Strategy Games in General: Turtle, then Explode

[RJMooreII]

It seems that (in single player) almost every strategy game with a resource/economy element will heavily reward turtling and only taking easy or necessary fights until you have such a massive economy that you can afford to out-produce your enemies; in addition you'll be making superior units at a faster rate. This strategy works in everything from Civ to Hearts of Iron to Empire Earth to Rome: Total War.
Does anyone know what I am talking about?

Most of them also heavily reward micro-management of cities/buildings, so much that you spend 2/3rds of the game wading through menus for a battle that lasts ten minutes.

 

[aelf]

No, I typically prefer rushing where possible. It works pretty well. Granted I haven't played that much RTS (don't see how this is a real issue for games like Civ and RTW) for some time.

 

[tycoonist]

Civ4: most effective strategy is axe rush

Also, have you never played an RTS??

 

[Maniacal]

In Total War games I spend the first turns organizing and consolidating my position and getting a quick army together to take out nearby misc regions. And from there on I keep up a steady expansion only pausing to rest and reinforce my armies and enforce control of newly acquired regions. I don't find sitting around for too long helps (or at least is really boring).

Turtle and explode is my tactic in RTS games though, which is why I either don't play them with that stupid actions-per-minute way you're "supposed to" or not at all (or I play other RTS games that don't focus on APM). And kind of one that does happen historically since going to war often bankrupted kingdoms even if they won. The amount of resources, man power and time required meant they would have to wait a while to raise more soldiers and then send them off to war unless they had a permanent standing army.

 

[GoodGame]

It seems that (in single player) almost every strategy game with a resource/economy element will heavily reward turtling and only taking easy or necessary fights until you have such a massive economy that you can afford to out-produce your enemies; in addition you'll be making superior units at a faster rate. This strategy works in everything from Civ to Hearts of Iron to Empire Earth to Rome: Total War.
Does anyone know what I am talking about?

Most of them also heavily reward micro-management of cities/buildings, so much that you spend 2/3rds of the game wading through menus for a battle that lasts ten minutes.

Usually that's because the AI suck at effectively attacking with a mix of units, or in large significant numbers. Turtling to claim resources as forts at least does work well. I liked in EE that turtling was challenging since with so many varied resources you can't turtle everywhere necessarily (can't turtle lots of one type of resource if you don't take the time to turtle stone).

 

[RJMooreII]

In Total War games I spend the first turns organizing and consolidating my position and getting a quick army together to take out nearby misc regions. And from there on I keep up a steady expansion only pausing to rest and reinforce my armies and enforce control of newly acquired regions. I don't find sitting around for too long helps (or at least is really boring).

Shogun is a bit different, but in Rome especially I spend probably a third of the game turning my core cities into money factories, then I blitz the world, then I turn in on Rome. I find that if you build your economic base first it allows you to have battles you nearly always win because you've got massive legions of crack troops (Brutii are especially effective because of their Mars temples).

Turtle and explode is my tactic in RTS games though, which is why I either don't play them with that stupid actions-per-minute way you're "supposed to" or not at all (or I play other RTS games that don't focus on APM). And kind of one that does happen historically since going to war often bankrupted kingdoms even if they won. The amount of resources, man power and time required meant they would have to wait a while to raise more soldiers and then send them off to war unless they had a permanent standing army.

I don't play RTS, I playe PTS - Pause Time Strategy. Whether it's Hearts of Iron, Starcraft or the tactical battles in Rome I pause and micromanage everything. It tremendously boosts your efficacy, though it does mean I suck at competitive multiplayer. However, I never really liked competitive multiplayer anyway.

 

[Maniacal]

I play with the EB mod, I hated vanilla Rome.

 

[RJMooreII]

Never heard of it. As an odd aside, R:TW is in one sense more historically accurate than Paradox's EU: Rome. Because in EU: Rome the game is a cake-walk if you play the Selucids. You have to be really bad not to win as the Selucids. But playing the Selucids in TW is a pain in the ass.

 

[Maniacal]

http://www.europabarbarorum.com/

Only the best RTW mod.

 

[RJMooreII]

Reading it it looks interesting. Somewhere between R:TW and EU:Rome. However, I will have to smash TW again before I bother playing with some new fangled mod and get my ass kicked. I'm already getting slapped around like a stepchild in Tin Soldiers.

 

[Thrawn]

Turtle and explode is my tactic in RTS games though, which is why I either don't play them with that stupid actions-per-minute way you're "supposed to" or not at all (or I play other RTS games that don't focus on APM).

APM's a pretty useless statistic that can be ignored anyway. It's the kind of stat that will always start out pretty low when you're learning a game, and slowly increase as you start figuring out what things need to be done.

I don't know about other games, but with the ladder system in SC2 it's perfectly possible to play online at your own pace, as you'll be matched against people with similar levels of skill.

In terms of turtling, it usually works pretty well in singleplayer rts, whether or not it works in multiplayer really depends on what race you're playing as and who you're up against. I play zerg in sc2, and they're not really the kind of race that is able to turtle. Terran and protoss can do it pretty easily and just move out with a maxed army.

 

[RJMooreII]

In terms of turtling, it usually works pretty well in singleplayer rts, whether or not it works in multiplayer really depends on what race you're playing as and who you're up against. I play zerg in sc2, and they're not really the kind of race that is able to turtle. Terran and protoss can do it pretty easily and just move out with a maxed army.

Yeah, races like the Zerg pretty much specialize in having an absurd number of pretty crappy units. Games/factions that allow for 'elite' units can heavily favor turtling, since you can just sit around in a huge fortress until you have the tech and money to produce a ton of your best stuff (i.e., tanks in most games) and steamroll the enemy units.

If you're tech and economy oriented this is trivial to do in most Civ games. Once you get tanks and some form of Nazi government you just conquer the world one continent at a time with a continuous spam of tanks on railroads.

Also, a thing about Civ that bugs the crap out of me: tanks only move 3x faster than Phalanx? Uhh, no.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah but then you're probably not playing the game "right" or well. It jsut isn't fun if I can't take the time to actually watch the combat in the game. This is why Stronghold is my favourite RTS and Total War 2nd. And why the hell I bought the excpansions for Company of Heroes I have no idea, dunno if I will ever install them (thankfully it cost less than $10).

 

[RJMooreII]

I don't even have my units animated. Everything just teleports. I guess I'm more about the domination than the actual combat. I don't mind controlling my units in a game like Rome TW but that's just because I know I can kick the computer's ass because it's ********.

 

[Maniacal]

I don't even have my units animated. Everything just teleports. I guess I'm more about the domination than the actual combat. I don't mind controlling my units in a game like Rome TW but that's just because I know I can kick the computer's ass because it's ********.

Then why the hell are you palying the total war games? The battles are 75% of what the game is about!

 

[RJMooreII]

Then why the hell are you palying the total war games? The battles are 75% of what the game is about!

No way! Having my color all over the map and making more money than everyone else combined is the point. The battles are a means to an end, it can be fun to route and crush the idiot computer but that's because I know it means that I just totally annihilated a unit while taking minimal casualties; something the stupid AI can never manage.

 

[tycoonist]

I don't play RTS, I playe PTS - Pause Time Strategy. Whether it's Hearts of Iron, Starcraft or the tactical battles in Rome I pause and micromanage everything. It tremendously boosts your efficacy, though it does mean I suck at competitive multiplayer. However, I never really liked competitive multiplayer anyway.

EDIT: nevermind

You might find that the same tactics which work so well in MP games work really well in SP games. For example, early aggression is helpful in nearly all RTSs.

 

[Cull]

In RTS, usually early agg=zoning others for cheap cost=real mad other players who are behind=win win.

I don't think pure turtle really works out that well early, because in most rts most early game rushes beat whatever early game defense you have.

 

[aelf]

Yeah but then you're probably not playing the game "right" or well. It jsut isn't fun if I can't take the time to actually watch the combat in the game. This is why Stronghold is my favourite RTS and Total War 2nd. And why the hell I bought the excpansions for Company of Heroes I have no idea, dunno if I will ever install them (thankfully it cost less than $10).

Oh, I take back what I said about not playing RTS that much lately. I wasn't thinking of CoH because I was thinking more of classic kinds of RTS in the tradition of AoE or Starcraft. CoH is actually one of those that manage to be different, in that I'd say that the difference between rushing and turtling are not that pronounced. How the game works kinda actively discourages turtling. You can, but since it's about ground control, it really pays to be out there fighting for territory. Also, vehicles and upgrades are expensive so you have no choice but to get more territory than the other guy to make sure you are not out-teched and outgunned. The most turtlish faction is the British, since you can sit behind strong emplacements, but you still need to fight for enough territory early game.

In any case, tactics matter quite a lot, so even if you're fighting early, it's not just economic management and mindless spamming of units. RUSE is more like that, or at least it was during the open beta. In CoH, you'd have a few (expensive) infantry squads early game, and you don't really want to just spam them at the enemy. Maybe the only exceptions are Pio and PG spam, but blobbing is highly risky in CoH anyway.

 

[Maniacal]

While CoH does make turtling hard and/or ineffective, ifor me that just made it a lot harder, irritating and less fun. I'd go watch some fighting in one area for half a minute only to find out the enemy had killed everyone I had in another area and pushed deep into my lines. I like to be able to enjoy and watch the game, not just see everything in a blur of motion when you have to be everywhere at once.