vulnerable to the second.

Boomers beat Turtles by expanding quickly and focusing on taking control of the map and the resources it has. This functions to prevent the turtle from expanding to cover his increasing costs. So a boomer should have several bases, each built around his resource nexus'. There are two options here. One strategy is to have each nexus be the focus for one type of unit. Air/Ground/Sea, or Archery, Cavalry, Infantry. The other is to have one of each at every nexus. The former means you can rapidly field large armies from the concentration of factories, but means that an enemy can send massive forces of the counter against them until it falls. The latter means that you'll be fielding smaller combined arms forces, but you won't have the weaknesses inherent in single type formations.

Rushers beat Boomers by... Rushing. Rapidly laying down as many forces as they can to deliver a knockout blow to the Boomer economy before it gets to steam roller proportions. Usually a ground unit, something with lots of damage potential, sometimes alone and sometimes only in groups, but it has to be something that's also fast, to not only catch worker/engineers, but to reach the enemy base before it's no longer their only base. Unfortunately, Rushing requires most of the player's concentration and doesn't leave room for any sort of expansion beyond the bare necessities of rushing. Nor does it leave any units at home to defend or resources for defenses in case of counter attack.

Turtles defeat Rushers, simply by surviving that first knockout punch. Not laying down more than one factory, and focusing all resources on engineers and the construction of towers capable of defeating that first wave of attackers. The opening move is basically to build a meat grinder for the enemy to throw his units into. Some games don't really have those quick to build towers like the Age of Empires games, so the wise turtle focuses on fences and staying close to the Town Center which is helpful in the event of a rush. Other games revel in the ability of the player to throw down huge numbers of defensive towers. Supreme Commander is one with rapidly buildable and rapid firing defensive towers. They are out ranged by artillery but those have to be micromanaged or they'll run straight into range.

Once that initial wave is fended off, then the Turtle should begin expanding in concentric rings, disassembling inner defenses or upgrading or replacing them with more powerful versions. By the time the third ring is reached it's time to begin building units in addition to towers, to patrol the inner rings while the defenses are moved outwards. Continuing to expand provides more economy as you grow and lets you grab more map. Be wary of penetration by air and troops dropping into sensitive areas.

Alternately is the rolling base. Built oblong and heading towards the enemy, this base relies on towers for defense to the rear and mobile units forward. Don't build walls and build a few factories as you go. Stop and build a conventional base when you reach the opponent. Now you're camped outside his gate and can build a defensive wall around him to box him into a turtle strategy. Now claim any resources you skipped over and pound him into submission.

Sea Turtles: Not a lot of games are well suited to Sea Turtling. The tricks are similar to land, but there is no land for expansion. You have to take and hold as many islands as you can and use the water between them for the construction and deployment of as many submarines as you can. Ships and subs alike will go down to your subs. Be sure to maintain a screen around your islands out range of enemy battleship guns. The only towers worth building are air defense. Artillery should be located on the outer most islands.

[Lord of Rapture]

Ah, so you instaled it! Great! Now how about joining our Xfire room, "the fok spot" and playing some matches against other fokers?

Altough I must point out necrons must turtle at the begining of the game, as they can upgrade their LPs to LP turrets right away at T1, but their basic squads cost 900 req, and suck horribly at melee, so you really can't rush anything as the other races starting squads will kick your undead metalic butt if you try to face them. Of course when you reach T2...:smallbiggrin:

I'm in Hong Kong. Do you really think I can get the same server as you?

By the way, FoK is everything that I hoped DoW 2 would be, and the fact that it shifted away towards a watered-down RTT makes me a very sad puppy.

[Tavar]

I believe that it's possible to change your server, or something like that, to play with other countries.

Quick question: firestorm doesn't remove the game requirements to play each race on multiplayer, does it? I lost my DoW 1 cd key, but have Dark Crusade....

[Mando Knight]

That said, I prefer Bretons to Teutons when turtling in AoE II. Fully upgraded longbowmen not only have a great range, they are mobile so are not easily picked off by trebuchets or cannons. But Teutons are one of my favourites too.

Paladins handle the siege engines that can actually threaten Teutonic castles, and the castles handle anything that can hurt the paladins. For mobile anti-piker power, Hand Cannon works well...

[Archonic Energy]

me and my friend have literally fought each other to a standstill in Supreme Commander.

Feilds of Isaus... or something...

the bottle neck was fortifed with a line of Level 2 Ground defence, 2 lines of UEF level 3 ground defence, 2 rows of level 3 air defence, a line of Level 3 "hive buildings", 3 lines of level 3 sheilds, a line of level 3 gens, Tatical missle defences, stratigic missle defences , and a line of level 2 artillery... even 10 fatboys couldn't get through!

we were able to do alot of damage to each other but eventually our offences ran out of steam and stalled while the defenes were replaced.

the game lasted 7 HOURS! and we then declared a draw... because we needed to sleep.

[SolkaTruesilver]

me and my friend have literally fought each other to a standstill in Supreme Commander.

Feilds of Isaus... or something...

the bottle neck was fortifed with a line of Level 2 Ground defence, 2 lines of UEF level 3 ground defence, 2 rows of level 3 air defence, a line of Level 3 "hive buildings", 3 lines of level 3 sheilds, a line of level 3 gens, Tatical missle defences, stratigic missle defences , and a line of level 2 artillery... even 10 fatboys couldn't get through!

we were able to do alot of damage to each other but eventually our offences ran out of steam and stalled while the defenes were replaced.

the game lasted 7 HOURS! and we then declared a draw... because we needed to sleep.

That's some serious turtling you had going there. sounds like you had fun!

Supreme Commander really can give you some of the funniest turtle available. Something I like to do:

4-lvl 2 anti-ground guns, 5-lvl 2 anti-air guns, 2x shield generators (MK2), 1 artillery piece. Some defense against tac missiles if possible...

that's a standard artillery outpost. Not something to really damage the other guy, but ennough to weaken his shields on a regular basis. If possible, I'd try to rush his energy sources with heavy gunships and/or battlecruisers, and then use the opening to neutralise his strategic missile defense.

You really have to beat those defenses like you are peeling a Prismatic Sphere.:smallbiggrin:

[Oslecamo]

I'm in Hong Kong. Do you really think I can get the same server as you?

Oficial servers are for sissies! The FoK community uses hamachi, Xfire and, more recently, Tunngle(altough it's still a beta program) to create games with people from all around the world. Check out the FoK site for details:

http://fok.dow-mods.com/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=58

My name is there in Onard. I'm not always logged in, but feel free to drop a PM to my GiTp acount if you want to try it out, since I regularly check this forums.

Altough I've got to admit, the AI is fun to play against. Better than the vanilla at least.



By the way, FoK is everything that I hoped DoW 2 would be, and the fact that it shifted away towards a watered-down RTT makes me a very sad puppy.

Agreed 100%. FoK really makes those medium-large batles that we read on the books come to live!

Tavar:Unfortenely I don't think it doesn't. But necrons, taus and black templars are always available, and I think I heard rumors there's way of unlocking the other races whitout cd-key. cough google it! cough

[Optimystik]

In german we call it hedgehoging. :smallbiggrin:

Interesting :smallsmile: I wonder if it translates to other animals in other places?

In WC3, the Undead probably turtle best, what with their town hall and every supply depot being a tower. It's expensive but effective against the computer.

[Triaxx]

No no, Fatboys aren't good siege breakers. They don't have the health or firepower to break down the shields.

You should have been building Mavor's. :D That's guaranteed to break shields and defenses. Not to mention giving lighter weapons time to do their work.

And you can use T3 Mobile Artillery to break open shields as well.

[Setra]

You all aren't Turtley enough for the Turtle club.

[Murska]

Or play Aeon and go with a flood of Galactic Colossi. Or Cybran and massproduce hundreds of Soul Rippers.

[Archonic Energy]

4-lvl 23 anti-ground guns, 5-lvl 23 anti-air guns, 2x shield generators (MK2), 1 artillery piece. Some defense against tac missiles if possible...

that's a standard artillery outpost. Not something to really damage the other guy, but ennough to weaken his shields on a regular basis.

add a level 2 reactor & a Tech 3 "Hive" building and you have one of my standard Firebases... Engineers didn't last long enough to build the first sheild. :smallsigh:



No no, Fatboys aren't good siege breakers. They don't have the health or firepower to break down the shields.

You should have been building Mavor's. :D That's guaranteed to break shields and defenses. Not to mention giving lighter weapons time to do their work.

And you can use T3 Mobile Artillery to break open shields as well.

No Level 3+ Artillery.
No Novax
everything else was fair game...
mobile art didn't last long... T2 gunships

UEF Vs UEF


Or play Aeon and go with a flood of CZARs. Or Cybran and massproduce hundreds of Soul Rippers.
my SOP... :smallwink:

[Inhuman Bot]

In WC3, the Undead probably turtle best, what with their town hall and every supply depot being a tower. It's expensive but effective against the computer.

I find humans to be a better turtle, actually. Though I don't turtle much. I find it a boring strategy, and very ineffective VS actual players.

[SolkaTruesilver]

add a level 2 reactor & a Tech 3 "Hive" building and you have one of my standard Firebases... Engineers didn't last long enough to build the first sheild. :smallsigh:


What's a Hive building?

[Archonic Energy]

What's a Hive building?

the buildings which can assist production... the Cyberan call them "Hive" i can't remember what the UEF call them.
if placed near a defensive position they repair buildings which are being damaged, very helpful!

however they can't build anything, only assist & repair. you need a tech 3 engineer on site for that (or a SACU, but they are Volatile)

[Cristo Meyers]

Anyways, for a born turtler, I would highly recommend Stronghold (though I'm not sure about its sequels. I've heard they all basically suck) because its single player campaign stands very well on its own.

Stronghold: Crusader is arguably better than the original, mainly because it has a skirmish mode that the original lacks. YMMV and all that, but I enjoyed it a lot more than Stronghold.

Stronghold 2, though...yeah, it's not nearly as good as the original 2.

[Oslecamo]

I find humans to be a better turtle, actually. Though I don't turtle much. I find it a boring strategy, and very ineffective VS actual players.

Actualy, human turtle is a pro lv strategy in tournaments if you do it right.

The trick is, humans are the best race for fast expansion. Mountain king or archmage+militia can quickly clear up a mine, then rush build a second town center to double your gold income. This however leaves you horribly vulnerable to a quick rush, unless... You build half a dozen towers on the expansion! Fast, cheap, and they'll quickly pay themselves. From there you can proceed to overwhelm the enemy with superior resources before they can set up an expanion of their own.

Building towers in strategic choke points and eventualy in the enemy base before he/she can get to T3 can and has given victory to human players, altough it's also considered a cheap/dirty tactic. But hey, humans are kinda gimped anyway unit wise, so they need to use every resource to their advantage!

[Tavar]

Pity about the game not limited races. Oh well, just have to beg a install off my friends.

[Brother Oni]

You can do some excellent and very fun turtling in Company of Heroes.

I find turtling in CoH is just asking for repeated artillery barrages to be dropped on your head, as any large concentration of forces is just a big flashing bullseye to a human player.

The only way you can get away with it is to go up against a faction that either doesn't have artillery or hasn't chosen an artillery enabled doctrine.

That said, the amount of fun you can have fortifying a defensive position is immense - Stonewall is my favourite operation.

[Twin2]

Ohhh empire earth the memories this bring up about you. It is quite possibly the most turtly game I have ever played thanks to the computer being a cheating bastard. God help you if you have more then one cpu opponent because they have more resources from the start, and know where you live. Even on easy you had about five minutes before a horde of generic infantry strolled into your base followed by another computers army after you barely defeated them. Even on easy I could barely last long on land maps, and if you think island maps are any different well they are. It is just that now instead of there being land with other cpus to get through there is ocean, which provides a fine road for ALL of the computers to run transports filled with guys to your base. Best thing I found was to literally wall the islands outer rim with towers, and then eventually aa guns to prevent air craft from running them into the ground.

Hilariously enough the computers is just as damn good as turtling as anyone else is, and thanks to the resources it "gets" at the start will have a wall of towers up before you know it making it ungodly hard to even try early game assaults. That being said there was nothing more satisfying to me then taking my navy, parking it outside their range, blowing the hell out of their towers, and then landing an army to get into the chewy caramel center of their base. :smallsigh:

[Triaxx]

Novax's suck anyway. And the Mobile Artillery needs cover from Flak and Mobile Shields.

[Arbitrarity]

I find turtling in CoH is just asking for repeated artillery barrages to be dropped on your head, as any large concentration of forces is just a big flashing bullseye to a human player.

The only way you can get away with it is to go up against a faction that either doesn't have artillery or hasn't chosen an artillery enabled doctrine.

That said, the amount of fun you can have fortifying a defensive position is immense - Stonewall is my favourite operation.

Works for stonewall, but in 1v1 or 2v2, you'll just lose map control, and have no resources for arty. Then you get steamrolled by tanks.
Mines are important in good play, because they slow your opponent's counter-capping down, and can cost him a lot of resources, but CoH is really about pushing out for map control, then keeping momentum and crushing your opponent's resources, so that he can't fight back properly, and you can pin him in his base.

[Brother Oni]

Works for stonewall, but in 1v1 or 2v2, you'll just lose map control, and have no resources for arty. Then you get steamrolled by tanks.

GolemsVoice was the one advocating turtling in CoH; I agree with you that it's bad idea in general play.

That said, well placed medic bunkers could be regarded as a turtle point, especially when defended with a MG and some anti-armour stuff.

[Archonic Energy]

Novax's suck anyway. And the Mobile Artillery needs cover from Flak and Mobile Shields.

Tech 3 Gunships & bombers... while they didn't last long against the wall of defences they were good at striking at the enemy's attacking units.

you don't think that in 7 hours we didn't try all our possibilities!

even a full assault of tech 3 bombers fell against the monumental defences we constructed!

novax win:
Step 1: build 3 Novax centres (timed so they come on within seconds of each other)
Step 2: attack the enemy commander directly
Step 3: when satalites are over commander press [Ctrl] + K.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit

each Novax crash will cause 3k damage and is uneffected by sheilds :smallamused:
the same method as "[Ctrl] + K"ing a Czar over a sheilded base

[Eldariel]

High-level Starcraft enables especially Terran turtling quite well. Of course you still have to be aggressive in harrassment and securing new expansions (so you don't fall terribly behind in resources), but the slowly expanding area control with tanks, mines and turrets while you vulture harrass their workers is a very functional way of playing Ran and indeed, quite commonly the tactic of choice for professional Ran-players.

High-level Warcraft III also enables Human turtling. For some reason, us humans always seem to be depicted as "The guys who build a bunch of towers and sit." But again, I'll emphasize that you do need to make proactive moves to make it work out (particularly securing new expansions and leveling your heroes, though that's less important for a high cash army focused Human, than for other races).

[Blayze]

the amount of fun you can have fortifying a defensive position is immense

"Pioneer team ready!"

Defensive Doctrine, Defensive Arterillery, a load of MG bunkers and all the remote-control bombs I can afford -- then I get to start playing with the AT/AA guns. Oh, they're *fun*.

[Closet_Skeleton]

See: World War 1.

Not so fun in real life is it?

I tend to turtle, because building a base is more creative than building an army. I got bored of Age of Empires/Mythology because I spent hours building bases only to win in five minutes.

Dawn of War screwed up turtling by capping how many turrets you could build, but I still tended to spend 60% of the game time with only the two-three strategic points you start with in your base.

In Red Alert 2 I tended to turtle with allies and then counter-attack with spies and chronosphered tanks while as Soviets I just built as many apocalypse tanks as possible (unless it was a defence mission when I turtled, I actually turtled the penulitmate mission of the soviet campaign and blew up Yuri with nukes). Against Kirov airships I tended to have a moving defence of anti-air fast vehicles.

The only game where I hate turtling is Praetorians, where if you're the defenders you're essentially screwed unless you can counter-attack his siege with fire arrows or cavalry and most of the game is about scouting ahead as you advance and setting up ambushes.

[Brother Oni]

"Pioneer team ready!"

Defensive Doctrine, Defensive Arterillery, a load of MG bunkers and all the remote-control bombs I can afford -- then I get to start playing with the AT/AA guns. Oh, they're *fun*.

Layered defences are fun to make, especially with tank traps first, then barbed wire and sandbags behind to stop infantry shenanigans (with a MG team covering the wire and a mortar team well out of sight stopping large infantry swarms).

There's also simply putting barbed wire on the enemy side of sandbags to stop them using them as cover, or if you're feeling nasty, substituting the wire for mines.

Only problem with the AT/AA guns is snipers. There's nothing worse than losing a gun crew, then having the enemy recrew your own gun and turning it on your own defences.
On the other hand when you do it to an opponent, I have to resist the urge to cackle manically as it single handedly turns his entire turtle spot into wreckage...

[Triaxx]

Hey, Real-life turtling is great fun. If you're a sniper. "Machine Gun Nest." Bam, bam, bam. 'You were saying?'

---

7 hours? Well, UEF is the most defensive faction. But I'd have expected a Nuclear Cascade to have punched through simply by weight of numbers. Of course, no T3 artillery is why it lasted. Those are the kinds of situations that stuff was made for.

Of course if you were flying straight in, and not using any sort of formation, it's natural for the defenses to win.

[EleventhHour]

Only problem with the AT/AA guns is snipers. There's nothing worse than losing a gun crew, then having the enemy recrew your own gun and turning it on your own defences.
On the other hand when you do it to an opponent, I have to resist the urge to cackle manically as it single handedly turns his entire turtle spot into wreckage...

This is why you need a lot of troops around your AT pieces. Or a second line of AT's to kill that one. :smallwink:

[warty goblin]

Hey, Real-life turtling is great fun. If you're a sniper. "Machine Gun Nest." Bam, bam, bam. 'You were saying?'

This is one of the many reasons that artillery is the friend of your enemy, because having mortar rounds hitting you from 10 kilometers is fairly sure to ruin your day.

I personally like Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment's approach to defenses. You can build them, they are disgustingly expensive, but also disgustingly powerful, and thanks to a starbase's economic upgrades, they can actually remain useful after your front lines leave them behind.

Plus they fit into the overall paranoid fleet movement that game so thrives on. I personally rather like the way its more about where your units are than what orders you give them. Leaves me free to go do important things like colonize planets, or more often than not, simply zoom in and watch the carnage.

[Archonic Energy]

7 hours? Well, UEF is the most defensive faction. But I'd have expected a Nuclear Cascade to have punched through simply by weight of numbers. Of course, no T3 artillery is why it lasted. Those are the kinds of situations that stuff was made for.

Of course if you were flying straight in, and not using any sort of formation, it's natural for the defenses to win.

this is the reason we can no-longer have UEF civil wars!
they are usually UEF/Cybran now

we did aim for a MAD Nuke ending, but each of us had way more SMDs than we had SMLs even the Commanders nuke launcher wasn't getting through

yeah i was wishing i had a mavor by the three hour mark. you don't really need the range of a mavor in Fields, just the DPS.

flying V formation, all antiair target the lead plane which dies, allowing the others to carpet bomb the area while they reload/retarget.

Abbreviations used

MAD = Mutually Assured Destruction
SMD = Stratigic Missile Defence
SML = Stratigic Missile Launcher
DPS = Damage Per Shot

[SolkaTruesilver]

this is the reason we can no-longer have UEF civil wars!
they are usually UEF/Cybran now

we did aim for a MAD Nuke ending, but each of us had way more SMDs than we had SMLs even the Commanders nuke launcher wasn't getting through



It wasn't possible to make a last-ditched attempt to rush their SMD or their energy plants?

[Archonic Energy]

i tried focusing my nukes in a particular area (mass prod or energy prod) thinking that "one of them has to get through", but none did.

after reading some current strategy guides, my new tatic would be... teleport my ACU into his base overcharge at his Tech 3 reactors & teleport out, leaving his tech 2 defensive artillery to shell his base a bit... then send in the fatboys. :smallamused:
hind sight has 20/20

[Murska]

after reading some current strategy guides, my new tatic would be... teleport my ACU into his base overcharge at his Tech 3 reactors & teleport out, leaving his tech 2 defensive artillery to shell his base a bit... then send in the fatboys. :smallamused:
hind sight has 20/20

You know what's real fun with Aeon? SCUs can get teleport.

Heheh. If he destroys it, he nukes his own resource center. If he doesn't destroy it, it nukes his resource center. :smallbiggrin:

[Archonic Energy]

You know what's real fun with Aeon? SCUs can get teleport.

Heheh. If he destroys it, he nukes his own resource center. If he doesn't destroy it, it nukes his resource center. :smallbiggrin:
i know... Serphrem SCUs can too.
and it's cheaper than building a T4 nuke... ish
Someone's in for a shock next time we play! :smallbiggrin:

[Blayze]

This is why you need a lot of troops around your AT pieces. Or a second line of AT's to kill that one. :smallwink:

Or what I like to call an "RC XP Generator". Plus, by the time I actually get the AT/AA guns, the game's pretty much over anyway. One game I won by sending a team or two of Pioneers over to the other side of the map, then capping *backwards*.

"La la la, completely safe bridge out of my ba- SWEET JESUS WHY ARE THERE BULLETS?!"

Edit: As for SupCom, games for me usually degenerate into betrayal-fests. Nobody wants to be the one to launch the first nuke and thus be without their counter-nuke, but inevitably someone's itchy trigger finger gets the better of them.

Usually it's mine.

[Triaxx]

Cybran civil wars are particularly fun with Omni sensors turned off. Cloaking units suddenly showing up to attack or the sudden horror as a Scathis begins arcing shots into your base.

[Murska]

Yeah, Scathis...

Someone once hid a cloaked base on a cliff and built a couple Scathis there on hold fire, then let them all fire at once. When I took a look at my central advance firebase, it had already turned to pretty much nothing.

This wasn't /that/ long game so I didn't have a dozen overlapping T3 shields and such there.

[SolkaTruesilver]

There would be so much to this game if Omni-sensors were less uberpowerful.

Make them very short-range, or something like that, rather than map-covering items, and cloaking/stealth will make more sense. But in the original game, it was a mere "I can see you" button.