Stronger Player - Turtle vs. Hare

[Monk29]

I am a turtle. I agonize over each turn, each unit, each agent and character. I will spend decades planning for a two province assault w/diplomacy on the front and back end. I live in my tech tree, trying to get a technological edge. I maintain few armies, but the ones have are structured, well trained and advanced. My economy is my happy place where I like to spend time squeezing every penny I can out of my ppl. I am good chatholic and trusted ally. I play until the map is the color of my faction. I am boring. My playing style would drive most to snort vodka through their nose in order to make the pain go away. But as a turtle, I get the "job" done.

New to the forum, but I read some post from guys who were wrecking shop with Germany in something like 18 turns. I would probably have a heartattack at that speed. So I guess the Blitzers are flashy, by the seat of their pants guys who get all the chicks. But I was wondering, all things being equal, and if player could campaign against each other, who would win? The Turtle or the Hare?

[_Tristan_]

To be honest, I'm kind of a turtle myself...

Nevertheless with the game such as it is now (sacking benefits and all), in a PvP campaign, I think the hare would steamroller the turtle, as long as military victories followed its path of conquest... The sheer impact of the sacking cash flow is something that cannot be matched in "turtling"...

Moreover, blitzing has no need for diplomats, merchants and just barely needs assassins or spies (only to soften town/castle resistance) so the blitzer is able to concentrate his expenses on units and mainly mercs, thus gaining a head start as in the begining mercs are so much more powerful than starting units (think Merc Xbow...:smash: )...

So I think for once the hare will win the race...

Just my :2cents: ...

[Didz]

Speaking as another Turtle, I would put all my money on the Hare. These guys are the rushers of MTW2 and as such they know all the best expliots to win the game. Anyone who has faced a 'zergling rush' in Starcraft, or a 'monk rush' in STW will know that knowledge of how to play the game provides no defence to such tactic's.

[icek]

hare, a good one will come prepared with siege units, spies and assasins and you will lose your city/castle in a moment not having any chances to turtle decend defender army.

[John_Longarrow]

Down side of how M2TW is currently set up is that a Blitzer will win because of the innate advantage that an agressive style has with the current set up.

If you sack a city, wreck all of the building, and use the cash to buy merc while ignoring infrastructure you can move very fast and build up a massive army. In the short run (10-20 turns), the blitzer will generate far more cash than a turtle while having far less to spend money on besides their army. Net result, the blitzer will hit you with a far larger army.

If the map were large enough, and the innate cost to hold provinces great enough, you would get to a point where a turtle would win. As is, the game is not set up for that, so one would lose.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I am a turtle. I agonize over each turn, each unit, each agent and character. I will spend decades planning for a two province assault w/diplomacy on the front and back end. I live in my tech tree, trying to get a technological edge. I maintain few armies, but the ones have are structured, well trained and advanced. My economy is my happy place where I like to spend time squeezing every penny I can out of my ppl. I am good chatholic and trusted ally. I play until the map is the color of my faction. I am boring. My playing style would drive most to snort vodka through their nose in order to make the pain go away. But as a turtle, I get the "job" done.

New to the forum, but I read some post from guys who were wrecking shop with Germany in something like 18 turns. I would probably have a heartattack at that speed. So I guess the Blitzers are flashy, by the seat of their pants guys who get all the chicks. But I was wondering, all things being equal, and if player could campaign against each other, who would win? The Turtle or the Hare?

The Hare would win.

Speaking as a guy who demolished 106 regions in 28 turns with the HRE, I can safely say that a hare will put more troops and better troops on the field, and send hordes of mercenaries, crusaders, militia men, and mounted knights at you before you can possibly spit out your first truly incredible high-tech unit.

The sad truth about this game is that 1000 peasants utterly annihilate 100 dismounted knights. The game, as is, without mods, clearly favors more troops over better troops.

The hare is more aggressive, can field more units, has more regions, and can literally conquer his way up the tech tree. Head for Sicily to get an instant Fortress, head for Constantinople to get a big city. Whatever you want, you can probably conquer it.

Sacking once every 10 turns provides more florins than all the merchants in china can in one turn, unless you happen to be Russia and have a stack of 10merchants sitting on Ivory in Timbuktu inside a fort.

By the time you accomplish that, I've wiped you and your merchants off the map.

That's not to say one is better than the other. But in head to head competition, one is better than the other.

Clearly, playing a slower and more deliberate game can be lots of fun. You certainly get to experience a more realistic feel. However, on the battlefield, you would get destroyed by a human opponent.

Let's even pretend I GAVE you 5 regions with maxed out troop levels and the best equipped soldiers. Playing a slow, defensive game, or even a slightly offensive one, a "hare" player will gobble up the map and surround you with endless stacks of troops. You might even win one or two battles, but you would finally end up surrounded by three stacks versus one. A horde of spear militia, light cavalry, and peasant archers led by three generals versus your top army.

You: Crushed.
Me: Barely scratched. And if the game were realistic, I'd steal your armor from your dead soldiers and improve my offensive game that way. I guess it makes sense to leave armor on the battlefield covering rotting corpses.

This is not true for The Long Road mod.
If you like turtling, this is the game for you.

Blitzing is not allowed... it's not even possible during the first 50 turns or so without crusading. You would really get a kick out of that game.

Although I may not be gobbling up the map, I am still an expansionist. I managed to nab all of France before England captured it's fourth province. So even under that game, faster is better. It's just harder to do so.

[Eng]

The turtle will win and this is why:
u see if the fight one against the other the hare (rusher) wont be able to sack allot of settlements since u defend them well and soon he will fall in to great debt which will paralyze him completely.
this is only correct if they are in war only with each other if not he can sack others.

[Askthepizzaguy]

The turtle will win and this is why:
u see if the fight one against the other the hare (rusher) wont be able to sack allot of settlements since u defend them well and soon he will fall in to great debt which will paralyze him completely.
this is only correct if they are in war only with each other if not he can sack others.

Totally disagree.

I have never run across a settlement I couldn't conquer with basic troops. If one stack doesn't work, I have two or three. I can afford them because I pump out cheap troops and I capture rebel settlements quicker, and sack them.

You may be thinking about a hypothetical situation where there is no one on the map except the turtle and the rusher, AND the turtle already has a good army. Then maybe you're right.

But while the turtle is building town halls, farms, grain exchanges, churches, and other such things, I've built an invading army. Any two stacks of mediocre troops can pummel any single stack of defending garrison.

You would also have to completely garrison all of your settlements, or else I would just go after the weakest-defended one and cut you down one settlement at a time until all you have left is your one strong garrison, which I would completely surround with 3 stacks of troops and force you to sally and die, or starve to death.

There is no way playing defensively works unless you are already given a massive economy, MORE troops, and better troops. Sallying or waiting out a seige are both bad situations to be in. Being the attacker in a war allows you freedom of movement at home, allows you to recruit more men, and you don't have to worry about being seiged if the fight is on foreign soil.

Even if you have the best city and the best troops, playing defensively will not win the war. The only way a turtle will be in a superior economic, territorial, technological, and military position is if the game begins with the turtle far in the lead of the hare, and the hare cannot go after anyone but the turtle. Which would never happen in practice.

But this is a forum for debate. Feel free to refute me with your experiences.

[_Tristan_]

Totally disagree.

I have never run across a settlement I couldn't conquer with basic troops. If one stack doesn't work, I have two or three. I can afford them because I pump out cheap troops and I capture rebel settlements quicker, and sack them.

You may be thinking about a hypothetical situation where there is no one on the map except the turtle and the rusher, AND the turtle already has a good army. Then maybe you're right.

But while the turtle is building town halls, farms, grain exchanges, churches, and other such things, I've built an invading army. Any two stacks of mediocre troops can pummel any single stack of defending garrison.

You would also have to completely garrison all of your settlements, or else I would just go after the weakest-defended one and cut you down one settlement at a time until all you have left is your one strong garrison, which I would completely surround with 3 stacks of troops and force you to sally and die, or starve to death.

There is no way playing defensively works unless you are already given a massive economy, MORE troops, and better troops. Sallying or waiting out a seige are both bad situations to be in. Being the attacker in a war allows you freedom of movement at home, allows you to recruit more men, and you don't have to worry about being seiged if the fight is on foreign soil.

Even if you have the best city and the best troops, playing defensively will not win the war.

But this is a forum for debate. Feel free to refute me with your experiences.


I am a turtle. I agonize over each turn, each unit, each agent and character. I will spend decades planning for a two province assault w/diplomacy on the front and back end. I live in my tech tree, trying to get a technological edge. I maintain few armies, but the ones have are structured, well trained and advanced. My economy is my happy place where I like to spend time squeezing every penny I can out of my ppl. I am good chatholic and trusted ally. I play until the map is the color of my faction. I am boring. My playing style would drive most to snort vodka through their nose in order to make the pain go away. But as a turtle, I get the "job" done.

New to the forum, but I read some post from guys who were wrecking shop with Germany in something like 18 turns. I would probably have a heartattack at that speed. So I guess the Blitzers are flashy, by the seat of their pants guys who get all the chicks. But I was wondering, all things being equal, and if player could campaign against each other, who would win? The Turtle or the Hare?

I concur as much as it hurts as i prefer the slow and gentle way (with the occasional bit of maniacal frenzy, I must admit :devil:)...

I (and ATPG, sorry for the acronym but your name is just too long :embarassed:) would like to be proven wrong but I don't think it is possible unless you're one hell of a general and can surmount impossible odds on the battle map...

But I agree it is debatable and that's the whole point of this forum...

[Askthepizzaguy]

I concur as much as it hurts as i prefer the slow and gentle way (with the occasional bit of maniacal frenzy, I must admit :devil:)...

I (and ATPG, sorry for the acronym but your name is just too long :embarassed:) would like to be proven wrong but I don't think it is possible unless you're one hell of a general and can surmount impossible odds on the battle map...

But I agree it is debatable and that's the whole point of this forum...

Here's the test. See how you do:

Play a custom battle, with you as the attacking force, and the AI as the defending force. Or even a human.

You get to have peasant archers, militia spearmen, light horse, and a general. You also get to have another stack filled with the same. You are allowed to have one catapult.

You are fighting a citadel filled with dismounted knights, mounted knights, and longbowmen. Can you win this battle?

Answer: I can, easily. Strength in numbers. I could pummel both outer walls with just the catapult and force a retreat of your men. If you sallied, you would have to sally against both armies, and I have yet to see an entire garrison escape through a gate to attack me without me being able to easily pin your troops at the bottleneck and surround them until they rout, even with bad troops.

Granted, I'd lose a lot of men. But I can replace them quicker than you can replace good troops. And I would sack your city and burn it to the ground and use the florins to build yet another stack of raiders. If you were able to actually get all of your troops out of one of the side gates, I'd be on top of your walls with ladders, open your gate, and lock you outside your own castle. From there, taking the center of town is a cinch. If you did it with just your mounted units, I'd bog them down with an endless wall of spearmen, and use my light cavalry to box them in so the spears can do their work.

Better equipment and armor does not make up for a tactically weak position of being forced to defend, sally, or die, does not make up for the limitation of having all your florins spent on mere defense which wreaks havoc on your offensive game, and does not make up for the fact that more troops beat better troops.

[Didz]

I think the majority of us agree that the Hare will always win.

However, if you think about it this would create a real problem if CA ever get their finger out and produce an MP campaign option. I certainly have no interest in playing an MP game against a load of Blitzers, and yet I suspect that this would be the only likely outcome.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I think the majority of us agree that the Hare will always win.

However, if you think about it this would create a real problem if CA ever get their finger out and produce an MP campaign option. I certainly have no interest in playing an MP game against a load of Blitzers, and yet I suspect that this would be the only likely outcome.

Hehehe how ironic. I'm actually going to have to side against the blitzers on that one.

Blitzing works best against the incompetent AI.

Two or more competing blitzers would destroy or cripple each other, leaving the pacifist in a better position.

Think about it: two blitzers attack one another. They move behind each other's front lines and go for each other's soft, relatively undefended cities. Then, after they have both crippled each other's economies and armies, the turtle comes in with a built up economy and a fresh stack of troops and annihilates both of them.

If I were playing a REAL multiplayer game, with more than one opponent, and my opponents were competent, I would be FAR more cautious. Humans know how to counterattack and blitzing leaves your cities undefended.

This is the only situation where I give an edge to cautious play. Not pacifistic, mind you, but cautious.

If a blitzer goes against the turtle, the turtle would hold him off while the other blitzer annihilated the first one. Meanwhile the turtle has a built up economy and few military losses, and the surviving turtle has a less developed and more spread apart empire, leaving him ripe for a counterstrike.

If the situation is One blitzer versus One turtle, turtle loses. Two or more blitzers? Anyone's game, with an edge to cautious play.

[Eng]

Totally disagree.

I have never run across a settlement I couldn't conquer with basic troops. If one stack doesn't work, I have two or three. I can afford them because I pump out cheap troops and I capture rebel settlements quicker, and sack them.

You may be thinking about a hypothetical situation where there is no one on the map except the turtle and the rusher, AND the turtle already has a good army. Then maybe you're right.

But while the turtle is building town halls, farms, grain exchanges, churches, and other such things, I've built an invading army. Any two stacks of mediocre troops can pummel any single stack of defending garrison.

You would also have to completely garrison all of your settlements, or else I would just go after the weakest-defended one and cut you down one settlement at a time until all you have left is your one strong garrison, which I would completely surround with 3 stacks of troops and force you to sally and die, or starve to death.

There is no way playing defensively works unless you are already given a massive economy, MORE troops, and better troops. Sallying or waiting out a seige are both bad situations to be in. Being the attacker in a war allows you freedom of movement at home, allows you to recruit more men, and you don't have to worry about being seiged if the fight is on foreign soil.

Even if you have the best city and the best troops, playing defensively will not win the war. The only way a turtle will be in a superior economic, territorial, technological, and military position is if the game begins with the turtle far in the lead of the hare, and the hare cannot go after anyone but the turtle. Which would never happen in practice.

But this is a forum for debate. Feel free to refute me with your experiences.

Yes I meant who will win in war only between the turtle and the hare..
but u see in your blitz campaign u won against the ai and not another human being who can be more of a challenge strategically in battles ...

for example it will be much easier to conquer an ai settlement then a player's settlement that is why u cannot defeat so easily a turtle....

[Askthepizzaguy]

Yes I meant who will win in war only between the turtle and the hare..
but u see in your blitz campaign u won against the ai and not another human being who can be more of a challenge strategically in battles ...

for example it will be much easier to conquer an ai settlement then a player's settlement that is why u cannot defeat so easily a turtle....

Very well. I'll admit, I've never played a human before. But I remain confident that the hare would win. I would focus my entire invading army on whichever part of your territory was the weakest. If you kept your weakest territory in the point furthest from your front line, I'd head there first.

Being the aggressor, the blitzer, allows greater choice and mobility. The turtle is forced to garrison cities, which can become very expensive, and will never be able to field as impressive an offensive force.

I still give the one-on-one game to the blitzer. You can't possibly garrison all of your cities to the max AND build all your necessary economic buildings AND field an offensive force. Something's got to give.

You miss out on economic buildings, and you won't be able to afford full garrisons for all your cities. You miss out on full garrisons for all your cities, you won't be able to repel even a weak invasion. You miss out on offensive troops, and I have total freedom of movement through your territory and I can strike you where you are weakest and win the war of attrition.

(As Harry Caray)
Blitz win, blitz win!

[Atreides]

If the situation is One blitzer versus One turtle, turtle loses. Two or more blitzers? Anyone's game, with an edge to cautious play.

Imo the real turtle would lose, but if your playing an expansionist turtle style your going to win, that's for sure.

Able to do quick conquer and meanwhile build a rocking economy with all the fancy stuff. I am now on a campaign with the Byzantium Empire and while getting in the so called rich Italian area I found there basic's poor.....

[Askthepizzaguy]

If we describe an expansionist turtle as a "moderate", then yes, I agree.

Focusing half on perfectionism and half on expansion, florin-wise, is the best balance in a multi-human player game.

[ForgotMyOldNick]

Seems fairly straight forward to me...

You camp; you pay florins accumulatively for your security.

You move; and win those occasional badly weighted battles as you may and reap the rewards of a sacking that would more than compensate you for your efforts.

With the exception of silly ai .. for instance: Inquisitors being invincible to assassins' blades and taking out your General instead...

[sapi]

Hmm.

An interesting question.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and bet on the turtle (in a one-on-one campaign situation).

I don't care how good you may be at blitzing, coming up against a player in a defensive position is vastly different to fighting the AI. A competent turtler could easily fight at each good defensive position leading into their territory and cause a series of pyrrhic victories that would strain the resources of the hare.

Considering that in such a match-up, both sides would be advancing into rebel territory at the same rate behind the battle line, I'd have to say that a strategy of building up would win in the end.

The key difference as I see it is that, as ATPG pointed out himself, the hare needs to take a city and sack it in order to maintain inertia. Unfortunately, such a strategy relies upon the turtler not holding them up out of their heartland.

The AI may fail on this count; but I sincerely doubt that the player would.

[Bob the Insane]

I think we need to define the parameters of the discussion point...

Are we taking about a hypothetical Turtle vs Hare game (hypothical because you can't play player vs player battles in hotseat mode).

This could be worked out I guess in a test MP battle assaulting a settlement where the attacker had the type of army associated with a rusher in the early stages of the game, and the defender had the similar for a defending force and see who wins. Because the success of the Hare would be dependant on being able to take those settlements from the defender.

From a strategy map perspective the Hare would have a big advantage in that he could rapidly grow at the expence of the AI factions so rapidly becoming too large for the turtle to defend against. That is unless the turtle was to take advantage of the relatively undended settlements left behind by the Hare, but that would not be very turtle like.

There is no arguement about who would beat the game faster on an individual basis, but then the turtle might win the "value for money" category... :laugh4:

Who has the most fun is based too much on personal opinion to judge...

[Atreides]

If we describe an expansionist turtle as a "moderate", then yes, I agree.

Focusing half on perfectionism and half on expansion, florin-wise, is the best balance in a multi-human player game.


If we describe an expansionist turtle as a "moderate", then yes, I agree.

Focusing half on perfectionism and half on expansion, florin-wise, is the best balance in a multi-human player game.

Ok. Imo this style also enables the really great feeling your engineering an empire.....

I am now playing with the Byzies, my former crownprice John is still alive and kicking (he conquered and babysite just five cities, transfermorming his baby-sit into a march to Jerusalem and then Egypt…. (18 years for the invasion of my beloved Mongolian friends).

I already got the 45 – province map and I was still able to build an nearly every turn in every city/castle the things I wanted…. That is imo a nice combined turtle / blizz.

[PseRamesses]

Ahh, well, better come out of the closet...:sweatdrop: I´m a turtle too.:yes:

Might I recommend ReBerengarios Anno Domini mod. It´s nearly impossible to blitz in that mod. Your rep will drop from Immaculate to Despicable with increased rebellions for each decrease as a result. It´s also heavily scripted which I looove. Try it, its a must for turtles IMHO.

[_Tristan_]

Here's the test. See how you do:

Play a custom battle, with you as the attacking force, and the AI as the defending force. Or even a human.

You get to have peasant archers, militia spearmen, light horse, and a general. You also get to have another stack filled with the same. You are allowed to have one catapult.

You are fighting a citadel filled with dismounted knights, mounted knights, and longbowmen. Can you win this battle?

Answer: I can, easily. Strength in numbers. I could pummel both outer walls with just the catapult and force a retreat of your men. If you sallied, you would have to sally against both armies, and I have yet to see an entire garrison escape through a gate to attack me without me being able to easily pin your troops at the bottleneck and surround them until they rout, even with bad troops.

Granted, I'd lose a lot of men. But I can replace them quicker than you can replace good troops. And I would sack your city and burn it to the ground and use the florins to build yet another stack of raiders. If you were able to actually get all of your troops out of one of the side gates, I'd be on top of your walls with ladders, open your gate, and lock you outside your own castle. From there, taking the center of town is a cinch. If you did it with just your mounted units, I'd bog them down with an endless wall of spearmen, and use my light cavalry to box them in so the spears can do their work.

Better equipment and armor does not make up for a tactically weak position of being forced to defend, sally, or die, does not make up for the limitation of having all your florins spent on mere defense which wreaks havoc on your offensive game, and does not make up for the fact that more troops beat better troops.

Some misunderstanding here...:inquisitive:

That was exactly the point I was trying to make... Field a 20 unit stack of low level units and send it on a killing spree and your AI opponent is a goner...
You'll take losses that will be much more easily replaced...

I just wish it was different as it would allow the turtling player more options towards winning... Unless as I stated before, he is one hell of a general who can win against insurmontable odds and with few losses to boot...

Yet again, I totally agree with you that playing against an Ai opponent allows you to be less "careful" in your approach... I have yet to see an AI capable of a double-cross (or even a simple cross... even that would seem a miracle :wizard:) whereas a human player could feint and even counter-feint, misleading you as to his intentions...

Play a game of tabletop Diplomacy (tm) and you'll see what I'm talking about...~:argue:

And for each human player added to the formula the danger rises exponentially...

[Bob the Insane]

Ahh, well, better come out of the closet...:sweatdrop: I´m a turtle too.:yes:

Might I recommend ReBerengarios Anno Domini mod. It´s nearly impossible to blitz in that mod. Your rep will drop from Immaculate to Despicable with increased rebellions for each decrease as a result. It´s also heavily scripted which I looove. Try it, its a must for turtles IMHO.

Sorry for OT but I didn't realise there where any versions of this available yet?

[andrewt]

Yes I meant who will win in war only between the turtle and the hare..
but u see in your blitz campaign u won against the ai and not another human being who can be more of a challenge strategically in battles ...

for example it will be much easier to conquer an ai settlement then a player's settlement that is why u cannot defeat so easily a turtle....


The Blitzkrieg will always beat the Maginot Line. Let's say we have equal armies. You have 5 provinces and 5 stacks. I have 5 stacks as well. As the blitzer, I can focus all of those 5 stacks to attack one province at a time. I can split them up and attack your weakest 2 or 3 positions. Because I'm attacking, I can pick and choose my battles. You'll have to attack me to fend me off.

Of course, the turtler can always easily change his strategy and counter-blitz. It's a lot easier in an RTS like Starcraft. If you suspect a 6-pool zergling rush, you can build your barracks/gateway/spool at 8 and use your workers to help defend your base. After you fend them off, the zerg rusher is really vulnerable to a counterattack. They'll have a weaker economy and you'll have the upper hand. With good players, the 6-pool rush is very risky and you'll lose more games than not.

In the hypothetical MTW2 situation the best defense the "turtler" has against the blitzer is to split off part of his force and go after the blitzer's undefended or lightly defended homeland. Of course, that strat makes the turtler a blitzer as well. :laugh4:

[Bob the Insane]

The Turtle could adapt that strategy by not keeping the settlements captured but grant them to an AI ally (after thoroughly pillaging them of course) thus keeping only his core provinces...

[Eng]

I think that the best way to get the awnser is to test...
Soon a MP hotseat will come out and I suggest we take 2 blizz players and 2 turtle player and put one blizz vs 1 turtle and the other blizz against the other turtle...

[_Tristan_]

The Turtle could adapt that strategy by not keeping the settlements captured but grant them to an AI ally (after thoroughly pillaging them of course) thus keeping only his core provinces...
Yes but that would stretch the definition of turtling a little...

[ReiseReise]

Obviously the turtle would win, activate the Skull Island event and watch the masses of horrified enemy troops are slowly trampled to death as you unleash a horde of Mercenary Riesenschildkroetereiter :turtle: against the unsuspecting opponent.

P.S. Babelfish actually spits it out perfectly in English, haha.

[Ulstan]

The blitzer, of course. He'll have more provinces, more troops, and more gold than the turtler, thanks to the extreme ease of abusing sacking mechanics.

Now, if he was constantly short of funds to build any infrastructure or to pay his mercenaries, and faced a rebellion of half his provinces from them being unhappy, then it might be a more even fight.

[John_Longarrow]

Ah...

Finally, something that can face off against the Frickin Elephants with Frickin Cannons on their Frickin heads!:evil:

[Togakure]

All else being equal, the blitzer has it all over the turtler and will win much more often than lose. The turtler requires time to achieve power; the blitzer's MO is to deny that time to his opponents.

There is a rhythm, a flow of pace that is neither blitz nor turtle, dynamic for each game, never the same. Knowing when to use what approach dynamically as the game progresses is the real key to being a "strong" player.

Finding that balance as the political landscape changes is the fun and challenge of it all as I see it--when to blitz, when to stop, when to expand and hold, when to chevauchee, when and how to to fake, when to build, when to save, when to retreat in order to advance later (I do this last thing a lot and it works beautifully, drawing my enemies in and getting them to over-extend themselves, and develop a province nicely so I can take it and benefit from their investment, etc).

student: the world is not black or white. It is gray.
teacher: what is gray, but black and white in motion.

Blitz-turtle, either/or? Both and neither.

[Ramses II CP]

Obviously under the current hotseat conditions a turtle would have no chance. Battles have to be auto-calc'd, ergo city walls and towers are meaningless. So even if you start with the same quantity and quality of troops your blitzer opponent has, his generate income by sacking while yours bleed it away sitting about the fort. There's no contest and no question IMHO. By turn ten his armies will be three to five times the size of yours even if you're much, much better at managing cities.

Even granting the turtle expands as fast as the blitzer, he's still going to defend his provinces (That's the definition of a turtle, after all) while the blitzer brings those troops to the battle at a time and place of his choosing. It's the modern warfare 'revolution' all over again, speed and mobility vs static defenses. The turtle loses.

Even granting them everything equal, the blitzer will bring more troops to the table and fight them when and where he chooses. As long as battles must be auto-calc'd the turtle is dead meat.

[Kadagar_AV]

Hey, aren't you all aware defense is the way of winning?? :laugh4:

Insert heavily sarcastic voice to the above sentence.

As allready stated, the magginot line is a very nice example of what a nicely planned blitzing strat can do.

But that's IRL, ingame it gets even worse in my oppinion...

A) You want to act, NOT react to the enemy... turtling by definition forces the player to react.

B) Battles will mainly be fought on the turtles lands, meaning the best he can achieve is NOT losing ground, contrary to gaining land.

C) Well, pretty much every part of the code works in favour of the blitzer.

[Rebellious Waffle]

I have an argument for turtling.

If you turtle, other factions have time to build their faction-specific buildings (merchant banks, artist's studia, printing presses, racing tracks, castle libraries, public baths, etc.) which you may later take by conquest. These buildings remain in operation when you take over, so you get some of the benefits of other peoples' factions as an added bonus.

It doesn't make much difference in a turtle vs. hare battle, but it does mean that turtles get long-term advantages which are quite impossible for hares to acquire.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I have an argument for turtling.

If you turtle, other factions have time to build their faction-specific buildings (merchant banks, artist's studia, printing presses, racing tracks, castle libraries, public baths, etc.) which you may later take by conquest. These buildings remain in operation when you take over, so you get some of the benefits of other peoples' factions as an added bonus.

It doesn't make much difference in a turtle vs. hare battle, but it does mean that turtles get long-term advantages which are quite impossible for hares to acquire.

I have another opinion on that.

When I conquered 106 provinces as England by turn 58, I had access to bucketloads of money every single turn, had access to every province, and did not require a standing army.

Provinces that never would have been captured and built up are now under my control and prospering. Long term, the hare will actually outrun the Turtle even in the economic development question. I lowered all taxes across the board to low, and focused exclusively on economic development. My population skyrocketed, and my vast empire experienced a renaissance the likes of which that is impossible to achieve through turtling.

In the long term, the blitzer has a better economy than the turtle, and I don't mean from sacking. I mean from more provinces owned, fewer fronts, more law and order, more religious conversion, and total focus on economic concern. A Pax Romana of the Medieval world. True, I never got any merchant banks, but one or two merchant banks is more like a trophy that you don't need when compared to all your provinces pumping out economic buildings every turn.

I guess it depends on your personal taste. By the time you get half the map under your control, you've accomplished so much through pillaging, just on your home front, by adding buildings to your best cities, that you have the empire of a turtle wrapped inside of the empire of a regular player, wrapped inside the empire of a blitzer.

There is no question that the mathematical benefit to blitzing FAR outweighs the prospect of turtling. More money, more provinces, more growth, more standing armies, and eventually, the quality of your empire surpasses that of the turtle's anyway due to the massive economy. Basically, the blitzer can do anything the turtle can do, and do it better.

[Bob the Insane]

Would blitzing really work in our hypothetical MP campaign game though? Where the other player(s) could take advantage of the blitzer in ways the AI never does??

[John_Longarrow]

In a multi-player game, the best strategy tends to be steady expansion while constantly upgrading. You expand faster than a turtle and specialize different parts of your empire as needed. You do not expand as fast as a Blitzer though.

A pure blitzer tends to push as far and as fast as possible. When they start losing, they go out quickly though. Turtles are hard to break, but they tend to not expand much. An Expansionist tends to have armies that are the quality of a turtle but with the troop strength of a Blitzer. These tend to be spread across a smaller front that a Blitzer but are able to overwhelm a turlte. Net result is often that Blitzers implode when they fight another Blitzer or they get bogged down cracking a turtle. This is where a steady expansionist tends to do best because they are often very good at popping Blitzers.

The smaller the number of players, the more chance a Blitzer will have to expand fast enough to keep up the momentum. Once that momentum stops, Blitzers tend to go to pieces.

Against an AI, there isn't much to slow a Blitzer down. Throw a dozen turtles around him and you get a much slower expansion. Replace the turtles with expansionists (who will raid like a Blitzer but with a pure goal of weakening their emeny) and you can see a Blitzer go out quickly after expanding fast.

This is often because a Blitzer can't keep a strong enough presence on their borders to kee the expansionists at bay. This becomes more true the larger the Blitzer becomes. It is a dynamic that appears in multi-player games but not in one-on-one games.

[joe4iz]

I play like a turtle but must admit that the blitzer would win the war hands down. If there were the ability to play head to head, then a turtle might stand a chance depending on the level of quality of his troops and his own tactical ability. He still loses if all battles are autocalced.

The AI does a terrible job of blitzing as is evident from anyone who allowed the Mongols to expand. By the time they get to Europe's edge, their empire is ripe for plucking. (I must admit never having allowed them that oppurtunity.)

Also the Mongols then have the problem with the Timoruds coming in behind them. It would be immensely more challenging if they were not fighting amongst themselves....say one goes thru Baghdad and the other appears at Bulgar.

[Mangudai]

Hmm.

An interesting question.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and bet on the turtle (in a one-on-one campaign situation).

I don't care how good you may be at blitzing, coming up against a player in a defensive position is vastly different to fighting the AI. A competent turtler could easily fight at each good defensive position leading into their territory and cause a series of pyrrhic victories that would strain the resources of the hare.

Considering that in such a match-up, both sides would be advancing into rebel territory at the same rate behind the battle line, I'd have to say that a strategy of building up would win in the end.

The key difference as I see it is that, as ATPG pointed out himself, the hare needs to take a city and sack it in order to maintain inertia. Unfortunately, such a strategy relies upon the turtler not holding them up out of their heartland.

The AI may fail on this count; but I sincerely doubt that the player would.

It is incorrect to assume that both sides would be advancing into rebel territory at the same rate behind the battle line. Obviously the Hare has more troops and is more aggressive.

The turtle may be good at holding defensive positions. Let him! The Hare can menace with a smaller force, or disappear for a couple turns and then come back. The defenders options are lost by his own choice to stand around and wait for the other guy to attack.

The hare does not have to be better at fighting battles to win. He wins on the strategic map. He wins space, tempo, and material.

[Valdincan]

A hare probably has the advantage over a turtler, in a PvP campaign that is. However, its not really that two sided.

A turtler has the advantage of defense, his armies are more organized and cities better defended. In a PvP match, the turtle could easily sneak a large army into the the hare's weaker defended provinces. If the hare was relying mainly on sacking money, the turtle may be able to fend of his attacks, and stem his flow of money.

But of course the hare would most likely also have more provinces, and could easily turn them into money makers, while the turtle would have a hard time maintaining his armies due to his lack of provinces.

It could go either way depending on the player. I play as both, but personally I prefer turtling, and playing in a more civilization type way.

[PseRamesses]

Sorry for OT but I didn't realise there where any versions of this available yet?
Hmm, well I´m playing the AD mod (0.93beta I think) and have been the last 2-3 months. It´s under "mods in development" in this forum.

[Didz]

Would blitzing really work in our hypothetical MP campaign game though? Where the other player(s) could take advantage of the blitzer in ways the AI never does??
In our hypothetical scenario the 'Turtle' and the 'Hare' remain true to their nature. Under such conditions the Turtle would never consider modifying his strategy to exploit the weakness of the Hare. Consequently, he would not suddenly launch a counter-blitz to overrun a weakly held opponents cities as that is not in his nature.

In reality, a player might well decide what the hell, I'm losing, and go hell bent to take out a few of those exposed cities. But as soon as he does so he ceased to be a 'Turtle' and becomes another 'Hare' (or at least a Goffer) and so the hypothetical situation we are discussing is ruined.

Except in so far it would prove my hypothesis that in an MP Campaign everyone would need to be a blitzer to win. Just as in any MP game the specialist rushers always dictate the standard of play for others.

[icek]

too many turtle defending guys here think that confrontation between turtle and hare will be like battle of elite "turtle" army againts some peasants. but from where turtle will get their amy in such short time, having 5 territories, 4 cities and 1 castle. did everybody thinks that rusher will wait untill 70 turn so you can have ballista towers and citadel. if english turtle with london, nothingam,york, caen and brugge will lose london in 25 turn it will be end for him.

[Didz]

Yep! I'm with Icek...it would be a very short game for the Turtles.

[crpcarrot]

until CA bring in the negative affects of a captured province like we saw in MTW blitzing will alwasy be a better option in the current game. sacking gives too much of a financial booste at a negligible cost. sacking should have a really bad affect on popularity and public order. after all you have just releived the cities population of their valuables they are not going to forget that in a couple of years.

[_Tristan_]

Except in so far it would prove my hypothesis that in an MP Campaign everyone would need to be a blitzer to win. Just as in any MP game the specialist rushers always dictate the standard of play for others.


Not necessarily...

As has been pointed out before, a MP game (with more than 1v1) would not allow blitzer to maneuver at their ease...

The blitzer must concentrate on an assault path and thus must leave home territories undefended (or almost), thus becoming primary targets for other blitzers... So in order not to be defeated, the blitzer will have to turtle a bit, leaving better troops behind and consolidating his starting position (thus himself becoming a Goffer, as you stated...

Therefore, IMHO, in a XvX MP game, there should be room for all styles of play but I think the most viable would be what has been qualified as Expansionist (or moderate) which I construe as taking a province at a time out of necessity or willingness and building a strong defending position as a base of operations...

I fervently hope that blitzers would not rule as it would ruin any pleasure I would have in playing M2TW online or MP, but as I have stated here above I don't think it will happen...

Remember that we are talking M2TW and not StarCraft (No peasant rush...:smash: ) and that the level of complexity is much higher...

You also have to remember that in a MP game the blitzer takes the risk of becoming everybody else's scapegoat, once his style of play is discovered and should many blitzers take part in the same game, they would mainly cancel each others' efforts.

[Bob the Insane]

Well, surely a true turtle can't be defined as being purely defensive, I mean you need 45 provinces to win the game...

Maybe we a being too strict with the desciption of the turtle. The guy that holds 5 provinces for 225 turns loses the game. So the turtle must expand to, the difference is the style of expansion is it not? The Hare being fast, aggresive, almost reckless, and the Turtle being slow, (overly?) cautious and defensive in his expansion.

Does the turtle expand slowly never leaving anywhere unproctected, or does he sit and defend himself and develop until late in the game where he explodes in a flurry of action?

We might as well be comparing strategies that can both win or the discussion will remain very one sided...

[andrewt]

Not necessarily...

As has been pointed out before, a MP game (with more than 1v1) would not allow blitzer to maneuver at their ease...

The blitzer must concentrate on an assault path and thus must leave home territories undefended (or almost), thus becoming primary targets for other blitzers... So in order not to be defeated, the blitzer will have to turtle a bit, leaving better troops behind and consolidating his starting position (thus himself becoming a Goffer, as you stated...

Therefore, IMHO, in a XvX MP game, there should be room for all styles of play but I think the most viable would be what has been qualified as Expansionist (or moderate) which I construe as taking a province at a time out of necessity or willingness and building a strong defending position as a base of operations...

I fervently hope that blitzers would not rule as it would ruin any pleasure I would have in playing M2TW online or MP, but as I have stated here above I don't think it will happen...

Remember that we are talking M2TW and not StarCraft (No peasant rush...:smash: ) and that the level of complexity is much higher...

You also have to remember that in a MP game the blitzer takes the risk of becoming everybody else's scapegoat, once his style of play is discovered and should many blitzers take part in the same game, they would mainly cancel each others' efforts.


Well, if we're talking about a free-for-all MP game with more than 2 players, the best strategy is to be in 2nd place for most of the game. You catapult to 1st only when you're sure you can take everybody else once they gang up on you. In other words, you're likely to blitz. Just make sure somebody is blitzing faster than you.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Well, I'm certainly no expert at this game. But here's my :2cents:

After reading thru some of the pizza chronicles at the Pizza War College, I don't think there's any question but that the AI is completely toast against a serious blitz. Half a dozen sainted generals, total control of the papacy, huge stacks covering the campaign map like the barbaric hordes. It really is an awesome sight.

I've never played any total war game against a living breathing opponent. But at this point I just can't imagine the turtle standing up to such an onslaught. I suppose much would depend on who the tutle is and how experienced he is with the game. Also, it might depend on how the game itself plays in PvP. How is the Pope handled in a PvP game. Does he dispense orders? Do the guilds still give out assignments? I assume they do. But I don't know how the PvP game works. Does the AI still play the unchosen factions? How these and other issues might affect a PvP game would be intersting to find out.

Regardless, I still think the blitz has an edge.

For the blitzer, early mobilization is the key. Once you have a few city sackings under your belt, you should have all the cash you need to put some large armies in the field like they ones I see in ATPG's screenshot chronicles. Pizza guy plays with huge debts too. If you can stop up that strategy, I suppose you can kill the blitz. Certainly the Russians did in WW II. After Barbarossa, the Germans were never really fully in control of the Eastern Front war again. They were able to take the initiative once more into the Don River area toward the Caspian Sea. But Hitler's blitzkreig was never intended to be a long campaign strategy. The wide open spaces of Russia caused a great loss of momentum. That's a big campaign map in M2TW, if you haven't noticed.

So my thinking is - if there is a weakness in the PvP blitz, it will be the same as the German weakness on the Eastern Front. The blitzer has to refresh his bank account by taking cities. If he runs out of money and the turtle has built up his economic base, the blitz could run out of steam. The blitzer has been fighting, not building so much. Sapi seems to think along these lines, so I guess I agree with him. However, if I were the turtle, I'd be toast. :2thumbsup:

A multiple player game might be even more problemmatic for the blitzer, especially if some of the turtlers have time to build up their forces. In this case, I think the goal of the turtlers would be to try to break up the blitzer's rhythym. If they could do that, the blitzer would then have to slow down, or get eliminated early. But again, I'm speculating.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I'm glad some have been paying attention at my 'war college', but of course I am not so self-congratulatory that I think only my strategy can work.

For all those Turtlers out there, I've stated before and I'll state it again, the blitz has weaknesses. But no, friends, I am not weak against your heavily defended settlements. Not even in the slightest. If anyone saw my England thread, you would have seen three full stacks going against a heavily defended garrison of the Byzantine empire, Thessalonica, which was further reinforced by another full stack of the Eastern Roman empire's best troops, commanded by none other than their 10 star faction leader. You simply CANNOT defend a settlement any more vigorously.

I crushed them like ants. Doesn't matter what you do, my friends, I do have seiges worked out just fine. I went after the reinforcements first, and crushed his majesty outside the settlement, just before his reinforcements arrived. Then it was a 3 stack versus one battle, child's play. Had they only ONE stack to deal with, a simple 3 on 1 seige would have ended their hopes and dreams.

So no, in spite of many claims to the contrary, you cannot simply repel a blitzer's seiges like you would an AI. Blitzers HAVE to be experts at seiges. And while I am sure that the human would do better at defending, I almost always do seiges when I can literally win by force. I make sure you can't touch my general, destroy walls if necessary (against a human I would actually bring artillery), lead with my heavy infantry, rain fire arrows and flaming rocks down upon thee, and wear you down even as you defend at your strongest point. The AI actually does a fairly good job defending during seiges. There's only so much you can do. It really is up to the attacker to force a win, and that's exactly what I do.

This is not supposed to be a boast; it is a preface to a larger argument for what a Turtle could actually do against the blitzer. Rather than making your stand inside city walls, the answer is on the campaign map. You cannot afford to be passive against the blitzer, because he will always have more troops on the field than yourself, probably (as I do) putting himself into terrible debt in order to do so. He does have an edge on force, so you cannot put yourself in the position of being backed into a corner where he can win purely by force, which are seige situations.

The answer is, defend your borders. Lay traps. Defend bridges, put yourself on top of hills, prepare for an assault on the campaign trail. Ambush if possible.

If you can put yourself in a superior tactical position out in the field, even if your ambush fails (which it might... I have a tendency to spring traps with a single unit of scouting cavalry or spies) you are in the most defensible and maneuverable position that can be offered. Get yourself some HEAVY infantry, longbowmen or crossbowmen, heavy cavalry, and perhaps a catapult or better. Rain death upon me as I advance, charge downhill to meet my attack, destroy my general with your heavy infantry, and rout my forces and destroy them with your heavy cavalry. If I brought reinforcements (and I will have), you now have an even match against them, with only slightly winded troops. Get back to your defenses, and wait for my second assault. Of course, at this point, I would probably do the smart thing and retreat. But assuming I didn't, you could make your valiant stand, and your economy would warrant rebuilding your army afterwards, whereas I might not be able to do so.

Second tactic: Sometimes I decide to ignore your army completely and go for your settlements. This forces you on offense.

I've left myself vulnerable in doing so, because I've slipped past your front line, thereby allowing you behind my front line. Which means you have got to be quick. Either you repel the invader with seige relief forces, or you counter-strike. I recommend the counter-strike. I probably haven't prepared defenses like you have. While I am busy seiging and winning difficult battles in your territory, you could easily open my settlement gates and take a city per turn in my territory, counter-blitz and burn my settlements to the ground. From here it becomes a race to see who kills who faster. I'd give you a run for your money, having more assault forces than you do, but you could take active defenses at home. Remember, defending against seiges is NOT your friend when fighting pizzaguy. So, bring out your garrisons, stack them all together, and meet my invasion force head on, from a defensive position. See above example. You have better odds doing this than waiting to die, cowering behind walls. Proactive defense beats forced losses any day.

You must destroy my entire empire, though, because I likely have enough forces in your territory to wipe you out. So you must neutralize my empire by taking all my settlements and repelling the invasion force. Do this, and you can win. Fail at taking all my settlements, or fail at repelling my invasion force, and you have a forced loss. However, difficult as it may be, this kind of active defense has a much better chance of winning against the superior blitzer, because you actually have a chance to force a win, if you are really good. Anything else is not a forced win, it is an eventual loss. I will either slowly take your settlements one at a time, (and after the first one, the war really turns in my favor. Pillaging one of your fat bloated cities is all it takes) or I will slip behind your front line defenses and attack your less defended inner cities. I am fairly close to imitating the Mongol invasion here, except with far more expertise than the AI has.

I have posted several times about repelling the Mongol hordes. Almost all of those tactics will work here. You are dealing with a superior invading force, so you cannot afford to sit inside your cities at all. A counter-strike is neccessary.

Don't skimp on the possibility of assassins either. Unlike the blitzer, you probably have some of those. Night fighter is also a good thing. If you could perhaps stack 2 or 3 defending armies together, headed by generals with Night fighter, you may in fact be able to perform my own Anti-Mongol tactic against me! Surround each of my invading stacks and eliminate me by superior force.

These are examples for a Blitzer versus Turtle campaign, NOt assuming some silly hypothetical situation where you cannot attack anyone else, even rebels, which wouldn't ever happen so why discuss it.

What is of MORE interest to me is the possibility of 3 or more human players.

Now blitzing is synonymous with suicide. Even if I could FORCE a victory against a single Turtle, the other would invade my territory and destroy my undefended homes. The AI needs to learn a thing or two about aggressive defense. Humans, on the other hand, have the intuition to seize the moment and wipe the belligerent from the map.

I disagree with some who fear that blitzing would ruin multiplayer mode... simply because blitzing works best against inferior AI or perhaps a single human turtle. Blitzing also destroys other blitzers, and when there are other humans on the field, the moderate players have a clear advantage.

Turtling is weak against a single blitzer, but not against multiple blitzers. Assuming they aren't working together. I still believe that blitz is superior in single player and 1 on 1 matches, however, the moderate "expansionist" is the clear winner in matches 3 humans and above.

Turtling is good versus an expansionist, because they don't have the superior mega-offense of a blitzer, and therefore a Turtle would win against an expansionist unless it is a one on one match, which would be a slow war of attrition that the Turtle would probably lose, but it is not always the rule.

Turtling is generally not a good idea. However, it does provide you with superior defense against other turtles and expansionists. It leaves you vulnerable to the blitz. Fortunately, in 3 or more player mode, blitzers lose, and it is anyone's game. However, if one human player defends his territory and counter-strikes a blitzer, and wins, he now has the massive territory of a blitzer and the core defense of a turtle, the best of both worlds, leaving a Turtle in the dust.

For this reason, folks, I say unless you are fighting a brainless AI or a single human opponent, moderate expansionism rules the day, not blitzing or turtling.
For one on one or single player mode, the current AI allows blitzing to win.

That does not mean turtling for a little while is a bad thing for multiplayer. It may be a good idea. But eventually, the turtle needs a massive aggressive strike to gain the advantage, so the turtle must eventually become a blitzer.

In the long term, if a Turtle survives, he may be able to expand to the point where he can field both a massive defensive force and a massive offensive force, in which case the Turtle is in a superior position. If he proactively defends his territory, and strikes like a blitzer eventually with a superior army, I'd say that the Turtle might be able to stay in the game.

I would conclude, however, that the passive Turtle will rely on luck, not force, to win the day. If the other humans target him first, he is toast.

Now that I am sure everyone is fed up with my opinion, I leave the floor open for rebuttal.

:knight:

__________________________
Sorry for off-topic question, but how do I rate threads? I think this thread is really good (for the healthy debate, not my opinion) and I would like to give it 5 stars. Or is that a feature reserved for senior members?

[Guyus Germanicus]

I would have to definitely agree that the turtle couldn't settle into a passive defense. That surrenders all initiative, and that is suicide. You can't just let the blitzer go for your cities and castles. You have to take the initiative and make the blitzer fight on your terms as much as possible. Otherwise your always reacting. So passive defense is not going to work as I see it.

The only circumstances that I can relate to that comes close to actually facing a blitzer was in Barbarian invasion, the RTW expansion. When I took the Alemanni or the Franks, there were occasions when I had to go nose to nose with the Vandals or the Goths in 'horde' mode. The Vandal horde is a little larger and can amount to five or six fullstacks with lots of horse archers. I had one army with a good supply of archers and mercenary horse archers defending a bridge crossing. I'll be darned if the Vandals didn't hit me four or five times in one turn. The Goths did the same doggone thing later in the game. (My troops sure acquired a lot of experience chevrons in those encounters.) Again, in one turn no less. Needless to say, if I had to defend against a blitz of multiple stacks, I'd prefer to be stationed at a river crossing. But the key was I was forcing the AI to fight on the ground of my choosing. A human opponent wouldn't try to force a river crossing like that multiple times.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I would have to definitely agree that the turtle couldn't settle into a passive defense. That surrenders all initiative, and that is suicide. You can't just let the blitzer go for your cities and castles. You have to take the initiative and make the blitzer fight on your terms as much as possible. Otherwise your always reacting. So passive defense is not going to work as I see it.

The only circumstances that I can relate to that comes close to actually facing a blitzer was in Barbarian invasion, the RTW expansion. When I took the Alemanni or the Franks, there were occasions when I had to go nose to nose with the Vandals or the Goths in 'horde' mode. The Vandal horde is a little larger and can amount to five or six fullstacks with lots of horse archers. I had one army with a good supply of archers and mercenary horse archers defending a bridge crossing. I'll be darned if the Vandals didn't hit me four or five times in one turn. The Goths did the same doggone thing later in the game. (My troops sure acquired a lot of experience chevrons in those encounters.) Again, in one turn no less. Needless to say, if I had to defend against a blitz of multiple stacks, I'd prefer to be stationed at a river crossing. But the key was I was forcing the AI to fight on the ground of my choosing. A human opponent wouldn't try to force a river crossing like that multiple times.

Of course, a human might have better river crossing strategies, so don't assume that blocking a river is any more effective than a standard battle. For example, river crossing battles favor archers and artillery. I can defend my side of the bridge and advance across it with a single unit of infantry. I can target the defenders on the other side of the bridge with longbowmen (if available), ballistae, catapults, and other such 'things that fling'.

This forces the defender to move back, out of the path of fire, or take damage and return fire, which depending on the situation may be a good or a bad move. It depends on whether you brought artillery and archers of your own in copious amounts. I'm going to assume that you did.

I cross the river quickly with heavy cavalry, because any dense areas of spearmen or infantry defending your side of the river are toast, routed, or have moved away from the line of fire. Now I can charge whatever is there to meet me, and hold them up while my infantry cross. If you try to close the gap and meet my forces, there will be a rain of death upon you for bunching your forces together. I can afford to lose my heavy cavalry here, because they are largely useless in a close quarters situation like this. Can you afford to have your infantry pummeled with flaming objects moving through the air at great speed while my infantry is relatively safe?

I will assume that you allowed my infantry to cross as well, otherwise I now have pasted your infantry and they are ready to rout, which loses you the battle. Now I can move my archers across and set up a perimeter with my infantry, and maneuver my cavalry into a better tactical position so that they might actually be useful in some way.

Inevitably, the advantage of the bridge itself is now nullified. Now we have an even battle. So I highly recommend we not rely exclusively on bridge defense. It is a good trick, but like building stone walls, it is an advantage which can be nullified by artillery and archers.

I recommend the defender (turtle, expansionist, whichever) attempt to spring ambushes, trap the invading force with multiple armies, or find a defensive mountain pass or hilltop to make your stand from. Those advantages cannot be nullified during battle.

:knight:

[Didz]

I fervently hope that blitzers would not rule as it would ruin any pleasure I would have in playing M2TW online or MP, but as I have stated here above I don't think it will happen...

Remember that we are talking M2TW and not StarCraft (No peasant rush...:smash: ) and that the level of complexity is much higher...
I would also hope that this would not be the case, but if it wasn't then it would be a first MP game I've played where it wasn't. Usually, playing style declines to the lowest common denominator. The only real hope I would hold is that provided the game was PBEM and therefore allowed time for player interaction between turns then there might be a chance for the Turtles to ally themselves against a Blitzer and thus keep him in check.

As for the issue of the 'Zergling Rush' not being an option outside Starcraft, I have less hope. I have never played MTW2 battlegrounds, but certainly in the STW battleground game the 'Zergling Rush' was perfectly feasible, either as a 'Monk Rush', a 'High Honour Peasant Rush' or 'Massed Heavy Cavalry'. I see no reason to assume that something similar is not possible in MTW2, where Blitzers could easily form imba armies based upon their preferred unit type. I would certainly imagine a heavy preferance for 100% Horse Archer Armies amongst some players. but others are claiming massed peasants can be equally useful for seige assaults.

[icek]

russia could do that with ease. thank god they have hard start. or moors with those camel gunners

[TevashSzat]

Sigh...wrote a long reply and then lost it due to accidental closing IE. Will edit post later

[sapi]

Interesting analysis, askthepizzaguy.

I do agree with you that, under some circumstances, the turtler stands no chance of mounting a successful defence. None of the strategies of turtle defence would work if the hare's only goal in the game was to kill that faction, and if they put every resource into it from day one.

But say it's a normal game for five or ten turns. That's necessary anyway, really, to develop armies and differentiate the two sides. At that point, the turtle, knowing that an attack was coming, would have decent garrisons in frontier cities, and could hold for a few turns.

At that point, the turtler does have a good chance.

I'll use the example of the byzantines here, but this would really work for any faction, just at different locations. From day one, I'd have given Thessalonia up for dead, and donated it to the papacy to prevent the hare sacking it. I'd have an army holding greece from the narrow pass above corinth (and east of modern day athens).

Two fleets could block the dardenelles, removing access to many of my core provinces. From there, troops could be churned out from the castle in nicea to reinforce constantinople, which as a large city has the potential of holding out for a significant time period in sieges (and has decent defences).

Any competent player would then, of course, divert the majority of their resources to expansion eastwards. Some quick strikes could capture antolia, then bring the turks to peace, giving me a bigger economic base for no loss. And no, that's not stretching the definition of turtling, as no offensive actions have yet been launched against the other player.

From there, the game gets more interesting. While holding constantinople wouldn't be easy, and it may fall, it could certainly hold the hare up for some time, with a decent garrison. A numerical advantage is meaningless in street to street fighting - four infantry units, backed up by archers, could hold the town square very easily, especially with the battle timer enabled.

At this point, it simply becomes the usual turtle-hare matchup, but with a more developed economy - and there's a good chance that the hare would be held up for long enough for some decent turtle units to come into play.

I'm not saying that the hare would necessarily lose; merely that a human player will make use of bottlenecks that an AI never would, and may buy himself enough time to create a decent standing army.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Interesting analysis, askthepizzaguy.

I do agree with you that, under some circumstances, the turtler stands no chance of mounting a successful defence. None of the strategies of turtle defence would work if the hare's only goal in the game was to kill that faction, and if they put every resource into it from day one.

But say it's a normal game for five or ten turns. That's necessary anyway, really, to develop armies and differentiate the two sides. At that point, the turtle, knowing that an attack was coming, would have decent garrisons in frontier cities, and could hold for a few turns.

At that point, the turtler does have a good chance.

I'll use the example of the byzantines here, but this would really work for any faction, just at different locations. From day one, I'd have given Thessalonia up for dead, and donated it to the papacy to prevent the hare sacking it. I'd have an army holding greece from the narrow pass above corinth (and east of modern day athens).

Two fleets could block the dardenelles, removing access to many of my core provinces. From there, troops could be churned out from the castle in nicea to reinforce constantinople, which as a large city has the potential of holding out for a significant time period in sieges (and has decent defences).

Any competent player would then, of course, divert the majority of their resources to expansion eastwards. Some quick strikes could capture antolia, then bring the turks to peace, giving me a bigger economic base for no loss. And no, that's not stretching the definition of turtling, as no offensive actions have yet been launched against the other player.

From there, the game gets more interesting. While holding constantinople wouldn't be easy, and it may fall, it could certainly hold the hare up for some time, with a decent garrison. A numerical advantage is meaningless in street to street fighting - four infantry units, backed up by archers, could hold the town square very easily, especially with the battle timer enabled.

At this point, it simply becomes the usual turtle-hare matchup, but with a more developed economy - and there's a good chance that the hare would be held up for long enough for some decent turtle units to come into play.

I'm not saying that the hare would necessarily lose; merely that a human player will make use of bottlenecks that an AI never would, and may buy himself enough time to create a decent standing army.

I'd agree that the human would put up a much more vigorous fight than the AI would. A human with a half stack garrison is harder to beat than an AI with a full stack garrison.

For the sake of this argument, you are Byzantine and I am the HRE or France.

The plan you propose gives up Thessalonica, an interesting move. You may be assuming that the human would not attack the Papacy, or at the very least the Papacy would delay an attacking force. But why shouldn't I attack the Papacy? A blitzer may in fact be excommunicated anyway. Or I might not be Catholic at all. But let's use your scenario; I'm Catholic and I haven't been excommunicated yet. What if I just trapse through Thessalonica, ignoring it completely?

In such a scenario, wouldn't it be better to hold Thessalonica and reap what florins you can from it, while you can?

I certainly do not fault you at all for new tactics. Anything at all that the Turtle can do to change his situation is something I'd have to consider. On this specific one, I question whether it is necessary. Further, I offer a counter-proposal: why not make your stand against the hypothetical invading Catholic from the West in the Thessalonica/Durazzo/Sofia region? Plenty of good mountain passes and hilltops to defend from, a good place to set up an early warning network with a spy and watchtowers, a good place to have delaying forts. In general, a good place to have a first stand against possible sneak attacks. At worst, you force the Blitzer to come up with a truly superior army that can knock out your main defensive force in one of the toughest battle maps around; a steep valley/mountain region. That is quite an effective delaying tactic; I know because I've tried to attack people who were holed up in the valleys of the Alps. Big mistake if not completely prepared, and even if prepared, still expecting a loss of beaucoup troops, thus allowing you to muster a secondary defense at Thessalonica (any seige battle is an excellent roadblock, because it loses time and troops to the attacker). When and if that fails, you have had all the time in the world to prepare for your main defense at Constantinople. If you lose your huge first-line defense force in Thessalonica region, you all of a sudden have florins aplenty to spend on reinforcements for Constantinople, if you don't have reinforcements already. Then, the seige of Thessalonica (a likely event, but be prepared for the attacker to skip and head straight for Constantinople) makes an excellent next-line of defense and delays my strike even further, while providing you with taxes for as long as possible.

In any event, the case can be made to not give ground so quickly. Thessalonica doesn't even need a full garrison, you can stick to freebie militias until pressed, then recruit as many troops as possible when your spy or watchtower spots the enemy approaching.

Believe you me, even as a blitzer, or perhaps especially as a blitzer, I think about possible defenses all the time. I believe you would be right to move east and carve out a safe haven in Asia minor, and perhaps use navies to delay, block, or sink invading fleets to further fortify your territory.

The stand made inside Constantinople should be a last resort as a defense. If possible, and assuming the attack will be coming from the West, I'd recommend a second stack join your first-wave defenders in Thessalonica, or perhaps stationed outside Sofia to react to any Northern threats, as well as reinforce the West. When possible, make your stand far from the heart of your empire, so you have room to fall back, not just once, but twice in this case, and still have time for a massive final stand.

I note that you may consider it more likely that the blitz would strike early... interesting. I tend to go for the soft, rebel targets first, build my armies, attack neighboring factions, expand my front line away from my core territories, and then assault my targets with a massive flood of troops in the form of 2+ stacks sriking rapidly and without mercy, with reinforcements following close behind if I am able to muster them.

Like the Borg, I don't do anything piecemeal. When I come for you, I come in force, and I leave nothing left in my wake. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. It's best to attack me when I am young and vulnerable, because when the collective is up and running, I send the entire hive after you. Much like the Mongol invasion, and with almost as many troops. The troops may be of poor quality at first, but the more I expand, the more distinctive cultures are added to my own, the more and better units I have access to. I can assimilate a Turtle-like AI faction and have equal technology to a human Turtle.

However, it is not in the Turtle's nature to aggressively strike first, so chances are I will have developed quite a bit, and likely you will have as well, before the epic battle takes place.

I'd say Byzantium has a good shot at defending against the West as a Turtle if you use the above suggested tactic. And some further advice: The units don't need to be superb; they only need to be there on the battlefield. Better units are good, but more units are better. Until you can get more and better units, which is best; but that takes florins, and you need to build your economy first. So stick with cheapo troops in large numbers, and have Thessalonica build some armor shops so that the troops you send to defend can all get the good armor as soon as it becomes available. Cheapo troops plus good armor equals decent troops.

Truth be told, it would be a difficult assault. I would NOT be able to strike you right away, so you would have time to rally your defenses, which would further delay my attack, which buys you more time. However, unless you do something drastic, I will continue to build my empire and continue to build my troop levels to the point where no defense may be adequate.

Then again, people have repelled the Mongols and the Timurids with smaller empires than I would be comfortable with; so anything is possible. My question to you is, when would you beat me? How and when would you counter-strike? By the time you accomplish your Turtle goals for your Turtle empire, I will have gobbled up a good third of the map. What is your strategy for taking on an empire thrice your size, especially if you are on defense and the empire in question is pummeling you with a pure militaristic strategy?

That would be not only a defense, but a counter-offensive I would personally love to witness. I believe I would have renewed respect for anyone who could pull that off. The defense against the Borg is one thing... the counter-strike is a whole different beast I have not seen addressed yet.

If the offensive fails against your culture, I believe I would make every effort to defend against your counter-strike, and I would have the economy and vast number of recruitment facilities to rebuild a very large fighting force in short order, especially if I found myself without a giant standing army for some reason.

I think the best you may hope for is a small counter-offensive that catches me off-guard, which leads to a war of attrition. We may become very evenly matched at this point, but by now enough time has passed that my blitzer empire has grown to the point where it can match your Turtle empire. At this point, it's a virtual stalemate, unless someone makes a series of terrible blunders.

In any case, I laud your enthusiastic devotion to your chosen strategy. I believe you would be a formidable opponent, and could possibly advance far enough in your objectives to credibly oppose me on the battlefield. I have to give myself an edge unless there is yet another human in the game, but like two great masters of chess, the edge may not be enough to force a win every time. In such terms, I believe I would be up in space, development and tempo, but the material would be even. A difficult game.

:knight:

[d3nn16]

Does anyone know if it will it be possible to play multi-player campaigns in the expansion or only 1 human vs 1 human vs AI or any other kind ?
I'd like to see X vs X campaigns and battles fought manually. Any chances of having that in Kingdoms ?

[Lusted]

ATPG, if a situation developed where a large blitzer and smaller turtle reached a stalemate after the turtle beating back the blitzers assault, i would likely lauch a series of small counter strikes at various parts of his empire by sea.

This would open multiple fronts, and whilst all of the counter-strikes would not succeed, some might, and then i would carry on the offensive from there. Then the war would probably degenerate into an epic battle of attrition.

[Askthepizzaguy]

ATPG, if a situation developed where a large blitzer and smaller turtle reached a stalemate after the turtle beating back the blitzers assault, i would likely lauch a series of small counter strikes at various parts of his empire by sea.

This would open multiple fronts, and whilst all of the counter-strikes would not succeed, some might, and then i would carry on the offensive from there. Then the war would probably degenerate into an epic battle of attrition.

Because I am limited by my own preferred styles, I admit that part of what gives my strategy teeth is the utter lack of navy or preparedness for naval assaults. It is another one of Pizzaguy's secret shames.

It is a trade off. I trade a nearly insurmountable Mongol-invasion type of assault for all the necessary sacrifices; defender garrisons, religious buildings, assassins, economic buildings, ports, and navies. Basically, I become a cross between the Mongols and the Vikings. I pillage and pillage until I can't pillage any more. What I get for my trouble is an endless supply of money and troops.

Against a human opponent, this is slightly modified. I WILL be developing armor and troop producing facilities. That's about it, though.

What you get is almost an unholy hybrid of the offensive/defensive potential of the Turtle with the vast volume of troops and money that only a Blitzer can provide. This is one notch above Expansionist, and one notch below Kamikaze: the truly determined Blitzer. Sometimes I even have money left over to worry about public order buildings and the like, but more often than not I simply convert it into more troops.

Anyone who saw my England thread knows that I field about as many troops as there are civilians in my entire empire. They also know that by turn 70, I had about 15 full stacks of troops all concentrated on one spot on the map to repel the Mongol invasion... with three times as many troops as the Mongols themselves sent.

This wouldn't be the case, of course, when focusing on a human in a player V player game, but the point is, no Turtle could possibly repel the endless tide of troops that the ultimate M2TW aggressor could churn out. There is a point where it does become unfair.

Thankfully, against a human it probably wouldn't get to that point, because I would see the need to eliminate him before he becomes a major threat. Sapi provided me with a situation that would likely hold me off until it became a fair game... and occupy my attention so that it would remain a fair game.

Anyway... sidetracked. Getting back to my point.

Yes, a sneak series of amphibious assaults would have a definite impact on the war. I question whether or not the Turtle would have the resources to pull it off.

So far, he must:

1) Field a massive defensive army on his border facing me (in the Byzantium versus the West scenario)
2) Expand east militarily (more troops...)
3) Expand his economy and troop producing facilities (yet more money...)
4) Develop a navy (more money...)
5) Build bigger defensive walls, armor producers, and upgrades to his key cities (ouch... expensive!)

So... where does he get the resources to do his little piracy raid? If I am not mistaken, unless his empire is massive, he doesn't have the resources to accomplish four of the above goals, let alone all 5 plus send a navy filled with raiders as a sixth goal. Feel free to correct me.

I estimate I will have made my initial assault into his territory by turn 30 at the latest, so... where's the beef?

Unless you guys are cheating and you have more florins than humanly possible, how does he make 4, 5, or all 6 goals by the time 5 stacks of troops start knocking on his door? I ask you, where is the beef?

Eventually, it is the sheer lack of enough territory that is the downfall of the turtle. having well developed provinces may give you an even game for a while, but eventually the sheer number of opposing provinces and the fact that they are all growing too makes it impossible for the Turtle to ultimately keep up. His best bet is if he repels my intial assault and counter-attacks, but eventually the counter-strike will fizzle out and we will be back where we started, except by now my provinces are fairly well developed, leading to a woefully lopsided end game.

Ironically, the Turtle needs to win quickly, and the Blitzer can afford to wait. The longer the game progresses, the more powerful the Blitzer becomes. It is in the Turtle's best interest to repel the initial assault and counter-attack sooner rather than later. The larger the Blitzer becomes, the easier it is to replace the kamikaze stacks of troops he sends into enemy territory. I can get to the point where I literally ship off endless stacks of troops, and you have to beat me before I get there.

Not so much a problem in 3 player mode or above, but in 2 player mode the Blitzer can afford to hold off his assault and become ever more powerful, and the longer this goes on, the weaker the Turtle becomes by comparison.

I yield the floor again for further debate. The pro-Turtle side has made some very good points, but on my own personal scoreboard they don't yet add up to the pro-Blitz side. So far the audience would seem to agree, there have been more 'votes' cast for the Blitz side. However, the debate is certainly not over, and I strongly encourage more rebuttals and more fresh ideas. If I see something strong that I haven't yet considered, I would have to change my analysis of the situation. Not that my little opinion matters, or anything.

:knight:

[Lusted]

Oh i think the blitzer would win as well, and i would'n treally be playing as a pure turtle, i would be a moderate expansionist. I would likely try and divert my eastern expansion forces into the small raiding forces needed to try and hit amphibiously and try and even things out more. But yes money will always be a problem, i'd likely go on my own little blitz against you with my small forces to try and even things out. A pure turtle though would have no chance.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Forgive my seemingly endless opinions, but I have another quick addition to the Turtle's defense strategy.

Use diplomats to siphon off as much florins from the AI as possible to boost your economy. Trade map info, trade rights, alliances, and offers to assault their enemies for as many florins as humanly possible. One advantage the Turtle has is his superior diplomatic status as a peaceful faction. That can be converted into an early lead in development.

I shut mouth now.

:beam:

[Lusted]

Indeed that is an option, but of limited use as the blitzer could likely divert enough resources to crush any ai nation that attacked them.

[Fisherking]

Hay! You guys do know that it is represented in the game as the Mongels and Timorids. I don't ever recall loosing to them in all the games I have played.

Not only in the game do we see examples of Hare Vs. Turtles. Alexander was a Hare as were the Huns and a few others but they usually last until the strong man dies and then evaporate.

What ever method you use that works for you is a good one. There are ways to counter each.

[Ramses II CP]

It would be interesting to see a 'scorched earth' defense against the hare. Cause rioting in all the towns the blitzer is reaching for, reducing the population and the sack prize. Sell all the structures before you leave, just so the enemy can't. Try to attack ahead of the hare on 3rd party provinces, exterminating them and then inciting riots. Play the game with the goal of evening out the income difference between a well managed economy and a sack blitz.

I don't think rioting alone would reduce the sack prize enough actually, but a policy of exterminating the lands between you and the blitz might inconvenience the blitzer. Of course it wouldn't work for a centrally located struggle, but around the edges...

Hrm, probably not. Movement range is wide enough that you wouldn't slow them enough to balance having to maintain an exterminator force in the borderlands.

[Fisherking]

A combination of scorched earth and counter blitz would likely kill him off. Don't engage his strongest force but go after his cities with your own stacks destroying his income base and forcing him to chase you...

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hay! You guys do know that it is represented in the game as the Mongels and Timorids. I don't ever recall loosing to them in all the games I have played.

Not only in the game do we see examples of Hare Vs. Turtles. Alexander was a Hare as were the Huns and a few others but they usually last until the strong man dies and then evaporate.

What ever method you use that works for you is a good one. There are ways to counter each.

As stated previously, and widely acknowledged by many, the AI doesn't know how to seriously use aggression. It blockades ports for no reason, sends lone stacks to attack your empire, and the Mongols and the Timurids sometimes just sit there for decades. The AI is also stupid and predictable. They will fall for the same bridge defense, fort trap, city/castle trap, over and over and over again. It cannot be compared to facing a blitzer. A blitzer could steamroll your empire with two or three stacks, never mind ten.

If done properly, the defense against the Mongols can be executed before they snatch a single city. However, Blitzers actually have an empire that can churn out endless stacks of troops, and control them in less predictable ways.
I've been the target of crusades before, where the computer actually sends waves of attackers at me directly. Even this doesn't come close to a true comparison to a blitzer onslaught. I disagree with your analysis that real blitzing is represented in the game.

:2cents:

[Askthepizzaguy]

It would be interesting to see a 'scorched earth' defense against the hare. Cause rioting in all the towns the blitzer is reaching for, reducing the population and the sack prize. Sell all the structures before you leave, just so the enemy can't. Try to attack ahead of the hare on 3rd party provinces, exterminating them and then inciting riots. Play the game with the goal of evening out the income difference between a well managed economy and a sack blitz.

I don't think rioting alone would reduce the sack prize enough actually, but a policy of exterminating the lands between you and the blitz might inconvenience the blitzer. Of course it wouldn't work for a centrally located struggle, but around the edges...

Hrm, probably not. Movement range is wide enough that you wouldn't slow them enough to balance having to maintain an exterminator force in the borderlands.

Such a strategy would have little effect on a blitzer. Any city which doesn't yield a substantial cash prize because it has been exterminated is an uneccessary loss for the opponent of the blitzer. This means the blitzer's opponent held the city, and chose to abandon it. I don't see how that in any way adds to the effectiveness of his defense.

The only potential gain for the defender is sacking florins, followed by the possibility of a large rebel garrison slowing me down. But what prevents me from strolling past the city? This isn't football, the defender in question is a city which cannot move.

Not to mention the fact that the Blitzer will have gained his cash prizes necessary to build his invasion army before taking the cities you have taken and exterminated, causing no real loss to the blitzer at all. I agree with your analysis that the strategy would be ineffective.

:2cents:

[Askthepizzaguy]

Indeed that is an option, but of limited use as the blitzer could likely divert enough resources to crush any ai nation that attacked them.

Mmm I think you missed what I was driving at.

The point was to gain any and all florins from the AI, not to have the AI attack the blitzer. I personally have funded my early empire almost exclusively on diplomatic deals. With attacks on other factions selling for around 250-300 florins apiece, maps sometimes selling for 1000 florins, and alliances netting a random amount of coin, you can gain somewhere around 4000 or 5000 florins from each faction you meet. You can even sack cities and sell them to your opponents for coin.

Such a tactic is VITAL to struggling turtles and expansionists alike.

[Marquis of Roland]

Up to this point, most of the strategies/scenarios that have been posted are either partially or wholly based on our in-game experiences fighting against the AI, esp. with regards to what a turtle or hare is "expected" to do. Considering the fact that a MP game involving the campaign is impossible right now (other than PBEM, which I think only very few have tried), that is certainly understandable. In order to fill in the gaps of our experiences, we substitute parallel experiences from other RTS MP games which may or may not represent the same situation in M2TW accurately. I will try to exclude these below.

First off, lets clarify the parameters of the game. Are we assuming a grand campaign MP game with all factions being controlled by human players? If this is the case, the particular faction choice of the player will greatly affect whether he/she will choose between attacking sooner than later.

With rebel provinces not being controlled by human players, it is safe to say that everyone will blitz these in the first 5 turns or so. Some factions will find it wiser to let other factions have certain rebel provinces, since some of these may prove to be a crutch to defend later on, or will reduce the number of factions a certain faction is bordering. In this early 5-10 turn period, blitzers that try to "go for broke" will probably find themselves overextended, and even if sacking a few of these rebel cities gives a financial boost, they expose themselves to small, cheap, but effective counterblitzes on their home provinces that will almost certainly spell doom for the initial blitzing faction, as they would have been effectively separated from their initial economic base, and be stuck in a "sacked" city with no economic value.

Since a blitzer will typically need almost all of his starting units to effect his/her strategy, You'd typically expect to have their home cities perhaps garrisoned with as little as 2 low level units and/or a general. In these cases, perhaps sending 1 single diplomat will destroy a massive part of the blitzer's economy. If bribery is not feasible, sending a spy and 1 general and 1 heavy unit (either infantry or cavalry) may be enough to take the city.

The blitzer cannot afford to not include a general (and perhaps other NPCS as well) in their blitzing army. A large stack of cheap troops can be bribed away; if this happens the blitzer will be in a very bad spot and will probably be wiped in as few as 1 to 3 turns.

This leads me to theorize that "blitzers" in an all human campaign will not blitz with actual troops, but instead will blitz with diplomats. This will make his/her cities/castles less vulnerable to bribes/quick strikes with small armies equipped with spies because the initial troops will be garrisoned along with all generals. In this case a player that is expert at diplomacy will be at a great advantage for the next step of the game in terms of finance and positioning (it may take a good amount to bribe a place like Flanders, but you'll be getting all your money back by the time the initial phase is over). Also keep in mind that diplomatic tactics will be rather limited in a human MP game; you will not be able to make 5k florins with diplomacy per turn as no human player will offer money for map information, and with limited money involved with making "alliances" (and this will be based on the human player's ability to make deals with the other players in real life).

After the initial smash and grab for the rebel provinces, players will probably spend another 5-10 turns building infrastructure and stabilizing their borders as further blitzing will now require actual troops and possible excommunication (for the catholics). In these next 5-10 turns is when the strategies of each player will diverge, heavily depending on their faction location and strengths/weaknesses.

In the actual AI campaign, the AI hardly ever uses its NPCs and navy to great effect. In a human campaign, I believe these will be used far more extensively by the savvy player. Building an extensive navy and recruiting an effective force of NPCs will be a considerable chunk of your income, and again will heavily depend on the faction you pick. For example, if England "turtles" by leaving France and building its navy, it'll only have to contend with Scotland, and will probably eventually win as the initial starting provinces of the English produce more income; Scotland can only get a real boost if it sacks either York or Ireland, which won't give great loot anyway since it is so underdeveloped. Blockading also severely reduces income, so most players with ports will probably build up their navy to a greater extent than they do facing the AI.

Alliances with other players will be an eventuality; with so many factions with different strengths and uneven starting locations, any player that does not form alliances will probably be done playing after another 5 turns. After the map "settles down", what you will see are coalitions of factions facing off with one another, possibly with a "no man's land" region between the coalitions as a result of the initial sacking of select rebel provinces to build up the buffer zone. It is likely that these provinces may never be truly "developed", and attacks will likely go straight thru these provinces and into developed areas. This may lead to players "sacking" their own developed cities/castles if they decide that the position is untenable.

With all this sacking going around, high-tech troops will possibly only be available in one's starting settlements (if they haven't been sacked already). Players will be forced to augment their armies with low tech troops, possibly throughout the majority of the campaign.

The next phase will probably involve the breaking of alliances and political backstabbing that will change alliances around and/or form new ones, until one or a few factions are dominant on the map. In these cases, a far off alliance that "turtles" will have the advantage after this phase is over. Theoretically, if the muslim factions will have the advantage if they stayed allied; there is much more room in the east to safely expand without sacking and without stepping on the toes of your neighbors. Russia, though initial troops are not great, will be a danger if left on its own. In any case, it is likely the Russian player will ally with the muslim at any rate, as the catholic factions it is closest to will expand east; the Turks will unlikely to be expanding north, as they'll have plenty of rich provinces already and will probably not want to deal with the Mongols (which, if player controlled, will be VERY interesting. If not, you still don't want to deal with them with other human players around).

Whatever the case, it seems that an actual completely human controlled campaign will offer the most realistic gameplay of all in terms of realistic historical issues.

By the way, it is IMO that, in a MP game, 2 low quality stacks cannot take a settlement from 1 quality stack. In certain cities the distance from the square to the walls exceed even seige engine range. The defender will obviously have just enough high-quality infantry to block all four entrances to the square, while defensive missile and artillery fire located inside the town square will lay waste to any concentration of troops forming in the streets to assault the town square. Bringing up your own artillery to as counterbattery fire will expose your attacking artillery to the defending artillery, and with the narrowness of the streets, the defense will be able to concentrate all their firepower while the attacker will not be able to unless he concentrates troops in the streets, which will mean massive casualties to the attackers without ever even engaging the defending melee infantry. Even splitting the assault into two or more avenues of attack would not be enough to breach the square defenses as concentrated defensive fire will break up an assault thru the streets in perhaps only 1 or 2 volleys, which gives the defenders of dealing with multiple assaults 1 or 2 at a time. Assaulting artillery will be at an ammunition disadvantage as well since they would have expended a good amount to break thru the walls/towers (assuming the defending player is smart enough to garrison the towers with their quick-moving troops).

[Ramses II CP]

The trouble with this last bit is you can't fight the battles in a MP campaign, you have to auto-calc which removes any benefit of walls, towers, or narrow roads.

[sapi]

The trouble with this last bit is you can't fight the battles in a MP campaign, you have to auto-calc which removes any benefit of walls, towers, or narrow roads.
We're talking hypothetically as if you could ~;)


Then again, people have repelled the Mongols and the Timurids with smaller empires than I would be comfortable with; so anything is possible. My question to you is, when would you beat me? How and when would you counter-strike? By the time you accomplish your Turtle goals for your Turtle empire, I will have gobbled up a good third of the map. What is your strategy for taking on an empire thrice your size, especially if you are on defense and the empire in question is pummeling you with a pure militaristic strategy?

That would be not only a defense, but a counter-offensive I would personally love to witness. I believe I would have renewed respect for anyone who could pull that off. The defense against the Borg is one thing... the counter-strike is a whole different beast I have not seen addressed yet.

If the offensive fails against your culture, I believe I would make every effort to defend against your counter-strike, and I would have the economy and vast number of recruitment facilities to rebuild a very large fighting force in short order, especially if I found myself without a giant standing army for some reason.

I think the best you may hope for is a small counter-offensive that catches me off-guard, which leads to a war of attrition. We may become very evenly matched at this point, but by now enough time has passed that my blitzer empire has grown to the point where it can match your Turtle empire. At this point, it's a virtual stalemate, unless someone makes a series of terrible blunders.

In any case, I laud your enthusiastic devotion to your chosen strategy. I believe you would be a formidable opponent, and could possibly advance far enough in your objectives to credibly oppose me on the battlefield. I have to give myself an edge unless there is yet another human in the game, but like two great masters of chess, the edge may not be enough to force a win every time. In such terms, I believe I would be up in space, development and tempo, but the material would be even. A difficult game.An interesting question.

To be honest, I'm not a turtle at all - I was merely explaining what I saw as the best way to act if I was forced to play in that way.

I do think that the key with any turtle defence is to abandon all pretences of turtling on the second front (against the AI, in my example - this would be nigh on impossible against a human) and snap up neighbouring cities for the sacking money, which can be reinvested in second tier defences.

It's true, though, that a critical mass will eventually be reached, and I think, as you do, that the blitzer's larger share of territory would let him win a war of attrition in the end.

Of course, by that point, he's not longer a blitzer but a moderate expansionist, so the point is moot :grin2:

[Askthepizzaguy]

The trouble with this last bit is you can't fight the battles in a MP campaign, you have to auto-calc which removes any benefit of walls, towers, or narrow roads.

I agree with Sapi, this is intended to be a thought experiment, I believe.


We're talking hypothetically as if you could ~;)

An interesting question.

To be honest, I'm not a turtle at all - I was merely explaining what I saw as the best way to act if I was forced to play in that way.

I do think that the key with any turtle defence is to abandon all pretences of turtling on the second front (against the AI, in my example - this would be nigh on impossible against a human) and snap up neighbouring cities for the sacking money, which can be reinvested in second tier defences.

It's true, though, that a critical mass will eventually be reached, and I think, as you do, that the blitzer's larger share of territory would let him win a war of attrition in the end.

Of course, by that point, he's not longer a blitzer but a moderate expansionist, so the point is moot :grin2:

Whether you're a Turtle or not, your argument against the established point of view (blitzers win) is admirable and thought-provoking.

Sounds like we would agree that a combination of the two strategies is better in most situations, and that there are only rare instances where dedicated blitzing or dedicated turtling could prevail in a person-versus-person match.

I'd tend to favor riskier expansion in the beginning, as almost no one is prepared to defend themselves in the long term with just their starting nest egg. Cautious play should come later as it becomes more affordable.

Much like a chess game, in the beginning expansion and development and claiming territory is the most important factor. Later on, material advantages become more apparent, and there is room for more subtle play.

[Didz]

But that fact remains that as soon as we begin to suggest solutions based upon the modification of either the Turtle or the Blitzers strategy then we corrupt the point of the original question which assumed that the players would remain true to their nature.

[Marius Dynamite]

If its simply Blitz Vs Turtle, no other factions or rebel cities, my moneys on the turtle. If its a normal campaign with other factions and rebel cities, it's got to be the Blitz.


You get to have peasant archers, militia spearmen, light horse, and a general. You also get to have another stack filled with the same. You are allowed to have one catapult.

You are fighting a citadel filled with dismounted knights, mounted knights, and longbowmen. Can you win this battle?

Answer: I can, easily. Strength in numbers. I could pummel both outer walls with just the catapult and force a retreat of your men. If you sallied, you would have to sally against both armies, and I have yet to see an entire garrison escape through a gate to attack me without me being able to easily pin your troops at the bottleneck and surround them until they rout, even with bad troops.

The defending army could defend at the last wall and inwards and even use the centre square to stop a rout. In that case the numbers may not matter. As for sallying, well, that defeats the point of a Blitz, if you have to wait for a sally.

[Askthepizzaguy]

If its simply Blitz Vs Turtle, no other factions or rebel cities, my moneys on the turtle. If its a normal campaign with other factions and rebel cities, it's got to be the Blitz.

The defending army could defend at the last wall and inwards and even use the centre square to stop a rout. In that case the numbers may not matter. As for sallying, well, that defeats the point of a Blitz, if you have to wait for a sally.

Well the hypothetical situation in question is debatable, because it wouldn't happen. The closest I have come is the Hundred years War on Lands to Conquer, and I blitzed the French to death. Too many cities to defend, and not enough troops to fully garrison them all.

And archers/artillery destroy those making a final stand in the city center. They aren't indestructible, and numbers do matter in the end.

I guess we're just going to have to disagree on that one.

I think we have also established that blitz does not simply mean kamikaze, and turtle does not mean simply pacifist. There is SOME wiggle room.

[Discoman]

Hares really don't need to establish an economy and can do what the Romans do; that is sack a settlement to pay off the production of buildings and units. Sometimes I play as hare and turtle. Starting off the game elimating the closest faction and then I slow down and resort to more diplomatic solutions to ensure a happy alliance. Then I build up an economy from my early warfare. I may engage in some wars but do try to end them diplomatically in order to gain territories without much troop loss. Then I become a hare towards the end and blitz my enemies with large armies that are made from my economy devolped during my "turtle" phase. When playing as the Scots I easily had armies moving in France, Germany, and Denmark.

Crusades make it easier to Bltiz if your friends of the Pope, In a England Campaign I decalred a Crusade against Leon and had 5 crusading armies go and take settlements in Spain. In less than 7 turns I had easily captured the peninsula without much trouble. Oh and to top it off my economy was booming and I had more than 1 million florins, thanks to the fact that I had alot of units garrisoned and it didnt cost me anything.

Also the Quantity over Quality isnt exactly true, I recall one battle where as England I tried taking Wales from Rebels, well during the siege my infantry was decimated in wall combat and for 5 seconds had capture of the gates. I then rushed in my cavalry, which was greatly out numbered, and took out the entire rebel force and miracoulsly won the battle.

But in games like RTW being a hare can leave you very vunerable. As Gual I immeaditly in the first turn took out a city of the Julii and eventually conquered Italy only to have, Carthage, Scipii, Spain, Germany, Britannia, and Greece trying to kill me. I gave up once the Germans began sweeping through France while the Scipii started recapturing cities. For my economy as a barbarian was too weak and the demanding upkeep of my troops did not allow me to make any defensive stands.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hares really don't need to establish an economy and can do what the Romans do; that is sack a settlement to pay off the production of buildings and units. Sometimes I play as hare and turtle. Starting off the game elimating the closest faction and then I slow down and resort to more diplomatic solutions to ensure a happy alliance. Then I build up an economy from my early warfare. I may engage in some wars but do try to end them diplomatically in order to gain territories without much troop loss. Then I become a hare towards the end and blitz my enemies with large armies that are made from my economy devolped during my "turtle" phase. When playing as the Scots I easily had armies moving in France, Germany, and Denmark.

Crusades make it easier to Bltiz if your friends of the Pope, In a England Campaign I decalred a Crusade against Leon and had 5 crusading armies go and take settlements in Spain. In less than 7 turns I had easily captured the peninsula without much trouble. Oh and to top it off my economy was booming and I had more than 1 million florins, thanks to the fact that I had alot of units garrisoned and it didnt cost me anything.

Also the Quantity over Quality isnt exactly true, I recall one battle where as England I tried taking Wales from Rebels, well during the siege my infantry was decimated in wall combat and for 5 seconds had capture of the gates. I then rushed in my cavalry, which was greatly out numbered, and took out the entire rebel force and miracoulsly won the battle.

But in games like RTW being a hare can leave you very vunerable. As Gual I immeaditly in the first turn took out a city of the Julii and eventually conquered Italy only to have, Carthage, Scipii, Spain, Germany, Britannia, and Greece trying to kill me. I gave up once the Germans began sweeping through France while the Scipii started recapturing cities. For my economy as a barbarian was too weak and the demanding upkeep of my troops did not allow me to make any defensive stands.

Depends on how you take the walls. Did you wait two turns to max out your seige towers? Ladders are for the suicidal. Seige towers make the battle completely even, and they distract archers from burning your ram. You can't lose with massive amounts of seige towers.

Don't forget about archers. Once you have the walls, archers will win the battle.

If you have lots of heavy cavalry you can blitz rush to the city center and hold it off for 3 minutes and win the seige that way. It's exploitative but legal. More often than not they are too busy defending the walls and that leaves the city center vulnerable.

If they just decide to defend the center then the walls are yours easily and archers will win the battle while your infantry hold them down.

[llewellyn]

well i started to read this and was astounded that so many think the hare would crush the turtle, i am a turtle but after 10ish turns my nation controls the strategic provinces i need for
A income
B defense
C expansion of military forces
be advised this does change with every nation, you cant go after bruges and antwerp as the italians, you cant take adana and antioch if you are danish

dont think that the turtle gets that slow a start, if done right any faction can have the best economy in a few turns, and that directly translates into spending power eother with mercs or buildings to recruit an army that is professional. honestly i would like to see a hare go up against a eastern european army commanded correctly. tho if it is western europeans it is a different story you are almost forced to fight on the hares terms unless you are scotland or england (navy).
now to address the miltia aspect of blitzing, that is easy to address, chop the armies head off then push through minimal losses max casualties. it doesnt matter if you swarm with militia if you can kill the general, they are still gonna rout.
Fisherking good point about alexander and attila, but to counter that GENGISH KAHN is all you really have to say.
in some of my long campaigns i have been the hare and sure you win very fast, but your dread skyrockets and under most scenarios you would simply lose against a human player, because if you are gonna play a battle map game there will be 3+ players and you cant leave a flank open to rush a faction because only a fool would stand by and not go for your key provinces and ports.
also to throw my last idea out there. imagine you are a blitzer and come up against a entrenched army of either faction specific early units or a professional army you can either
A. go around but then open yourself up to a pillage campaign by a human enemy
B. try to go threw them but that would result in a serious loss of manpower for your side and you could not possibly get threw in one turn, which would allow me to divert all my economic resources (the ones i built up) to create yet another army and brush your battered and tired militia/merc army to the side and then advance on the next defensive postion to once again frustrate the blight out of you. this would go on and on and on until the war of attrition went to the one with the most developed core provinces and the most developed front line castles.
C. bribe me, but that just wouldnt work cus i would never put a army with a disloyal commander

also i would like to say, askthepizzaguy you do have some very good points on why the hare would win

[Askthepizzaguy]

well i started to read this and was astounded that so many think the hare would crush the turtle, i am a turtle but after 10ish turns my nation controls the strategic provinces i need for
A income
B defense
C expansion of military forces
be advised this does change with every nation, you cant go after bruges and antwerp as the italians, you cant take adana and antioch if you are danish

dont think that the turtle gets that slow a start, if done right any faction can have the best economy in a few turns, and that directly translates into spending power eother with mercs or buildings to recruit an army that is professional. honestly i would like to see a hare go up against a eastern european army commanded correctly. tho if it is western europeans it is a different story you are almost forced to fight on the hares terms unless you are scotland or england (navy).
now to address the miltia aspect of blitzing, that is easy to address, chop the armies head off then push through minimal losses max casualties. it doesnt matter if you swarm with militia if you can kill the general, they are still gonna rout.
Fisherking good point about alexander and attila, but to counter that GENGISH KAHN is all you really have to say.
in some of my long campaigns i have been the hare and sure you win very fast, but your dread skyrockets and under most scenarios you would simply lose against a human player, because if you are gonna play a battle map game there will be 3+ players and you cant leave a flank open to rush a faction because only a fool would stand by and not go for your key provinces and ports.
also to throw my last idea out there. imagine you are a blitzer and come up against a entrenched army of either faction specific early units or a professional army you can either
A. go around but then open yourself up to a pillage campaign by a human enemy
B. try to go threw them but that would result in a serious loss of manpower for your side and you could not possibly get threw in one turn, which would allow me to divert all my economic resources (the ones i built up) to create yet another army and brush your battered and tired militia/merc army to the side and then advance on the next defensive postion to once again frustrate the blight out of you. this would go on and on and on until the war of attrition went to the one with the most developed core provinces and the most developed front line castles.
C. bribe me, but that just wouldnt work cus i would never put a army with a disloyal commander

also i would like to say, askthepizzaguy you do have some very good points on why the hare would win

I would like to say that you, Llewellen, have some good points yourself.

I've even argued that if the turtle does exactly as you suggest, he could put up a decent fight. I also fully concur that blitzers die in a fight against more than one human opponent. Of course, any game with more than two sides is impossible to predict because of all the permutations and possible outcomes. So for the sake of the discussion "is turtle better or worse than hare", we're talking just about one on one battles.

If the hare is smart, he does have the advantage. He doesn't necessarily HAVE to destroy the turtle immediately. He can focus on the entire map and hold off the Turtle using the turtle's own type of defensive tactics. When the blitzer has control over an empire twice or thrice the size of the turtle, and he brings all his forces to bear, it's not a game I would like to be playing as the turtle. By this point, the blitzer has access to equal technologies, has equal or better economy, has more troops, and is the aggressor.

I really don't see what the Turtle can do at this point but hope that the blitzer sucks at seige battles. Which I do not.
:beam:

My conclusion is, and most turtles agree on this point, the game favors aggressive play. So long as the blitzer's empire is not located on the doorstep of the turtle, he has an advantage that is not easily nullified.

However, and this is interesting, suppose the Turtle is France and the Blitzer is England.
Now the blitzer is pretty screwed. France has the standing armies and resources to defend, and is strategically positioned to pretty much block England in. This would be true for many other neighboring factions. So these scenarios all depend on each individual game. The more space the Blitzer has, the better.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I just want to say that this thread was my favorite of all time.

I used to post big campaigns and endless screenshots of my blitzes, which were rather popular, but I never enjoyed a thread as much as this particular one. The debate was quite engaging, and re-reading the whole thing has really put me in the mood to do some more expansion campaigns.

I think... the Danes this time...

:2thumbsup:

[Jacob Debroedere]

And what if the turtler destroys his buildings before the city falls?The looting would be far less profitable, while the hare still has to replenish his losses. Granted that the turtler has enough provinces to repeat this a few times the hare may end up like he Germans in 1943.

[Privateerkev]

Now that Kingdom's Hotseat PBM's are finally getting off the ground, I have to agree with ATPG's statement that the relations between the human controlled factions will decide how the game goes if there are more than 2 human players. In the two that I am currently in, in-character diplomacy is by far the most important aspect of the game. If you can convince other players to let you blitz, or even help you, you will whomp. If you can convince other players that your are worth keeping around, they will pool their resources to help defend you. If you can not establish good enough diplomatic relations with enough players, you will find that the rest of the players have divvied up the map (including your territories) and then it is just a matter of time.

If we're talking about 1 v 1 MP campaign games, I believe the hare would win because they have the math of the game on their side. They are basically pushing the in-game economics to their highest limits and will win through sheer weight of numbers. It's the way the game is designed and they are to be applauded for finding it and pushing it to it's limits.

Now for me, that way is simply not fun. In my SP games I am a total turtle. I decide on the first turn what my "homelands" will be, then I get them as fast as possible, and then I turtle for the rest of the game. I build up my homelands and finance them through acquiring colonies like islands, the New World, and Outremer. In a MP 1v1 campaign I would get owned though using this strategy. :yes:

[Askthepizzaguy]

And what if the turtler destroys his buildings before the city falls?The looting would be far less profitable, while the hare still has to replenish his losses. Granted that the turtler has enough provinces to repeat this a few times the hare may end up like he Germans in 1943.

The main target of sacking is rebel and AI controlled settlements.

Once I go after the Human player, I don't need any money at all. I have 5 or more stacks concentrated in one province. I could be in debt the rest of the game and still annihilate someone.

[CavalryCmdr]

First, I agree that the blitzer is likely to win, but I dont see it as one sided as most of you seem to think.

Askthepizzaguy, you are talking about going against a pure turtler while modifying your blitz strategy to consider the human turtler. To that point, the turtler who modifies his strategy to compansate for a human blitzer against a pure blitzer would win as well. If your modifying your strategies to compansate for having a human player it's only a fair comparison if said turtler is also modifying his. At that point it's agresive expansionist against defensive expansionist, remember to be a fair comparison the two players would have to be equaly skilled, you've mastered attacking in sieges, your opponant has mastered defending them, you've mastered crossing bridges, your opponant has mastered defending them.

In short, true blitzer against true turtler, the blitzer would probably win 9 out of 10 times. True blitzer needs to keep expanding to keep his economy, one too many losses and he's done, thus the turtler wins one game.

Moderate blitzer against true turtler the blitzer wins every time.

Moderate turtler against true blitzer would likely be turtler 9 out of 10, the one time being you just couldnt stop him long enough.

However, in a human vs human it would be moderate blitzer against moderate turtler and it's anyone's game, though I'd say the blitzer has an edge.

[Meldarion]

This is a complex question indeed. I have played strategy games for quite some time and I find its not always a case of who has more troops or who has a better economy. In most cases its about who puts the resources they have to better use, in most strategy games I find the "rush" tactic is a double edge sword. If it fails or burns out before doing severe damage to the enemy then that player will lose.

Many other factors would need to be considered such as faction but until it has been tried in real time its difficult to speculate what would happen. It always surprises me some of the strategies people do come up with, after all if the TW series is going online at some point it would be a pretty bad strategy game if all you had to do was bum rush.

In MTW2 however there is no reward for building an economy or "booming" as its called in most games. Pizzaguys strategies seem like they all rely on the stupidity of the AI, no discredit to him though his HRE campaign is most impressive. So with all said and done there really isn't that much of a reason to have armies sitting still I'm not a blitzer but armies standing about just cost money, so although I build up my cities my armies are always advancing too. I suppose I fall somewhere in between.

[Askthepizzaguy]

First, I agree that the blitzer is likely to win, but I dont see it as one sided as most of you seem to think.

Askthepizzaguy, you are talking about going against a pure turtler while modifying your blitz strategy to consider the human turtler. To that point, the turtler who modifies his strategy to compansate for a human blitzer against a pure blitzer would win as well. If your modifying your strategies to compansate for having a human player it's only a fair comparison if said turtler is also modifying his. At that point it's agresive expansionist against defensive expansionist, remember to be a fair comparison the two players would have to be equaly skilled, you've mastered attacking in sieges, your opponant has mastered defending them, you've mastered crossing bridges, your opponant has mastered defending them.

In short, true blitzer against true turtler, the blitzer would probably win 9 out of 10 times. True blitzer needs to keep expanding to keep his economy, one too many losses and he's done, thus the turtler wins one game.

Moderate blitzer against true turtler the blitzer wins every time.

Moderate turtler against true blitzer would likely be turtler 9 out of 10, the one time being you just couldnt stop him long enough.

However, in a human vs human it would be moderate blitzer against moderate turtler and it's anyone's game, though I'd say the blitzer has an edge.

To respond to your points:

1. I've been waiting for someone to detail exactly how they would defend. I make it a point of showing how the attack would go. Simply saying one is a true turtle does not show any sort of compensatory strategem. Details, my friend, details.

2. Equal skill has always been the assumption. Given the blitzer's obvious territorial and time advantages, and near-endless economic resources, the turtle must abandon a purely defensive, economic game.

3. To be a "defending expansionist" one must field an attacking force, build the proper military buildings, and trade off some defending garrison in the process, distracting from the pure defensive game. One is then a moderate turtle, not a true turtle.

4. Defensive mastery does not apply to seige situations. It is a forced loss with overwhelming force. You might sally and destroy one stack, but not three. Should you defend your province with multiple stacks, I would advance elsewhere and take you where you are weakest.

It doesn't matter how skilled a person is, eventually force wins.

5. I've layed out a detailed explanation as to exactly why a turtle cannot defeat a good blitzer, unless there are 3 or more humans in play. Thus far, no one has layed out a detailed explanation showing how this is wrong, or that there is a good counter strategy for a turtle. The best defense so far is the moderate who slips behind the blitzer's defenses with a small raiding party, burns the blitzer's cities to the ground, and defends at choke points against his invasion force. However, in order to field that many troops, one must abandon an economic game, and move quickly to destroy the blitzer. In other words, one must be half defender, half blitzer. Not exactly turtle-ish.

6. Assuming even skill, and assuming each player sticks to his or her chosen strategy, assuming there aren't any other human players, and assuming neither faction is on the border of the other, the blitzer beats the turtle, every time. The AI is too incompetent to defeat the blitzer, and serves as his source of territory and income. Taking advantage of expansionism all over the map, while the turtle at best fields two offensive stacks, it's a simple math problem to figure out who wins long term.

Long term, the blitzer is utterly unstoppable. The ONLY way you can defeat the blitzer is to prevent the unlimited troops, florins, and territories from falling into the hands of your opponent. Which means you must defeat the blitzer quickly. No turtle is prepared for an all-out assault in the opening game, because that is contrary to his operating methods.

Blitzers are vulnerable at the opening. But the AI is too stupid to take advantage, and turtles are unprepared and unwilling to divert the neccessary resources to finish him off immediately. Then the battle swings in the blitzer's favor, ever more so as time progresses.

If you can illustrate why you think this is not so, I'd be very interested to hear your views.

:thumbsup:

[Privateerkev]

5. I've layed out a detailed explanation as to exactly why a turtle cannot defeat a good blitzer, unless there are 3 or more humans in play. Thus far, no one has layed out a detailed explanation showing how this is wrong, or that there is a good counter strategy for a turtle. The best defense so far is the moderate who slips behind the blitzer's defenses with a small raiding party, burns the blitzer's cities to the ground, and defends at choke points against his invasion force. However, in order to field that many troops, one must abandon an economic game, and move quickly to destroy the blitzer. In other words, one must be half defender, half blitzer. Not exactly turtle-ish.

I'm surprised no one has gone into detail with the use of "intelligence services". What if the turtle kept his armies at home, but spammed the blitzer with assassins and spies. A large group of them could sabotage all of the happiness buildings while the spies sit in the cities and cause them to revolt.

There would be an initial cost but it is slight compared to that of getting an professional army. You would just need a tavern in every city and you would have each of your cities pumping out 1 spy and 1 assassin per turn for the rest of the game. Subsequent tavern lines do not increase the effectiveness of the spies and assassins so you can stop once you spend 2400 per city (800 for brothel and 1600 per tavern.) This would take 5 turns total but hopefully some cities will start with brothels.

Also, the Guilds will start to come calling once you produce and use spies and assassins a lot. These will make your operatives even more effective.

Also when I defend, I do not defend my cities. I defend "frontlines". Bridges, mountain passes, forest roads, ect... Also, I believe I can defend against a multiple stack artillery laden army at a bridge crossing as long as I had reinforcements behind me. Lay a massive stake fort at the bridgehead and then move my archers back a little in the beginning of the battle. I always let the enemy take the bridgehead and then I turn it into a little cauldron of death as I pour shot on his head.

Your tactic of bringing fire support to hit my defenses will be minimized by the fact that I will move back a little. You will be forced to come forward or duke it out in an artillery duel that will either go to me or become a draw. You will need plenty of assault forces in your stacks but I can go heavy on archers and arty. I only need 5 or 6 actual melee units and the rest can be throwing things. I'd have a catapult fling a dead cow onto your side of the bridge to hurt your unit's moral. Your horses would charge into a massive tangle of stakes (I use at least 8 stake laying archers in each army and I would probably go more here) or they would have to walk where I would turn them into porcupines.

The only good counter against this kind of bridge defense is elephants but I will gamble that you won't have access to them yet. Elephants can charge and knock over the stakes and Panzerphaunts could just engage in a long-range artillery duel which would break all of my cannons. (The tactic I am discussing obviously does not work well against the Timurids but works wonders on Mongols).

In the end, I think the blitzer would win the campaign due to sheer weight of numbers but I believe that the strategy I have layed out shows that a more pure turtle does have the chance at putting up a good fight. Of course a lot depends on the terrain that the turtler starts out with.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I'm surprised no one has gone into detail with the use of "intelligence services". What if the turtle kept his armies at home, but spammed the blitzer with assassins and spies. A large group of them could sabotage all of the happiness buildings while the spies sit in the cities and cause them to revolt.

There would be an initial cost but it is slight compared to that of getting an professional army. You would just need a tavern in every city and you would have each of your cities pumping out 1 spy and 1 assassin per turn for the rest of the game. Subsequent tavern lines do not increase the effectiveness of the spies and assassins so you can stop once you spend 2400 per city (800 for brothel and 1600 per tavern.) This would take 5 turns total but hopefully some cities will start with brothels.

Also, the Guilds will start to come calling once you produce and use spies and assassins a lot. These will make your operatives even more effective.

Also when I defend, I do not defend my cities. I defend "frontlines". Bridges, mountain passes, forest roads, ect... Also, I believe I can defend against a multiple stack artillery laden army at a bridge crossing as long as I had reinforcements behind me. Lay a massive stake fort at the bridgehead and then move my archers back a little in the beginning of the battle. I always let the enemy take the bridgehead and then I turn it into a little cauldron of death as I pour shot on his head.

Your tactic of bringing fire support to hit my defenses will be minimized by the fact that I will move back a little. You will be forced to come forward or duke it out in an artillery duel that will either go to me or become a draw. You will need plenty of assault forces in your stacks but I can go heavy on archers and arty. I only need 5 or 6 actual melee units and the rest can be throwing things. I'd have a catapult fling a dead cow onto your side of the bridge to hurt your unit's moral. Your horses would charge into a massive tangle of stakes (I use at least 8 stake laying archers in each army and I would probably go more here) or they would have to walk where I would turn them into porcupines.

The only good counter against this kind of bridge defense is elephants but I will gamble that you won't have access to them yet. Elephants can charge and knock over the stakes and Panzerphaunts could just engage in a long-range artillery duel which would break all of my cannons. (The tactic I am discussing obviously does not work well against the Timurids but works wonders on Mongols).

In the end, I think the blitzer would win the campaign due to sheer weight of numbers but I believe that the strategy I have layed out shows that a more pure turtle does have the chance at putting up a good fight. Of course a lot depends on the terrain that the turtler starts out with.

Thank you, my friend; you've given me something I can actually sink some teeth into.

Although, assassins will do you no good. I typically have no happiness buildings. What's the point? I conquer half the map before any city comes close to revolt. (Within 30 turns, to be specific).

You may have some luck with spy spamming. However, by the time you get that up and running, I've assembled my forces. Granted, you could begin sending spies within 10 turns or so, and that would be a good tactic with good results. This would slow me down until I got some counterspies in my cities. This may buy you some time, it would indeed slow me down while I built a spy network, and was forced to recruit extra garrison forces. However, given the time and resources spent massing endless uber spies, it would slow you down just as well. I give you an edge on this strategy the first time I see it, but the effectiveness wears off after the first revolt, by then I see what you're doing and I will stop you. It may even trip me up on the first game enough to warrant a very prolonged, near-stalemate. I would be prepared next game with one dedicated anti-spy city. Which foils such a plan easily.

In response to your other points, I've always advocated a NON seige type of defense. Anything that puts your troops in a tactically superior defensive position. True, walls are helpful if attacked this turn... but are utterly useless if I have the time to wait you out. In fact, I can pin you at the choke point of the gate and surround n' pound you to death. Seige defense is suicide.

I think you overestimate the bridge advantage. Not because I am afraid of a challenge to my opinion, but because of a plan I've laid out previously. The bridge keeps both armies away from one another with a choke point in the middle, but does not prevent archer and artillery fire from pushing back your army. True, you can bring archers and artillery yourself, but then we've simply got an even archer shootout. There is no inherent advantage to defending a bridge unless I have few ranged units.

When assaulting such a fortified position, I'd be sure to bring plenty. Yet, your reinforcements make winning the battle a costly thing. I'd have to plow 3 stacks of troops through in order to defeat you, and your troops are in a fine position to rout and regroup. I'd think about going around a different way (by sea, perhaps... or reroute by land in multiple vectors).

It is DEFINITLEY a good idea to choke the blitzer with spies and fortified stacks in strategic areas. This buys you time, for certain.

However, in my humble analysis, the Turtle's position is mighty, but like the Titanic, it is a hopeless position. You will sink as time passes, until you are swamped by endless hordes of troops attacking from many fronts. The "pumps" buy you time, but decades only.

The ship is still sinking. Without some kind of massive assault, FAST, the blitzer will slowly build his advantage while the turtle attempts to do too much with too little.

So far he MUST:

1. Defend his cities with UBER garrison forces, or at least field massive armies in the borderlands for defensive purposes. A small empire is nearly bankrupt in such an undertaking.

2. Assault neighboring territories. No one is silly enough to think the turtle needn't expand. This requires at least one, preferably two, good assault stacks. So we're looking at a tiny empire fielding several full stacks of troops.

3. Build his economy. Obviously, the turtle's whole IDEA is to have "better quality" cities instead of more of them. So every spare florin is spent on developing roads, ports, markets, etc.

4. Build a spy network (optional, but required if under seige by spies from the blitzer's camp). Time consuming, and costly to maintain. Think an additional stack of troops worth of florins per turn.

5. Build the best garrisons available. Obviously, the Turtle needs BETTER troops, because the Blitzer has MORE of them. More $$$ and time invested.

6. Build a navy (if near the ocean). The blitzer can afford a navy, because he's only concerned with more troops and better mobility for them. Can you muster the florins to defend against a proper naval assault?

7. React rather than act. Because he is playing at least somewhat defensively, the turtle must plan to counter the other player's movements. This requires time. It's harder to defend against blows than it is to throw a punch. Because this is not a real time strategy game, this means careful planning, not quick reflexes, is required. Simply waiting for the inevitable and attempting to muster a defense is a poor plan.

8. Eventually, the Turtle MUST counterstrike the larger beast, AND DEFEAT HIM! No matter what, I have at least twice the territory and I've been sending soldiers to their deaths for a while now. I have the florins and the garrisons to replenish my numbers in one or two turns. You must not only turn back the tide of my assault, but engage and defeat the greatest empire in the history of mankind, after being brutalized by endless waves of troops.

And good luck on that last one. So far, every resource (and by my calculation, more than you even HAVE) has been spent merely fending off my assault. What of your goal to win? Stalemate is not an option. I have many, many cities, each growing slowly, each growing more powerful (perhaps not as fast as yours, but in due time...), each allowing more and more troops to be recruited, and as time goes by, I make the preparations for securing my holdings. Walls, armorers, spies, fortresses. Dare you invade my territory?

The door is open. But it's not a warm and friendly place inside...

:skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull:

[Privateerkev]

I think you overestimate the bridge advantage. Not because I am afraid of a challenge to my opinion, but because of a plan I've laid out previously. The bridge keeps both armies away from one another with a choke point in the middle, but does not prevent archer and artillery fire from pushing back your army. True, you can bring archers and artillery yourself, but then we've simply got an even archer shootout. There is no inherent advantage to defending a bridge unless I have few ranged units.

When assaulting such a fortified position, I'd be sure to bring plenty. Yet, your reinforcements make winning the battle a costly thing. I'd have to plow 3 stacks of troops through in order to defeat you, and your troops are in a fine position to rout and regroup. I'd think about going around a different way (by sea, perhaps... or reroute by land in multiple vectors).

While I will (and have from the beginning) concede that the Blitzer will win the campaign because they fully exploit the math of the game, I do think you underestimate my bridge defense advantage.

You keep thinking that the river cuts both ways. It doesn't. You have to come to me. While we can both deploy anywhere on our own side of the river, I have the advantage in knowing exactly where your forces are eventually going to be. And that is the bridge and the bridgehead. If we're playing with a timer on, you have only one hour to cross that bridge and beat me. And unless you have elephants, I am arguing that I can hold you for one hour if I have the proper stack plus some reinforcements.

I've already laid out how I would do it but I'll go over some points. I would pick a bridge or river crossing that had some heights overlooking the bridgehead. I would lay 8 rows of stakes at the bridgehead and then move the archers back as soon as the battle starts. I would put the archers on the heights. And I would have 6 Trebuchet/Cannon batteries for counter battery fire.

I would launch a couple of dead cows to your side of the bridge to force your army to take the penalty of walking through them if you wanted to assault. I would nail each piece of your arty. If you break mine, I would have more in reserve. You could win the arty duel only if you have more and better arty than me but then your using up precious time bringing the assault troops as reinforcements.

Once you cross, you'll have to walk your horses through the stakes or they will be impaled. When they walk, I will set them on fire with flaming arrows. I will put 2 spearmen and 2 DEK's on a V formation that opens towards the bridgehead with a Armored Swordsmen at the bottom of the V (spearmen would be at the far off ends, then DEK's, then Sword. Behind that, would be my high chiv general for the morale bonus.

I will gamble that you simply can not beat that in one hour. I might have to grab reinforcements. I might have to rush my 8 longbowmen into the battle. I might have to bring arty right on top of my troops' heads. But I can turn that bridgehead into a cauldron of firey death simply because I can predict where you are going to have to be. That is the advantage of defending a bridge. For once, I can predict the exact point where each and every one of your attacking forces will have to be and I can set up my forces to prepare for it.

Having said all that, while I believe I will win the battle, I will lose the war. A Blitzer can afford to lose hundreds of battles like the one I described. Where a slow attrition will wear me down. So I am not refuting your initial point regarding hare/turtle. But I am going to claim that you are severely underestimating how costly I can make assaulting a bridge. :skull:

[CavalryCmdr]

1. I've been waiting for someone to detail exactly how they would defend. I make it a point of showing how the attack would go. Simply saying one is a true turtle does not show any sort of compensatory strategem. Details, my friend, details.
How would I defend? Early. I dont need to stop you at this point, just slow you down. Early game I have much more then I need to deal with the AI around me, and I have money to spare after the first few turns incase you decide to send an expidition force my way. I also have watch towers and all-cavalry mobile defence force very early on, again, I am not beliving they will stop you, just slow you down and weaken you in the process. If they are unable to do that they follow and wait until they can.

Later on I think your underestimating the income a turtler has available, vanila M2 by turn 20 I have more florins then I know what to do with. By the time of the Mongol invasion, I am able to spam them with junk/mercs until they are helpless, and not even dent my treasury. I'm aware I wouldnt have the luxury of that much time, but I will have resources to spare, and you are my only threat. I'm not going to garison my cities with full stacks, just enough to make taking them costly, but the biggest cost to you is getting to them. I dont need to win battles, I can loose 5 or 6 times before you get to one of my cities at no real cost to me. I'll also be attacking, not with the intent of capturing or even looting your cities, just exterminate, burn and move on, one full stack and you will need to divert some of your attack to stop it. Once you loose momentum, something I'll be working at from turn 1, we are on a more even field, at no point am I sitting there waiting for you, if I am youve already won.


4. Defensive mastery does not apply to seige situations. It is a forced loss with overwhelming force. You might sally and destroy one stack, but not three. Should you defend your province with multiple stacks, I would advance elsewhere and take you where you are weakest.

I'm not going to sally until the last minute, either you will have to assault or your masive armies are sitting around draining your bank account. Even with a (relatively) small defence force you will take casualties in the assault, if I'm lucky, enough to slow you down. A human defending with a half stack militia will cause more trouble to you then the AI with a full stack of castle troops. However, ultimately, you are correct and if it comes down to a siege defence the question is how much can I make the city cost you, not can I win.


I think you overestimate the bridge advantage. Not because I am afraid of a challenge to my opinion, but because of a plan I've laid out previously. The bridge keeps both armies away from one another with a choke point in the middle, but does not prevent archer and artillery fire from pushing back your army. True, you can bring archers and artillery yourself, but then we've simply got an even archer shootout. There is no inherent advantage to defending a bridge unless I have few ranged units.
The point is, as the attacker, you must cross the bridge. There is no even archer shootout, my archers are not in range of yours until they are crossing the bridge. The same with artillery, it's not shooting at you until you start crossing the bridge. The advantage offered by a bridge defence (against a human opponant) is the cost of crossing the bridge, not stopping you at the bridge. You have to cross, I do not. Granted it's not the end all stopping point, but it is better then a field battle, because it is a field battle after youve taken casualties crossing.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Oh very well... I'll give you that the cows would be indeed frustrating.

However, I still believe I can nullify most of the advantage you describe.
(Forgive me for being stubborn on this point)

Stakes, indeed, that would be an awful point. Add the cow to the stakes, and yes, a frustrating battle indeed.

However, unless you have deployed stakes, my friend... I have got you.
I've brought the archers and artillery to push back any tightly knotted group of pikemen, spearmen, and so forth defending the opposing edge of the bridge. You can't choke mounted units that way.

Assuming you brought mostly artillery and archers (which you would have to, otherwise you could NOT hold me back) You've assembled a defensive position which is supremely weak against heavy mounted units. A quick volley or so of cover fire from my position, shooting out against your units from my side of the bridge, until your artillery units are toast, archers are weak, or they have moved back, and all of a sudden, I have a way of dashing hundreds of heavy mounts across the river.

Granted, a good third of them may die crossing the river. However, I will be able to charge directly into any archers or artillery you have. If you still have a bunch of heavy infantry or spears to greet, I can at least force a confrontation with my mounts, pinning both sides while my archers redeploy, and P.S. your archers and artillery will cause friendly fire casualties.

I am also saving a few mounted units for later...

I can afford to lose the mounts anyway. Lets say you crush all of them.

I have made the journey forward across the river, pounded what infantry you brought, forced a friendly fire/ archery shootout, and nullified most of the advantage of the bridge.

Meanwhile, I have troops battling on your side of the river, I have my massive array of archers firing directly into your infantry blockade (friendly fire casualties on my troops as well... such is the price of war), and I'm advancing my artillery. Should you attempt to reinforce your weakening infantry positions, a rain of death be upon thee.

A rain of death be upon me, as well. This is a situation where both sides will take massive damage. Once your infantry position is lost, Your archers and artillery are supremely vulnerable.

Now begins wave two of my mounted units charging across the river. While half my archers dash forward to engage your own in hand combat (pinning or forcing a retreat, causing their advantages to be nullified as well) My mounts charge across the river (part deux), weave around the fray, and charge into your artillery, forcing instant routs, followed by a charge against your scattered archers.

It requires barely two units of mounted knights to pull it off.

Now, lets say you brought mounts of your own. Part of my bridge crossing unit is made up of whatever heavy spears I can muster, and they will not be in the initial wave (except maybe the first lead unit).

Some will survive to meet you on the other side.

The battle, bloody. The carnage, unimaginable. The loss of life, appalling. The advantage of the bridge, nearly nullified. The reinforcements, on their way, on both sides. But the fortification is gone. The entrenched troop positions are destroyed. The battle is now even. And I've brought 3 stacks (as mentioned in previous posts... sheer weight of numbers beats any close battle).

Now, Allow me to say this:

While I am prepared to admit that the battle, if played human V human, would be supremely difficult, I do contend that the advantages are not as ironclad as you say.

I am also prepared to say, your type of active defense and wise fortification strategy is much more LIKELY to trip up a non-expert. Anyone, even a moderately good player, would be turned back by such a valiant defense.

I simply say, I can do it. It's been done. The archers and the artillery cancel one another out. Only the deployment of stakes could really be a slow-down because then mounts cannot charge through. All other units must walk.

However, stakes are not easy to come by in the first 30 turns or so of the game, and aren't always available. God help you if you don't have them. An alternate strategy is to have half archers, half heavy knights. The archers prevent a bottleneck at the other end of the bridge, and the heavy knights threaten to annihilate you completely while my heavy infantry and artillery reinforcements advance.

Good offensive planning can nullify any advantage. Even fortifications atop a mountain, even defending citadels, anything you can think of. To every defense, there is a vulnerability.

I give you 5 stars out of 5 for mustering a really really good defense which will DEFINITLEY slow me down. And you're right, ultimately blitzer wins anyway. However, if I were unable to bypass your bridge blockade by land or sea (dont know if thats possible), perhaps you could send half of your forces in the opposing direction to expand your empire as quickly as possible.

But then of course, that would require the turtle to be less turtle-ish.

Ultimately, it's the overall strategy that loses it for the turtle. Not the lack of mustering powerful defenses. When you've got less troops, less territory, less economic advantage... there's only so much defense you can muster.

:knight:

I propose a challenge.

If the game were to be even, or even an advantage to the turtle, I suggest a turn limit to the game!

If the game were such that the blitzer had to defeat the turtle in a given time frame, and the turtle were not required to do anything but hold off the blitz until game over, and the victory condition for the blitzer was total annihilation of the turtle, and the turtle's victory condition was to prevent the loss of any of his starting provinces (a valid victory condition... in real life, no war could be waged indefinitely... the King's head would come off)...

Then, advantage, turtle.

You CAN harass my position with spies and raiding parties. You can sneak a boat around and attack my undefended front. You can mass serious defenses in hills and rivers. You CAN hold me back until time expires.

In real life, the would-be conquerors would pack it up and head home. There's only so many decades of losses a nation can stand before it considers the King's command to assault a peaceful neighbor for no reason, losing hundreds of thousands of people in the process, to be completely insane. Soon, that King gets killed under mysterious circumstances, or the heads of the army begin to rebel and disobey orders.

The Turtle, if only required to hold off the blitz for a given time, has the superior position in such a scenario.

Turtle fans... if I weren't in college and working full time, I would issue an open challenge to anyone who is willing to do just that. If only we would multiplayer game a campaign... This game just screams to be multiplayer.

I shut my mouth now. I'm sure everyone's sick of reading the stubborn ravings of a madman.

Dance pretty pink elephant, dance... :elephant:

[Askthepizzaguy]

Wait, wait, wait, wait....

Ahem.... TREBUCHETS???? CANNON BATTERIES???

A stack of stake-deploying archers?
We're obviously not talking about the first 40 turns, now are we?

I'd send half my army towards you for harassment and sabotage purposes, and expand in all other directions, as quickly as possible.

We're likely thinking about some sort of ideal situation where our cities are maxed out and all troops are available. We're mistaken if we think this will ever happen when facing a blitzer.

Unless I'm Russia and you're the Moors, don't hold your breath on that one.

I knew there was something fishy about your defenses, turtle fans. I only just remembered, there's no such THING as trebuchets and cannon batteries in the point in the game where you'll need them to defeat the blitzer.

So, good luck on that one.

[Privateerkev]

Lets see, Longbows? England can get em by turn 5. Trebuchets? By 12.

You have not taken into account that the archers would be on heights overlooking the bridgehead which gives them better range than yours. Nor, that 8 stakes could block the bridgehead and force your horses to walk. Plus, you have neglected to detail your own stacks. You somehow have enough arty, archers, cavalry, and infantry to do all that you say it can do in one hour without saying how much you have of each. Yes, if you have 10 of each type, you can whomp. But you get 20 total. (My computer is slow and can only handle 1 stack per player at a time.)

Even if I don't have trebuchets, if your coming at me before turn 12, my guess is you don't have em either. So your whole arty duel promise gets negated. You will have to come within range of my catapults (and magonels if we play kingdoms) while I'll be out of range of yours.

You have to understand, your on the Turtle's ground now. While you have the game's math on your side, defending is what we DO! :2thumbsup:

While I will easily agree that you can win any war, your almost claiming that you can win any battle. Allow me a little ego when I say that I am confident I can win a battle or two against you before you whomp my little turtle empire. :yes:

:turtle: pride!

[Askthepizzaguy]

Lets see, Longbows? England can get em by turn 5. Trebuchets? By 12.

You have not taken into account that the archers would be on heights overlooking the bridgehead which gives them better range than yours. Nor, that 8 stakes could block the bridgehead and force your horses to walk. Plus, you have neglected to detail your own stacks. You somehow have enough arty, archers, cavalry, and infantry to do all that you say it can do in one hour without saying how much you have of each. Yes, if you have 10 of each type, you can whomp. But you get 20 total. (My computer is slow and can only handle 1 stack per player at a time.)

Even if I don't have trebuchets, if your coming at me before turn 12, my guess is you don't have em either. So your whole arty duel promise gets negated. You will have to come within range of my catapults (and magonels if we play kingdoms) while I'll be out of range of yours.

You have to understand, your on the Turtle's ground now. While you have the game's math on your side, defending is what we DO! :2thumbsup:

While I will easily agree that you can win any war, your almost claiming that you can win any battle. Allow me a little ego when I say that I am confident I can win a battle or two against you before you whomp my little turtle empire. :yes:

:turtle: pride!

Hmm... let's see. You're England, so there's no way you will ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER (and the Rock means EVER) force me into a riverfront confrontation.

Thats number one.

Number two, you didn't tell me your computer can only handle one stack per player per time. I thought we each had reinforcements. Which makes your riverfront confrontation a VERY easy affair. I smash you with all I have in one battle, troops rout... then I hit you again with a second or third stack in the same turn. Mmm... toasty.

Number three, and this is the clincher,

You're going to field a stack of trebuchets, stake archers, and otherwise insane troops by turn 12? or even turn 25?

Forgive my uncharacteristic lack of humility here, but...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's imprudent.
There's no way your economy would ever recover from such a move. By the time you've dedicated your entire English Island to that strategy, your economy is crippled from the expensive standing armies, the dedicated military building tree, (lack of economic development) and the lack of proper expansion. Plus, again, Navy destroys England, which means you MUST field a massive navy.

England is in a particularly BAD position to Turtle. I can sneak my navy in, spy open your gates (NOT neccesary, even) and SMASH your entire capital in one turn.

You're going to want to go with a faction like Byzantines or HRE if you're going to Turtle, in my ever less humble opinion.

Detailing my stack for your increasingly hypothetical riverfront stronghold:

archers, archers, archers... (nearly half of the stack) whatever artillery is available at the time. Perhaps only a trebuchet or three. Even a single cat will do. A fair amount of my heaviest infantry (4 units, including spearpoints), and heavy horse mercs if I have them. Not to mention the reinforcements which will most likely be all heavy infantry and cavalry. Perhaps early game I couldn't field a third stack, but then again, in the early game, I wouldn't even need a second stack.

Given England's terrible defensive options (that ocean is England's sole defensive point) I suggest a new strategy, my friend.

:knight:
==================

I realize this post could be interpreted as arrogant. That is not my intention, and please understand this is with all due respect, and that the rivalry is intended to be friendly in nature.

It's a medieval war game, and I'm speaking "in character". In real life I'm not so harsh a critic.

:beam:

Forgive MY pride... as a blitzer, I am fairly certain I can crack any defense.

I took Thessalonica, which was defended by an entire stack of Byzantine's best troops, and further reinforced by their 10 star faction leader, complete with ANOTHER stack of the best troops a mid-game Byzantine army has to offer.

I crushed them like ants, with minimal casualties. Granted, a human may be more innovative... but when it comes down to sheer weight of numbers, and you still get your carcass served to you on a bloody platter, there's only so much strategy can do for you.

I will grant you a won battle or two, in riverfront defenses, based upon some realistic chances. But as stated before, your defense will crumble if struck multiple times in a single turn. Which is what the reinforcing stacks are there to do.

You wouldnt actually want to field them in battle when your main force is about to rout. That just lowers morale. Spread them out.

That can help YOUR defense as well.

For the glory of our respective empires, I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion. Peace be with you friend.

[Privateerkev]

Never say never. (and the Rock says, "can you smell it?")

Computer can handle reinforcements. Just one at a time. I get reinforcements when I send stuff off the field. Sorry, I have to make due with the computer I have.

I routinely field the stack I discuss as England before turn 25 in my SP games. And I usually get there sooner. Do not underestimate the power of the all-mighty money making island.

The earlier we move the confrontation, the easier a bridge defense would be for me. Your early archers can't shoot across the river and you won't have trebs. Again, you would have stepped into my world.


I realize this post could be interpreted as arrogant. and it was... :yes:

I fear we are in real danger of having this conversation degenerate into a contest of who's :daisy: is longer. Without any real way to prove either of our assertions, I suspect this debate will become less useful the longer it goes on. :wall:

I have laid out my strategy, you laid out yours, I still think I'm right, you still think your right. We're probably not going to move the other much farther past that and I'm having a hard time gleening useful information from your post due to the glare of your immense ego over-shadowing everything. :clown:

:turtle: pride

[Askthepizzaguy]

Never say never. (and the Rock says, "can you smell it?")

Computer can handle reinforcements. Just one at a time. I get reinforcements when I send stuff off the field. Sorry, I have to make due with the computer I have.

I routinely field the stack I discuss as England before turn 25 in my SP games. And I usually get there sooner. Do not underestimate the power of the all-mighty money making island.

The earlier we move the confrontation, the easier a bridge defense would be for me. Your early archers can't shoot across the river and you won't have trebs. Again, you would have stepped into my world.

and it was... :yes:

I fear we are in real danger of having this conversation degenerate into a contest of who's :daisy: is longer. Without any real way to prove either of our assertions, I suspect this debate will become less useful the longer it goes on. :wall:

I have laid out my strategy, you laid out yours, I still think I'm right, you still think your right. We're probably not going to move the other much farther past that and I'm having a hard time gleening useful information from your post due to the glare of your immense ego over-shadowing everything. :clown:

:turtle: pride

You still haven't dealt with England's inability to force a riverfront confrontation. Where's the river? Next to London? I couldn't just sail past it?

If you invaded the mainland, I could ignore those troops and head straight for the capital. I'm sorry, England is too vulnerable for the strategy you've laid out.

England is an offensive powerhouse, but defensively, in this game anyways (and according to history) once you get on the island itself, England usually crumbles to invaders.

And lest we forget, if you are managing to field such awesome troops so early, something is being traded off for the luxury. In other words, pure economic development. Which means you can field a stack or maybe 3, 4 at best with England really cranking. That's with mid-cost troops.

Unless you manage to tickle the Pope's fancy and crusade against my excommunicated "daisy", in which case the sky is the limit on troop numbers. As witnessed by my own England campaign.

Which I would not be so stupid to let you do... hehe. I may not have written the book on crusade exploits, but I know it like I know my own "daisy".

I don't think it's degenerated into a "daisy" comparing exercise just yet, as I'm still responding to your points. I think you've tactfully avoided mine.

:thumbsup:

As for my ego, if you must use that as an excuse not to respond to points, then I don't suggest being in any real debates. Anyone who is in a serious, competitive debate is bound to have a boundless ego. I at least try to focus on the topic and avoid the type of "red herring" or "ad hominem" style arguments that others, wink wink, choose to use.

:beam:

Truthfully, I tire of wearing a mask of humility all the time. I'm not in the mood tonight. My apologies.

[Privateerkev]

You still haven't dealt with England's inability to force a riverfront confrontation. Where's the river? Next to London? I couldn't just sail past it?

If you invaded the mainland, I could ignore those troops and head straight for the capital. I'm sorry, England is too vulnerable for the strategy you've laid out.

And lest we forget, if you are managing to field such awesome troops so early, something is being traded off for the luxury. In other words, pure economic development. Which means you can field a stack or maybe 3, 4 at best with England really cranking. That's with mid-cost troops.

Unless you manage to tickle the Pope's fancy and crusade against my excommunicated "daisy", in which case the sky is the limit on troop numbers. As witnessed by my own England campaign.

Which I would not be so stupid to let you do... hehe. I may not have written the book on crusade exploits, but I know it like I know my own "daisy".

I don't think it's degenerated into a "daisy" comparing excersize just yet, as I'm still responding to your points. I think you've tactfully avoided mine.

:thumbsup:

As for my ego, if you must use that as an excuse not to respond to points, then I don't suggest being in any real debates. Anyone who is in a serious, competitive debate is bound to have a boundless ego. I at least try to focus on the topic and avoid the type of "red herring" or "ad hominem" style arguments that others, wink wink, choose to use.

:beam:

Truthfully, I tire of wearing a mask of humility all the time. I'm not in the mood tonight.

Yup, as I predicted, this one is far less useful. :laugh4:

I've responded to your points fine, you just didn't seem to like the answers.

Place? a river crossing with heights overlooking my bridgehead (and how specific do you want me to be? Do you want the coordinates on the game map? Or are we doing this just on a custom MP battle?)

Stack? I've detailed it.

Time? I can get stack I detailed before turn 20.

Tactics on the field? I've detailed it.

Conclusion? I can probably win once or twice this way. Then I would lose the campaign.

Since your fond of offering debating tips, I have one for you. Be willing to admit that it is possible that you could conceivably lose at something. It is not only realistic and inevitable, but will give the rest of what you say far more weight. :yes:

As for red herrings or ad hominums, I didn't use any that I know of. The ego comment had a clown emoticon to display mirth and is something you have long ago stated about yourself. My comment about your post being arrogant was about your post. I didn't say your arrogant. But I did perceive your post to be. If you believe that me stating my perception of your post was some sort of ploy to redirect you from our debate, then I apologize. :bow:

Now that we've laid out our :daisy:s for the board to measure and comment on, how about some ~:grouphug: (after we put our :daisy:s away of course) :beam:

:turtle: pride

[Askthepizzaguy]

Yup, as I predicted, this one is far less useful. :laugh4:

I've responded to your points fine, you just didn't seem to like the answers.

Place? a river crossing with heights overlooking my bridgehead (and how specific do you want me to be? Do you want the coordinates on the game map? Or are we doing this just on a custom MP battle?)

Stack? I've detailed it.

Time? I can get stack I detailed before turn 20.

Tactics on the field? I've detailed it.

Conclusion? I can probably win once or twice this way. Then I would lose the campaign.

Since your fond of offering debating tips, I have one for you. Be willing to admit that it is possible that you could conceivably lose at something. It is not only realistic and inevitable, but will give the rest of what you say far more weight. :yes:

As for red herrings or ad hominums, I didn't use any that I know of. The ego comment had a clown emoticon to display mirth and is something you have long ago stated about yourself. My comment about your post being arrogant was about your post. I didn't say your arrogant. But I did perceive your post to be. If you believe that me stating my perception of your post was some sort of ploy to redirect you from our debate, then I apologize. :bow:

Now that we've laid out our :daisy:s for the board to measure and comment on, how about some ~:grouphug: (after we put our :daisy:s away of course) :beam:

:turtle: pride

Not to be picky, but you once again refer to a hypothetical river.

You know I'm correct here. England has no river, except the one near London, which can be easily by passed by simply climbing ashore on the other side of it.

I also love the hypothetical heights overlooking the bridge. Not every bridge has one. Certainly not the one next to London, which is the only conceivable (and entirely irrelevant, mind you) choke point England has to offer.

At this point, unless you can name the river, yes, I am actually calling you out on this one. Give me some map coordinates. If I am wrong, I will gracefully bow out of this discussion entirely. I don't think I'm wrong here.

It's time to compare notes. Exactly where is this mythical river you refer to?
Unless I get some proof that England even has a relevant river, and the one next to London doesn't count, then I am forced to ask, where's the beef, sir?

At least we agree you can probably force a loss at such a hypothetical situation, once, maybe twice. However, I am again going to have to refer you to my previous points. You are dooming yourself by directing all of England's energy towards creating such a (IMHO useless, given the lack of river crossings relevant to England's defense) stack of troops, crippling your economy. Even if this were not the case (I will even spot you the miraculous amount of economic development you'd need to stay in the game), Your stack in question is utterly useless in any other kind of situation. Given the fact (until proven otherwise) that England has no defensive river, but sea which is it's defensive line, your miracle stack of trebuchets and stake archers is absolutely meaningless.

With due respect sir, I believe the point is mine. Not because I'm obsessed with "winning" a debate. Frankly, if you can prove me wrong here, I'd be delighted. However, objectively speaking now, your position has far too many holes to be considered legitimate at this point.

Pride and enthusiasm aside, your argument is not reasonable. I do applaud your ethusiasm for sure, and I do enjoy the debate. But I do believe it's one that you aren't going to win today.

If it's any consolation, you would be a formidable opponent in battle, based upon what I've read. And if there's anyone out there that COULD humble me using such a strategy, I think it could be you.

But let's talk realistically here. England is the wrong faction to do as you suggest. Can we agree on that point? England has exactly the wrong terrain, starting location, and defensive problems that would render your above strategem meaningless.

France? Maybe. HRE? Definitley. Poland? Absolutely.

England? There is absolutely no way, and the pink elephant means :elephant: NO WAY, that England could possibly do as you suggest. There is a sea running directly against every single one of England's provinces, providing a highway into your backdoor.

Don't drop the soap, my friend. You will need more than archers, stakes, and cows to save you this time.

And feel free to criticize my egotism, because that is a valid criticism. However, it can't be your sole legitimate point. So far, by my calculations, and by any objective, measurable standard, it is your only trump card.

I cordially invite you to respond to my above points; your river is hypothetical, and doesn't exist in England's campaign in any meaningful location. Your archers and trebuchets will do you no good due to the absolutely inevitable amphibious assaults against England. And you will indeed cripple yourself in time and development attempting to create this delightful little fantasy of yours.

Ego aside, you know I am correct. Take me out of the equation. Is the argument valid? It is indeed.

Your response, sir?

P.S> Go turtle pride! I am cheering for you to win a point here. I love rooting for the underdog. But I would be doing you a disservice by not systematically dissecting your argument for weaknesses and forcing you to address them. I want you to earn those points.

[Privateerkev]

I fear we are starting to debate different things. Look over my other posts and you will see that I am quite consistent. My only real point that is in all of my posts is this: I believe I can successfully defend a bridge/river crossing against you. Period. That is all I have ever claimed.

You want to somehow put this in the context of a larger campaign when I am not arguing that. I have long conceded that the blitzer will always win a 1 v 1 MP campaign because of the math of the game.

That is why I never listed which river I was defending. It doesn't matter. No matter what river it is, I believe I will A.) win a battle or two and B.) lose the campaign.

Your last post simply beat home a point I had accepted long ago. And that is that a blitzer would beat a turtle in the campaign. Have I mentioned enough that I already agree that a blitzer can beat turtle? Or about how a blitzer can beat a turtle?

So, I have stuck to my original argument and you have tried to move us on to a different one. But I already agree with you with regards to the one you are trying to move us to. And that is that a blitzer can beat a turtler in a campaign game. I am saying this multiple times in hope that one of them will reach you.

As for why I picked England as my faction? Simple. They have sharp pointy things to stick in the ground. That and I am familiar with them.

So, to summarize, I believe a blitzer can beat a turtle in the campaign game but I also believe that I can successfully defend a bridge/river crossing. If you would like details to back this statement up, I will politely refer you to my previous posts where I lay out my strategies and tactics.

PS: I believe a blitzer can beat a turtle in a campaign game :clown:

:turtle: pride

[Askthepizzaguy]

I fear we are starting to debate different things. Look over my other posts and you will see that I am quite consistent. My only real point that is in all of my posts is this: I believe I can successfully defend a bridge/river crossing against you. Period. That is all I have ever claimed.

You want to somehow put this in the context of a larger campaign when I am not arguing that. I have long conceded that the blitzer will always win a 1 v 1 MP campaign because of the math of the game.

That is why I never listed which river I was defending. It doesn't matter. No matter what river it is, I believe I will A.) win a battle or two and B.) lose the campaign.

Your last post simply beat home a point I had accepted long ago. And that is that a blitzer would beat a turtle in the campaign. Have I mentioned enough that I already agree that a blitzer can beat turtle? Or about how a blitzer can beat a turtle?

So, I have stuck to my original argument and you have tried to move us on to a different one. But I already agree with you with regards to the one you are trying to move us to. And that is that a blitzer can beat a turtler in a campaign game. I am saying this multiple times in hope that one of them will reach you.

As for why I picked England as my faction? Simple. They have sharp pointy things to stick in the ground. That and I am familiar with them.

So, to summarize, I believe a blitzer can beat a turtle in the campaign game but I also believe that I can successfully defend a bridge/river crossing. If you would like details to back this statement up, I will politely refer you to my previous posts where I lay out my strategies and tactics.

PS: I believe a blitzer can beat a turtle in a campaign game :clown:

:turtle: pride

So, to be clear, you believe a blitzer can beat a turtle? :beam:

Other than that filler, your post confirmed everything I already knew. There is no relevant bridge. The above strategy is meaningless except in a simple multiplayer battle situation. Which, by the way, is interesting, because in such a situation, I would not HAVE to cross the river. Only in campaign would I be forced to do so.

So even in your perfect, unworkable fantasy battle that does not apply to campaigns, we are assuming you have the perfect troops, in a perfect location, and you also conveniently do not have to attack me.

Pardon me, but I was hoping for something more meaningful a point to concede.

Very well, if I must concede that, I will.

"In A One on One battle With only One stack Per side You will defeat Me in a river crossing Defense with the Troops you select because of The inherent Advantages you've designed for Yourself." End quote.

In all other points relevant to this discussion, you've conceded:

1. You lose the campaign
2. England, while delightfully suited for bridge defense, has no bridges worth defending in her territory
3. The battle could never take place, therefore in campaign in a hypothetical multiplayer version thereof, with you playing England.
4. Only if we elected to do a multiplayer one on one battle, to your very specific specifics, for lack of a better term, would you indeed prevail.

Ultimately, therefore, all we've established thus far is

1. If you stack the deck in your favor, you could win.

A bit disappointing.

[Privateerkev]

Sorry to dissapoint you but that was all I was ever claiming. You came on here bragging about how you could assault any bridge and I decided to refute you with the knowledge gained in nearly a year of defending bridges as England. You wanted to turn it into some sort of challenge to your blitzing superiority when I was never actually challenging it. Didn't mean to get you all excited there. :no:

Also, I believe a blitzer can beat a turtle...

:clown:













:turtle: pride!

[Abokasee]

It really depends on the faction your playing, HRE can turtle, its already very large and quite powerful, on the other hand, we have Denmark, I personally always rush (Get a long boat too england by turn 3 and take the village between england and scotland is priceless) if Denmark dosnt go rushing, it will be only 4 regions at max without having to attack another faction or sail to the british isles

Some factions may turtle at the beginning, then ruh like mad, such Byzantine (Id rather be firing my bombards at walls, than getting attack by basilisks)

[Askthepizzaguy]

Sorry to dissapoint you but that was all I was ever claiming. You came on here bragging about how you could assault any bridge and I decided to refute you with the knowledge gained in nearly a year of defending bridges as England. You wanted to turn it into some sort of challenge to your blitzing superiority when I was never actually challenging it. Didn't mean to get you all excited there. :no:

Also, I believe a blitzer can beat a turtle...

:clown:

:turtle: pride!

Interesting.

So all that argument on your part regarding what you've done with England on campaigns, referring to x number of turns until goal y, everything you've stated referring to everything NOT RELATED to multiplayer situations designed for yourself with the perfect troops in the perfect location without having to attain victory for yourself, that was all... what? What was all that?

If all you ever claimed was a very specific multiplayer stack V stack victory, then you should never have referred to anything campaign related for me to respond to.

Sorry sir, but you can go back and change what you said, but it doesn't change the fact that you said it, and my responses were all valid to the points you tried to make, but now claim you never attempted to make.

I apologize for getting "excited", however, I did reduce your entire argument down to what it may have originally intended to be, but never was, which was the point that if you construct a battle of your choosing, with ultimate freedom in picking troops, location, unrelated to campaigns, and not even requiring yourself to do anything but stalemate, you might gain victory...

It's a fairly hollow point. I would be not proud if that were all I had to contribute.

That being said, we at least agree that Turtles are toast in campaign, England cannot do as you suggest versus a human being due to the location of the oceans, the entire point is irrelevant, and so on and so forth.

In the end, we even agree on your two valid points. I've got quite the ego, and your intricately-laid out plan works wonders under the perfect, designed, campaign unrelated circumstances, and then only if you don't have to win the battle, just draw.

So, we agree on everything! Good show!

:smash:

PS The topic at hand refers to Turtles and Blitzers, which has everything to do with campaign strategy and nothing to do with MP human v human battles. But that's not a relevant point, either.

A round of ales for everyone, on me!

[Askthepizzaguy]

It really depends on the faction your playing, HRE can turtle, its already very large and quite powerful, on the other hand, we have Denmark, I personally always rush (Get a long boat too england by turn 3 and take the village between england and scotland is priceless) if Denmark dosnt go rushing, it will be only 4 regions at max without having to attack another faction or sail to the british isles

Some factions may turtle at the beginning, then ruh like mad, such Byzantine (Id rather be firing my bombards at walls, than getting attack by basilisks)


Brilliant!

I'd agree with most of that.

Actually, I think Byzantine has quite good chances of fielding a relevant navy AND defending herself via the mountain passes. I'd turtle with her anyday.

Since the discussion, the TOPIC itself is about campaigns, your points were all relevant.


__________________________

Askthepizzaguy
Smug: -5 popularity
Arrogant: -15 popularity, reduces chance of having children,
Berserker: +20 when attacking
Blitzer: +15 when attacking turtles, when commanding militas
Often correct: increases chance of winning debates.

[Fisherking]

Just what is the composition of your marvelous unstoppable army? We keep hearing about it but so far no one has been able to test it.

Beating up the AI is no serious accomplishment with a few exceptions. It is mostly hypothetical but I am sure you have used the tactics in winning the game, but I would say that any winning strategy and the tactics that accomplish the winning of the battles is a good one and the one you enjoy the most is the best.

Otherwise you have to try it in multi play games and run the risk of everyone ganging up on you…if you can defeat that then you really have something.

[Shahed]

I'm sure in an MP game pizzaguy will be the first to be ganked, and they'll probably ask you to stay on and play another faction, so they can gank you again !.

Funny thread though. Hilarious !

[marrow]

Put the handbags away, ladies.

Realistically I'm yet to meet a TW player who sticks entirely to either of the strategies. Sensible expansionist will always have the edge.

For the sake of the argument though I have to say it all depends on the factions you choose to lead. Abokasee is indeed correct pointing out that factions like Denmark simply cannot survive turtling (pathetic economy powered by 4 - 5 regions max including bloody Oslo which takes decades to break even). On the other hand they start with units capable of cutting through their neighbours' defences like hot knife through butter and if you choose to play as Denmark you know you're going to have to draw blood from the word go.
Factions of this particular sort are IMHO Poland, Denmark, Russia, Sicily to name a few. Portugal has it tougher as on top of obvious money worries their units tend to suck a good deal in early game.

Some factions can just sit there and build up until they simply spill over the brink unto their neighbours - HRE, the Byz, Egypt, perhaps even France if you're crafty and take Bordeaux and that town in Bittany immediately.

Strategy then, to a large degree, depends on the faction you choose to play, some factions are forced to rob and plunder their way to stability, whereas others are perfectly comfortable delaying offensive warfare for many turns.

Again, however - neither strategy in their purest form is particularly atrractive to me. Blitzing in M2TW feeks like kicking a five-year-old in the teeth with a steel-cap toe - there are certainly better ways to prove you're a man. Turtling is fun for a while but eventually becomes tedious beyond my endurance and I cannot help but flex my military muscle gobbling up my neighbours in huge chunks.

@ askthepizzaguy - I sincerely wish you luck blitzing me as, say, Ireland in Brittania, the mother of all turtlers!

@ Priveteerkev - There is simply no way you could contain me playing as Poland if you go for a turtling game as HRE or Hungary, tried and tested.

As someone poited out earlier (sincere apologies, don't rember who it was) - every campaign has a certain flow and rhythm and strongest players know how to use both blitzing and turtling to their advantage, anticipating problems ahead and stemming them before their grow to dangerous size.

'spect

[Askthepizzaguy]

Just what is the composition of your marvelous unstoppable army? We keep hearing about it but so far no one has been able to test it.

Beating up the AI is no serious accomplishment with a few exceptions. It is mostly hypothetical but I am sure you have used the tactics in winning the game, but I would say that any winning strategy and the tactics that accomplish the winning of the battles is a good one and the one you enjoy the most is the best.

Otherwise you have to try it in multi play games and run the risk of everyone ganging up on you…if you can defeat that then you really have something.

Actually, the composition of the army itself is largely irrelevant, the point all along being it's massive size and endless reserves. Once you have the territories of three factions under your belt, you can send troops off to die forever. There is apparently no such thing as war fatigue at that point.

I never attempt to make one stack of unbeatable troops because, well, no stack is unbeatable. I simply attempt to create more, more, more. And I do, and the proof is in some of my previous threads. See England, Russia, and Egypt campaigns c/o askthepizzaguy. I am not just spitballing here, I have the cards to back it up.

Unfortunately, many of my photobucket images may have to be reloaded. But do a search for my england, russia, or egypt threads and see what I mean about sheer masses of troops. And also pay attention to the turn number. Anyone can have a million troops after the Mongols arrive. On turn 20, having endless stacks IS impressive.

I have indeed played multiplayer on here before. And, barring being ganged by two or more people, which of course means I lose by sheer numbers (MY entire strategy against others) I usually prevail due to good generalship. Although I admit others may actually be better in battle due to more experience versus humans.


I'm sure in an MP game pizzaguy will be the first to be ganked, and they'll probably ask you to stay on and play another faction, so they can gank you again !.

Funny thread though. Hilarious !

I desperately want a MP game. PLEASE bring it on.

I will crush all of you. :knight:
Bwahahahahaha!!!


Put the handbags away, ladies.

Realistically I'm yet to meet a TW player who sticks entirely to either of the strategies. Sensible expansionist will always have the edge.

Pizzaguy: That's what I've been advocating versus turtles and blitzers.

For the sake of the argument though I have to say it all depends on the factions you choose to lead. Abokasee is indeed correct pointing out that factions like Denmark simply cannot survive turtling (pathetic economy powered by 4 - 5 regions max including bloody Oslo which takes decades to break even). On the other hand they start with units capable of cutting through their neighbours' defences like hot knife through butter and if you choose to play as Denmark you know you're going to have to draw blood from the word go.

Pizzaguy: Agreed.

Factions of this particular sort are IMHO Poland, Denmark, Russia, Sicily to name a few. Portugal has it tougher as on top of obvious money worries their units tend to suck a good deal in early game.

Some factions can just sit there and build up until they simply spill over the brink unto their neighbours - HRE, the Byz, Egypt, perhaps even France if you're crafty and take Bordeaux and that town in Bittany immediately.

Strategy then, to a large degree, depends on the faction you choose to play, some factions are forced to rob and plunder their way to stability, whereas others are perfectly comfortable delaying offensive warfare for many turns.

Again, however - neither strategy in their purest form is particularly atrractive to me. Blitzing in M2TW feeks like kicking a five-year-old in the teeth with a steel-cap toe - there are certainly better ways to prove you're a man. Turtling is fun for a while but eventually becomes tedious beyond my endurance and I cannot help but flex my military muscle gobbling up my neighbours in huge chunks.

Askthepizzaguy: Blitzing by itself is not impressive. Rolling up the entire map before turn 60... Please, I'm not bragging, but TRY it sometime.

@ askthepizzaguy - I sincerely wish you luck blitzing me as, say, Ireland in Brittania, the mother of all turtlers!

Askthepizzaguy: I haven't had the pleasure of playing the new game version. But I appreciate the offer.

Listen up though... remember THE LONG ROAD mod? Yeah, the game where hardly anyone could stand to field a single decent stack until midway through the game? I blitz in that game. Yes, from turn one. With any faction you pick.

It's hard as a diamond encrusted iron fist smashing repeatedly against your head, but I can roll up the map, from turn one, in THAT game.

Bring it the flip on.

@ Priveteerkev - There is simply no way you could contain me playing as Poland if you go for a turtling game as HRE or Hungary, tried and tested.

As someone poited out earlier (sincere apologies, don't rember who it was) - every campaign has a certain flow and rhythm and strongest players know how to use both blitzing and turtling to their advantage, anticipating problems ahead and stemming them before their grow to dangerous size.

'spect

Thank you gentlemen, for keeping this thread alive.

:knight:

[marrow]

Askthepizzaguy: Blitzing by itself is not impressive. Rolling up the entire map before turn 60... Please, I'm not bragging, but TRY it sometime.

Been there, done that mate. In STW i rushed through entire map as quickly as possible with most clans, In MTW my armies trampled Europe at express rate too a few times. But the novelty wears off and I sway in favour of a slower game these days. By the time Alexander came out (oh, you know what your mean, so no silly smirks :beam: ) I was already bored with steamrolling the map and I never completed it (even though it was going pretty well). I have come to despise masses of standard troops and instead nowadays I choose to grant AI the only chance it has of ever doing anything - sit and wait for it to develop a bit so that it can give me a tougher nut to crack. Added benefit is seeing more balanced and tactically flexible armies that make for a far more enjoyable battles. Lining up 15 units of militia crowd and double clicking behind the enemy? I'd rather auto-calc, thank you.

'spect

[Askthepizzaguy]

Askthepizzaguy: Blitzing by itself is not impressive. Rolling up the entire map before turn 60... Please, I'm not bragging, but TRY it sometime.

Been there, done that mate. In STW i rushed through entire map as quickly as possible with most clans, In MTW my armies trampled Europe at express rate too a few times. But the novelty wears off and I sway in favour of a slower game these days. By the time Alexander came out (oh, you know what your mean, so no silly smirks :beam: ) I was already bored with steamrolling the map and I never completed it (even though it was going pretty well). I have come to despise masses of standard troops and instead nowadays I choose to grant AI the only chance it has of ever doing anything - sit and wait for it to develop a bit so that it can give me a tougher nut to crack. Added benefit is seeing more balanced and tactically flexible armies that make for a far more enjoyable battles. Lining up 15 units of militia crowd and double clicking behind the enemy? I'd rather auto-calc, thank you.

'spect

So, I take it that means you've never done it with M2TW?

Anyone who can come close to 60 turns and all 108 provinces deserves my 'spect.

[Privateerkev]

So all that argument on your part regarding what you've done with England on campaigns, referring to x number of turns until goal y, everything you've stated referring to everything NOT RELATED to multiplayer situations designed for yourself with the perfect troops in the perfect location without having to attain victory for yourself, that was all... what? What was all that?

Simple. I said I could defend a bridge. You kept trying to tease out how. I told you how. You kept trying to apply it to a campaign game that I was never applying it to. My answers were specific answers regarding specific questions. They were never meant to be some sort of claim on a master campaign plan.


If all you ever claimed was a very specific multiplayer stack V stack victory, then you should never have referred to anything campaign related for me to respond to.

Sorry but I had to refute your claims that I could not somehow get stakes by turn 25. I can. If it confused you, it was not meant to.


Sorry sir, but you can go back and change what you said, but it doesn't change the fact that you said it, and my responses were all valid to the points you tried to make, but now claim you never attempted to make.

I never changed what I said. You just read what I said differently than I intended it. While you might argue that is the fault of the writer (me) for writing it that way, you are making the whole thing sound more malicious than it was.


I apologize for getting "excited", however, I did reduce your entire argument down to what it may have originally intended to be, but never was, which was the point that if you construct a battle of your choosing, with ultimate freedom in picking troops, location, unrelated to campaigns, and not even requiring yourself to do anything but stalemate, you might gain victory...

No, you finally started to see what I had been saying the whole time. Read the older posts again...


It's a fairly hollow point. I would be not proud if that were all I had to contribute.

Actually I am quite proud of my bridge defense strategy. Your the one that tried to make this more than it was. Maybe that is the fault of how I write. Maybe it's the fault of how you perceived it. (it probably is a little of both)


That being said, we at least agree that Turtles are toast in campaign, England cannot do as you suggest versus a human being due to the location of the oceans, the entire point is irrelevant, and so on and so forth.

Yup, after awhile I felt this conversation degenerated into, "Your right!" "No, your right!"


In the end, we even agree on your two valid points. I've got quite the ego, and your intricately-laid out plan works wonders under the perfect, designed, campaign unrelated circumstances, and then only if you don't have to win the battle, just draw.

yes to both. :yes:


So, we agree on everything! Good show!

I was wondering when you would figure that out. :D


PS The topic at hand refers to Turtles and Blitzers, which has everything to do with campaign strategy and nothing to do with MP human v human battles. But that's not a relevant point, either.

What is funny is that your the one that started this claiming you could assault a bridge. That therefore opened the door for a MP conversation about a bridge battle. I refuted you and you counter-refuted. Yet you kept trying to take the conversation in places it was never meant to go. So, you opened a door, and then tried real fast to shut it again. Then you got mad at me for keeping it open. Well, my response to that is: :P

[marrow]

So, I take it that means you've never done it with M2TW?

Anyone who can come close to 60 turns and all 108 provinces deserves my 'spect.

No I haven't done it with M2TW for reasons previously stated - it's plain boring to repeat the same steamrolling feat because the outcome is predictable if not assured when playing against AI.

I doubt the game is even remotly engaging if played this way and the guys who made the game gave us later units for a reason. I, for one, prefer "the longer way" to instant, cheaply won gratification.

Shame my opinion doesn't deserve your respect mate!

[phonicsmonkey]

Hey pizzaguy, have you tried the Britannia campaign? I haven't, but I have heard it is more difficult to blitz because of the effect of Culture - somehow I doubt it would hold you up for too long, but I'd be interested to hear your experience.


I desperately want a MP game. PLEASE bring it on.

I'd be happy to. I have a six-hour exam on Sunday but after that I'm definitely looking for some Hotseat action (yeahbaby).

Anyone else interested? I understand battles must be autoresolved, which might even help out the turtle against the blitzer....discuss?

[CavalryCmdr]

Just making a statement here,


I took Thessalonica, which was defended by an entire stack of Byzantine's best troops, and further reinforced by their 10 star faction leader, complete with ANOTHER stack of the best troops a mid-game Byzantine army has to offer.

Assuming that your talking about an AI Byzantine, I fail to see your point with this. Against an AI HRE I've beeten

1 General
1 Feudal Knight
3 Mailed Knight
2 Armored Sergents
3 Peasant Archers
2 Town Militia

With...

4 Border Horse. I took enough losses so I actually had to send one back to retrain. This was not a particularly dificult nor memoral battle either, the only reason I remember this battle in particular is because I was allied with them and had sent my cavalry over to help them.

My point being , 'a human may be more innovative' dosnt even begin to cover it. If your really thinking you'll win every battle just because you could easily win that same battle against the AI your in for a much tougher game then I had thought.

[Privateerkev]

The Kingdoms Britannia campaign is about the only hope of beating a blitzer in a 1 v 1 MP game. Especially if the Turtle plays England.

First let me elaborate on the concept of culture. Culture replaces religion and adds massive amounts of unrest if you capture a region of a different culture than yours. You will have to slowly convert the settlement to your culture through the use of religious buildings (which convert culture instead of religion) and a good governor who has a high management skill (which replaces piety). Plus there are no priest agents. This won't stop blitzing but it will slow it down. Plus almost every region has a stone fort in a strategic location.

As England, you start off with almost half of the territories in the map so you can go pure turtle. I advise abandoning Ireland though. The high Irish culture will turn Ireland into a money pit. Pull the English troops out of Ireland and sell off the buildings in those territories. Pull those troops to the main island. Then just build up.

The blitzer will have to nail the other AI factions first. That will take a bit of time. In that time, the English turtle can just build and build. I will disagree with Marrow about picking Ireland as the turtle. The blitzer will eventually take all of the main island and Ireland will fall to sheer weight of numbers.

Phonicsmonkey: I'm always up for playing more hotseat games but I think the point is to play ATPG 1 on 1. Also, it doesn't seem like he has Kingdoms yet.

[phonicsmonkey]

I'd happily take on the pizzaguy one-on-one - it would be a good fight.

It wouldn't provide any test of this theory though, as I am neither a committed turtle nor an all-out blitzer.

But I wonder how auto-calc'ing all battles would affect the blitzer.

As I understand it auto-calc takes no account of walls or other defences (so no opportunity for bottlenecks, use of terrain etc.), and is purely a mechanism based on the "quality" of the units.

In that case isn't it a possibility that a high-quality stack of the turtler's finest upgraded troops could hold off several low-grade militia stacks sent by the blitzer?

Especially, I would have thought, if he can take them on one at a time...

[_Tristan_]

From what I experienced in Hotseat games, I think the advantage will go to the blitzer up to the point that it is a 1v1 match and no other party interfering, otherwise blitzing is a risky strategy if you have not the power (in money and men) to back it up... In the Kingdoms Hotseat that went down the drain, I blitzed all rebel settlements within striking distance and managed to hold up the Jihading armies of Egypt by striking fast in response to aggression...

The only exception to the above would be factions with starting positions such as Scotland and Denmark (with only one challenger at the start)

Moreover, sieges in autocalc are a blitzer's friend as walls are not taken into account and you can get them open with a single siege engine (catapult,...) or after one turn at the most (time to build rams or else)...

[Cpt_oo7]

You guys seem to be forgeting that most people don't like the hare.

I'm going to assume that everyone is playing as a different faction. When humans are allied with one and another they tend to be more modest and helpful. In order for the hare to stay alive he has to keep pushing in order to supplie himself. The hare can't be trusted by anyone and is a threat to other blitzers, thus the are targets for everyone. Recently I was playing RTW as Dacia, I took out thrace, Macedonia, and Scythia quick (turn 20 or less, can't remember). But now that left me at war with neighboring Armeina, Greece, Germania, and Brutii, who all attacked me. I was the blitzer and they where neither the turtle, nor the hare, but the AI. But that left me wondering after I saw this thread: What would have happened if they where humans and allied?

I, the blitzer, would have been outnumberd and dead. Especially senice I rushed poor thrance and took them out on turn 3 it exposed me as a major threat. Yes the blitzer has the upper cards in the first rounds but eventually humans will come together to destroy the bigger threat then fight over it for themselfs.


For some reason why are we only useing WWII tatics here? Blitzing can be countered. I can see many moments in history where blitzers got destoryed (Napolens retreat from moscow is about the only I can think of but i'm trying to think about the punic wars and mongol defeats).

When you're playing as the person who trys to defeat the blitzer you have to remember that the blitzer relies on 1 thing: Resources. Without there resources they are useless and will cripple very easily. I was playing as Ireland on kingdoms when I conquered all of Ireland and wondered what to do next. Welsh where my allies so I decided to try something different, I built up atleast 1 stack of assisians and spys and started sabotogeing everything I saw. Wales conquered everything to london until I got bored and quit that game.

Anyways thats just my :2cents:

[Cheetah]

I will just repreat the concluison but there are few points worth to note. Turtling to succeed it has to offer some advantages. Basically it can be defense, technology or economical. I do not see any of these advantages in MTW2.

1, Defense. Walls, ballista towers are no major obstacles. Wooden forts more of a death traps than real forts. Stone forts could be a major advantage if you can build them where ever you want. There are regions that can be walled off with a few forts. Alas, as there are no stone forts in MTW2, so this wont help the turtle.

2, Technology. There is no advantage here either. Quite a good number of factions get there best units from the start, like vardariotais, hungarian nobles, jinettes, or can get them very easily like LB. Most factions get good spears and good x-bows from low tier city barracks, and most christian factions get elite heavy inf and heavy cavs (DFK, and FK,. or even better like norman knights) from fortress walls. So, IMO it is unlikely that a turtle will field significantly better troops. Also, the discovery of gunpowder is tied to a date so a turlte wont get an advantage here either. (IMO turtling might work if the turtle could speed up reasearch and could discover gunpowder faster than the rusher. Though, even in that case nothing would prevent the rusher to capture settlements with gunsmith).

3, Economy. We all know that sacking is a huge income. Also, nothing would prevent the rusher to build the economy line buildings (mines, markets, ports). Also simply having more provinces means a much greater economic potential. Again turtling might work if the turtle could research economic systems (like banking) that would give him a significant economic edge but that is not the case in MTW2.

All in all, none of these advantages are there in MTW2. Also, turtling would work the best if all 3 advantages could have been researched (as these potential advantages complement each other).

[Cheetah]

You guys seem to be forgeting that most people don't like the hare.

....

I, the blitzer, would have been outnumberd and dead.

That is true, but there are regions where one can rush without much interference. For example, if you blitz the Turks (and then Byzantines) with Egpyt then there is only a few factions (Venice or perhaps Hungary) that might interfere. Same holds for the Iberian peninsula (like Spain rushing the Moors and Portugal), or for Russia vs Poland/baltikum.

[Lamprey]

The "strength in numbers" argument pizzaguy brought up earlier is correct assuming the side with fewer but better troops defending a citadel is AI. Any remotely competent human with one stack of dismounted knights/spearmen/longbowmen would utterly crush two stacks of militia with a catapult. All he has to do is let the catapult make 2-3 holes in the walls (at which point it will run out of ammo) and contain the cheap militia at the breaches. You don't even need a lot of men, a thin line is good enough because you will have longbowmen on the second line of walls doing the killing anyway.

As to the thread topic: rushing the AI is obviously more powerful than turtling because the AI sucks. If every nation was played by humans, the zerg player would get their arse handed to them because it's not exactly difficult to defend against a rush (pump out tons of militia and hire the good mercs; the rusher will hire what's left and then go bankrupt supporting them with no dumb AI to easily blitz). However, single-player rushing is very effective for all the reasons mentioned above. As a matter of fact, I never do it because it's too effective. Makes the game too easy and no fun.

[ReiseReise]

I haven't read this whole thread in detail, but yet I think it is THE single best thread in this forum, due to the number of repeat replies and well thought-out posts. Kudos to everyone for having such a lively and friendly debate.

I don't necessarily agree that the Turtle will win, however I like to argue as the devils advocate, so...

One thought that I've had is that a human vs human siege would be absolutely horrific for the besieging Hare. Sure we are all used to steamrolling AI cities defended by 4 spear militia and 2 archers who immediately retreat to city center, but imagine an actual organized defense of 10-15 units. The turtle is likely to have high-level walls/castles, and the hare is unlikely to have much arty due to expensive siege shops and slow movement. Therefore, anything and everything would be slaughtered at the gates, or atop the walls. Hell, 2 defending town militias will give towered DFKs a very rough day on the walls. The loss of an entire stack to an unsuccessful siege might be crippling to the Hare, even with other stacks in reserve. The hare has to replace his losses from a spread out and underdeveloped empire ie low level units taking multiple turns to arrive, while the Turtle with his geographically compact kingdom can build 2-3 prime units in each of several provinces and send 10+ high quality units to the point of conflict in a single turn. Even up-armoured peasants can become a major obstacle to any besieger, but the Turtle would probably be sending up-armoured Arm. Spear or even better. If you say the Hare would simply bypass those regions and go for ill-defended ones, the close proximity of so many units would mean that the Turtle could either A) garrison any settlement at a whim or if that failed B) have a massive reinforcement army waiting for the assault. And remember, unlike the AI a human player would not simply amass his reinforcements in the square and let you pound him with archers/arty, he would be actively defending.

Comments/Critiques/Flames welcome, just a few thoughts of mine.

[regor]

I don't participate much on these boards, but this a really interesting topic.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I am a full-on turtle. I play at the pace of he AI, as anything more is not fun at all. Though if (once in a blue moon) the AI manages to take one of my settlements, I go into a 'rage of the righteous' mode and cream that faction. You could argue that the fact a printed circuit board can get an emotional response out of me is just sad, but I choose to put it down do good game design.:laugh4:

As for the question of turtle vs. hare, I think it's not really a contest at all. To sum up the simple, yet brutally effective strategy of askthepizzaguy: while you (the turtle) are are slowly expanding and lovingly cultivating your small patch of the strategy map, he (the hare) is rolling over the incompetent AI and, once he hits the 10-15 province mark, can pump out bland but numerous armies as fast or faster than you can keep beating them.

If you somehow force a prolonged stalemate, you invariably do so at the expense of minimally garrisoning the cities and castles furthers from the main axis of his attack. At this point, the smart hare has you pinned and will begin the back door assault. Three stacks of militia and some siege arty appearing out of the FOW behind your front line, taking three of your settlements in 1-3 turns will cripple your faction economically beyond repair, because a turtle at this point (by definition) can only have max. 5-10 provinces under his control. If by some miracle you recover, you now have another battlefront to deal with and are still vulnerable to the same tactic.

And there is always a back door. In the previously proposed scenario of the Byz. Empire defending against a Catholic faction, Asia Minor is just waiting for a naval invasion. Even largely landlocked factions such as Russia fare no better. The gaps between settlements are so large, the hare can easily slip trough the cracks. In short, you are lacking in one of the crucial ingredients of successfully waging war: initiative.

That is why I believe there is really no viable options for the turtle, or even the moderate expansionist and the whole thing makes me suspect that any full fledged MP game (strategy&tactical map included) is utterly unplayable. As far as I can see, there is no way it won't degenerate into a backstabbing, quarter-stack raids on the most vulnerable settlements of you opponent, with the sole aim of sack&abandon. The only factor in determining the victor is that you have more luck doing it (i.e. are spotted approaching less times than he is).

I see no way of moderating the exploit of the game mechanic that limits your movement speed to (at best) something like 300 km/year (that's 0.0342 km/h or 0.0212 mph:wall: ), and your recruiting speed to (again, at best) 7 turns/full stack. Not to mention the fact that a single enemy unit exerting it's zone of control can mess up your startegy for the entire turn.

That's why I am interested in hearing from the guys that have tried the PBEM games. Is it as frustrating as I imagine it to be?

[Askthepizzaguy]

I don't participate much on these boards, but this a really interesting topic.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I am a full-on turtle. I play at the pace of he AI, as anything more is not fun at all. Though if (once in a blue moon) the AI manages to take one of my settlements, I go into a 'rage of the righteous' mode and cream that faction. You could argue that the fact a printed circuit board can get an emotional response out of me is just sad, but I choose to put it down do good game design.:laugh4:

As for the question of turtle vs. hare, I think it's not really a contest at all. To sum up the simple, yet brutally effective strategy of askthepizzaguy: while you (the turtle) are are slowly expanding and lovingly cultivating your small patch of the strategy map, he (the hare) is rolling over the incompetent AI and, once he hits the 10-15 province mark, can pump out bland but numerous armies as fast or faster than you can keep beating them.

If you somehow force a prolonged stalemate, you invariably do so at the expense of minimally garrisoning the cities and castles furthers from the main axis of his attack. At this point, the smart hare has you pinned and will begin the back door assault. Three stacks of militia and some siege arty appearing out of the FOW behind your front line, taking three of your settlements in 1-3 turns will cripple your faction economically beyond repair, because a turtle at this point (by definition) can only have max. 5-10 provinces under his control. If by some miracle you recover, you now have another battlefront to deal with and are still vulnerable to the same tactic.

And there is always a back door. In the previously proposed scenario of the Byz. Empire defending against a Catholic faction, Asia Minor is just waiting for a naval invasion. Even largely landlocked factions such as Russia fare no better. The gaps between settlements are so large, the hare can easily slip trough the cracks. In short, you are lacking in one of the crucial ingredients of successfully waging war: initiative.

That is why I believe there is really no viable options for the turtle, or even the moderate expansionist and the whole thing makes me suspect that any full fledged MP game (strategy&tactical map included) is utterly unplayable. As far as I can see, there is no way it won't degenerate into a backstabbing, quarter-stack raids on the most vulnerable settlements of you opponent, with the sole aim of sack&abandon. The only factor in determining the victor is that you have more luck doing it (i.e. are spotted approaching less times than he is).

I see no way of moderating the exploit of the game mechanic that limits your movement speed to (at best) something like 300 km/year (that's 0.0342 km/h or 0.0212 mph:wall: ), and your recruiting speed to (again, at best) 7 turns/full stack. Not to mention the fact that a single enemy unit exerting it's zone of control can mess up your startegy for the entire turn.

That's why I am interested in hearing from the guys that have tried the PBEM games. Is it as frustrating as I imagine it to be?

Good points, Regor.

I laugh at the notion that somehow defending a citadel with hundreds of your best, most effective troops would even come close to stopping me.

Number one, you've wasted tens of thousands of florins getting the citadel to that size. Number two, the citadel is defending itself with a net loss of florins per turn. I can lay seige with infinite disposable troops, and you are forced to sally or die. My empire is making tons of florins profit because my troops are expanding my empire and stifling your growth, while yours defend your bloated yet strangely unprofitable citadels and cities. All those "best troops" do nothing but drain your coffers and turn your little empire into a stagnant swamp of debt.

I will suffocate you to death. I don't NEED to roll over your castle. I can wait you out. This is not just true in this game, it's realistic according to history. Your expensive, expensive troops sit in your expensive, expensive castle, and you slowly die of hunger unless you sally against ten thousand of my lightly armored milita spearment, archers, and mounted crusaders left over from previous wars which I purchased at a tiny fraction of retail cost.

My troops are being maintained by my ever growing cities which are not overdefended. My empire is expanding and turning a profit.

Oh no, I can't believe I am going to say it... yes, indeed, I am going to say it.

"It's the economy, stupid!"

AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH I swore I would never quote Carville or Clinton and mean it! Dang! I will never live that down.

Lets face facts, folks. Turtle empires, when largely unattacked, can prosper. But when a small empire must field impressive numbers of high quality troops just to defend its own borders, then its economy is dead. Not to mention the only way to overcome that problem is with city growth and economic buildings, which by the way, cost money and TIME, which is much more valuable in this game than money.

Remember that Hares (I loathe the term... call me a blitzer or a berserker) are continuously growing their empire. They can fight on 3 fronts and remain stagnant in two of them. Just as long as the third front expands.

My empire will continue to expand, my cities will grow on their own with minimal investment over time, I will eventually become rich beyond my wildest dreams and be capable of constructing a "turtle" empire of my own inside the protective coccoon of my surrounding territories.

Not to mention I can afford to go deep into debt and conquer my way out of it. When my troops die, do you know what happens? My profit per turn rises. When my troops don't die, do you know what happens? I can harass you and strangle your empire until you die from starvation and debt. When my troops kill your troops, do you know what happens? I conquer your territory and grow even stronger.

When I have unlimited funds coming from a massive, military-based empire, I can afford to harass you and stalemate you while I focus on my own economy in the middle game. Oops! Anything a turtle can do, a berserker can do BETTER. Sorry, you have ZERO advantages! NONE! You start off at a disadvantage, because I immediately field more troops than you can repel without stifling your development and/or losing territory, going into debt if necessary. I expand in different directions so a loss on a given front doesnt mean anything to me. I quickly gain a severe advantage after taking several AI provinces and sacking them, turning the profits into more troops and the territories into money makers to support them. I strangle your empire with at least one harassing stack and a few naval units. The middle game has me expanding rapidly, while stifling your growth. If you can't make your stand here, you've lost. The late middle game has me choking you to death while focusing almost exclusively on economic growth and troop replacement. The end game is me sending 20 stacks of mid level troops through what was once a proud empire of yours, now a mere province in mine.

Thanks be to Regor for "getting it".
Get it??? :knight:

PS, I want to once again reiterate for the umpteen-billionth time that this whole strategy falls to dust if there is another blitzer or several turtles in the game. This applies solely to berserker versus turtle one on one games. In other games, a moderate or conservative style of play would be prudent.

PSS, to make it even remotely close to a FAIR berserker V turtle game, I cannot start with:

England- Too easy to attack and not be attacked, great starting position and numbers of troops
France- Too many starting provinces and troops/generals
HRE- Way too many starting troops and castles in the mountains
Byzantium- Starts with best navy and a ten star general with great troops. Duh.
Poland- Too easy to destroy people in the early game with mounted range units and militias.
Hungary- Same deal, but with a better empire.
Milan- Free access to the Pope-o-matic "infinite troops every crusade" machine
Sicily- Same, but with a kick-butt navy and starting position
Venice- Same.

Give me Scotland, Denmark, or Portugal, Russia perhaps... then maybe, maybe, a close game is to be had.

[CavalryCmdr]

Denmark would give you an even better advantage then England, asside from the money making british isle, which would be yours soon enough, Denmarks low grade troops (that youd be using throughout most of the game) are at least a match for most other factions mid grade or even better. No, Denmark offers the biggest advantage to the blitzer with the posible exception of an italian faction with thier insanely powerfull low grade militia.

I see no great advantage to England or France, nor even Poland or Hungary, the easy acces to missile cavalry will only speed you up comparatively little. HRE is an advantage to either player due to the close proximity of alot of landlocked regions, but in general starting position means little to the blitzing player.

I dont see how Byzantium is advantagious to the turtler as your capital (and major money maker) is vulnerable to attack from literally any direction and will simultaniously cut your small empire in half.

England is not so vulnerable as you seem to think, great economy allows the recruitment and support of a large navy, and the close proximity of all the regions allow a small standing army to companste the cost. Better as Denmark and take britain (even a turtler would do so I'm sure) giving access to Longships and Dragon Boats and very effective mid-grade troops with comparatively low upkeep cost.

Finally, I say again, you are underestimating the economy of even an early turtle empire. Your entire image of how the game would go requires the turtler to just sit there and let you do whatever you want, and, you see yourself defeating the turtler as easily as the AI in battle. Nither would be the case, dismiss both these rediculous notions and take another look at how the game would go. Yes, you would most likely win, but it will not nearly be the easy ride you are imagining, and if you go into a game with that mindset you would actually stand a small chance of loosing.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Denmark would give you an even better advantage then England, asside from the money making british isle, which would be yours soon enough, Denmarks low grade troops (that youd be using throughout most of the game) are at least a match for most other factions mid grade or even better. No, Denmark offers the biggest advantage to the blitzer with the posible exception of an italian faction with thier insanely powerfull low grade militia.

I see no great advantage to England or France, nor even Poland or Hungary, the easy acces to missile cavalry will only speed you up comparatively little. HRE is an advantage to either player due to the close proximity of alot of landlocked regions, but in general starting position means little to the blitzing player.

I dont see how Byzantium is advantagious to the turtler as your capital (and major money maker) is vulnerable to attack from literally any direction and will simultaniously cut your small empire in half.

England is not so vulnerable as you seem to think, great economy allows the recruitment and support of a large navy, and the close proximity of all the regions allow a small standing army to companste the cost. Better as Denmark and take britain (even a turtler would do so I'm sure) giving access to Longships and Dragon Boats and very effective mid-grade troops with comparatively low upkeep cost.

Finally, I say again, you are underestimating the economy of even an early turtle empire. Your entire image of how the game would go requires the turtler to just sit there and let you do whatever you want, and, you see yourself defeating the turtler as easily as the AI in battle. Nither would be the case, dismiss both these rediculous notions and take another look at how the game would go. Yes, you would most likely win, but it will not nearly be the easy ride you are imagining, and if you go into a game with that mindset you would actually stand a small chance of loosing.

Denmark has only one starting province and takes a lot of time to build its economy, as most of the surrounding provinces are fairly well defended for their size, and are tiny. Plus if I were to take the British Isles that quickly I would face excommunication which runs contrary to my early strategy. You can't blitz when the Pope calls a crusade on you, and no one wants to exhange maps and alliances for florins in such a case. Denmark in fact has a very hard time generating a strong blitzing game. Thats why I am enjoying it right now, its giving me a greater challenge than any so far, except Portugal or Russia.

Denmark becomes a powerhouse in the late game, but not really before that.

With England and France I start with massive troop numbers and excellent positional advantages. They are also the only two factions I managed to conquer 108 provinces with by turn 60. Needless to say, they are DESIGNED to blitz.

First of all, they can crusade directly through Spain into the Moors, And then quickly backstab Spain and Portugal and conquer them in ONE TURN. That's three, count them, three factions annihilated in a single turn. Bribe senor Pope until he likes you again, and you can't be excommunicated.

Boom. Thats numero uno. Number two, once you have all of England/France, Spain, and Africa under your control, a SINGLE additional crusade wipes out the rest of the map. Thats how you beat all factions (minus aztecs) by turn 60.

You merely conquer any rebel fortress and leave the crusade during that turn, and all of a sudden you have a full stack on non crusading troops to backstab HRE, Italy, Poland, and Hungary.

Chances are, by then at least one Catholic faction has been excommed. That means you can slay them for free with crusaders. It's too easy.

So thats why England and France are indestructible blitzers.

The HRE is slightly faster at the beginning, but unfortunately has more than two directions to expand in. I'm sorry but the blitz falls apart after 50 regions fall, and it crumbles due to bloated empire, massive troop numbers, poor economy and post-crusade debt.

Poland and Hungary can do the same thing. Crusade towards Baghdad, pummel the Byzantines, Turks, and Egyptians all at once, and then sack and sack their way to public order in the Muslim lands until the second crusade, wherein they attack the Moors and doom the entire map in reverse order. Nevermind the fact that a few mounted ranged troops can decimate entire infantry armies, which the Ai foolishly parades around with in the early game. You can make their few mounts rout easily, and the rest is child's play.

I think you underestimate these factions. They are virtually indestructible in the hands of a master.

Byzantium is too defensible, and cannot blitz properly, to be considered a non-turtling faction. Religious conversion of most of the map, and lack of crusading means the SLOW way to blitz. You can defend the entire sea with your SUPREME naval power (all your cities are ports, you can afford it) and you can EASILY defend the mountains of Greece and Turkey from foolish land assaults.

Byzantium is the ULTIMATE turtle faction. Even I love to turtle with her. Those mounted troops with ranged abilities are excellent at repelling hordes of troops, making them superior defenders. Trouble is they are expensive, and you can't crusade your way to free ones. Nope, Byzantine has the best chance at holding off crusaders with a stronghold in Greece, and slowly overtaking the Muslim lands until they are converted, then taking Italy, Spain, France, and HRE with ease.

Ps Byzantium is great because of not only it's ability to defend, but relative ease in controlling the seas (they actually have relevant seas) and the fact that the AI doesnt know how to attack. It might be weaker if every faction attacked at once, in one turn, but they dont. And they dont know how to plan a prolonged war. Usually its a few landed troops and a port blockade. This game favors the aggressor because the AI cant ever destroy you. Even their pathetic Ai-run crusades usually involve a single stack or two from each faction. Simply slaying their general ends the campaign. It's too simple to defend against the AI. And attacking Byzantium as a human player requires a tremendous investment of resources if they are actively defending. Not to mention they can seriously counterattack you with a single navy and a stack dropped off easily on your shores. The mountains and seas make it impenetrable, due to their superior starting economy, troops, and naval forces. Just because the AI doesnt know how to handle Byz doesn't mean a human couldnt fight valliantly with it.

The trouble with England's defensiveness is, yes it can field a large navy, but it doesnt MATTER.

Anyone who controls the Belgian, or northern French provinces can keep a ship safely in port until a large army is ready to cross and do it in one turn.

Anyone can also simply recruit a merc ship and cross in one turn.
"My eyes... the goggles do nothing!"- Rainier Wolfcastle, the Simpsons

The ships do nothing defensively. Sorry to disagree with your analysis.
(I'm so stubborn, aren't I? Sheesh. How do you people stand me?)

And once again, I've layed out why the turtle is easy to beat. I can harass them, and they lack the initiative, and my economy is boundless. There's only so much you can develop a smaller nation. And by turn 30, I've got half the map rolled up. Turtles do not start with a massive empire, if they did, they could afford to be so... turtle-y.

Slowly taking one or two provinces from the AI every few turns will not make much of a difference. Fielding a strong defense wastes a LOT of money that could have otherwise been spent on economic or territorial expansion. It yields you no economic reward, and it can suffocate and choke you into debt.

I can field more troops, which gives me more possibilities to attack from multiple fronts, and I can decimate your navy if neccesary, block your ports, cause devastation through your lands, lay seige to your cities, slaughter just enough of your heavy expensive troops to cause you economic pain in recovery, and meanwhile, it costs me close to nothing to do so.

Its all about the benjamins. Offense beats defensive play in this game.

Even if you swarmed all of your troops together and attempted to knock me out quickly, I'm a blitzer and I'm gunning for you. I'd seige your relatively undefended cities and slay your core provinces, burning all that you used to have and selling what's left for profit, and move on.

You could trade hits with me, but the blitzer usually has more provinces, making that a very tricky strategy at best. Granted, you would be a major pain in the butt, but you'd be pretty much toast yourself, and I'd still have more provinces.

More equals better in this game. No matter how you slice it, a thousand peasants beats a hundred dismounted knights. Just add one general and watch those peasants actually engage, surround, and defeat superior forces.

Maybe it's not realistic, but I didnt design the game, I just play it.

I dont have an unrealistic view of how the turtle would play. Yes, they would be a tough nut to crack, but I dont have to destroy them immediately. By the time I get around to it, I'm ten times the size of the Mongol horde, and I'm a human not a silly computer.

Unless you own half of the map and have marshalled all your forces at every access point, I say good day to you.

Any turtle must counterstrike quickly, which is usually contrary to what turtles do, and more blitzerish. Otherwise the game slowly progresses in my favor over time. Otherwise, they must have a large empire, which again, runs counter to the Turtle's stated plans.

You can't have 12 provinces and 15 stacks of troops very easily.

I on the other hand routinely have that many rather early, and I can endlessly replace them. You can't defeat that unless you're bigger than me, or I am a complete idiot.

Thats my take. Feel free to disagree, but I'm afraid all the arguments I've seen have not, by my calculations (and by the calculations of most) proved the turtle to be much of a threat.



======================

For more information on how blitzers completely and totally dominate this game, I refer you all to my legendary (immodestly, yes it was) thread regarding England.

Hundreds of huge color screenshots of my devastating strategy described above to annihilate the entire map in only two crusades.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87236

If too many people view it, it breaks for a month. Come back again later. Should be working now.

[Privateerkev]

AtPG:

I do wish you had Kingdoms. (I think I have seen you say you don't have it.)

I stated earlier in a post on here that England in the Kingdom's Brittania campaign might be the best chance of a pure turtle beating a blitzer in 1 v 1 MP.

I already wrote a lengthy reason why I think this on the last page. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try to explain more/better.

Post is here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1758910&postcount=116

[TheLastPrivate]

In Britania campaign nobody can blitz thx to ridiculou amount of insurgents that wreck your settlement if you decide to leave it. Leaving 3 units of whatever won't work, since a governor is the ONLY method of keeping a place in check and converting culture. A church does do the job but a lot slower, and if u wait for churches to be built then ure not blitzing.

If you would blitz in Britannia you would probably have to exterminate any settlement above large town and move on while norwegian raiders will (they only hav a chance to survive by raiding and abandoning settlement) chew up your undefended backwater.

[Robespierre]

the thing here is that we are talking about a true multiplayer campaign because its what we all want to see.

in that game, papacy would be player-controlled, a dungeon-master, and able to give missions, communicate without diplomats, direct inquisitions, set piety ratings, excommunicate, and demand crusades at will.
so long as the pope is not a blitzer,but plays as refereee, any catholic blitzers may soon find themselves isolated and with 3 or 4 crusades making for their innards at double-movement.

i don't know about the AI in Britannia though. it is not only incompetent but has a split personality too. turtling wil not help the english when the Welsh are still live and on the warpath. then there are all those oceans to police and patrol. the shores of Ireland are only two turns sail off. in my English campaign it has given ceasefire and trade rights and dropped a stack at Caernarvon in the same turn.

also since Black Death is not only inevitable but also you know exactly when its coming, does it not make more sense to turtle a bit before its arrival, get the towns to huge size in the early game? i thought that is the game rationale for the BD. in rtw or BI you could too easily forget about cultivating population growth, i felt the designers wanted to rule this out.

The nords must blitz though. any let up in the momentum and their offensive goes to pot. truth is i am only just learning how to blitz.

[ReiseReise]

We all forget our childhood Aesop's fables, the Turtle always wins :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

[Colovion]

I play similarly to how I play Civ, though TW brings out more of a ruthless nature because of rebels and having more reason to be aggressive right away.

The first few turns I'll decide which will be my military cities, which will be the breadbasket of my empire and which will be primarily port cities. I tend to group all of my armies in one or two decent sized forces and attempt to quickly take any weak provinces surrounding my borders. Mopping up rebels is first priority, and I'll even take a chance of leaving cities with only 2 or so units so I can rush off with a family member to gain a trait or so while cleaning up the unrest in the countryside or that weak settlement.

I'm not usually too interested in assaulting a strong AI faction until I have a small advantage, usually it's to be sure that my Infantry types are better than theirs so in a long fight to the death I'll come out ahead. I really despise pitting my troops against enemy troops in city squares. It's ridiculous because they won't break and flee so you have to just throw trash at them, or hope you have a superior force to grind them down eventually.

In the end, I tend to turtle on one or two sides of my empire and concentrate my remaining power to consolidate whichever portions of my border seem difficult to maintain as a border - so my troops fill that vacuum as I thunder across the landscape.

[Vladimir]

In an all human game the turtle would win, in less all the players are bunnies, then everyone dies. In an all human game the more cautious players will band together against the more aggressive ones. The aggressive players are less likely to ally as they know that if they lower their guard even a little they may be attacked. Thus either the hare becomes the tortoise or they fight each other mercilessly while the tortoise nibbles around the edges.

Even if it's one-on-one in a campaign game, the turtle will win. A slow, deliberate player will construct watchtowers, reinforcement forts, use their night fighters effectively, and have better cash and troops.

It doesn't matter if you attack an interior, poorly garrisoned city. Even if you make it there without being ambushed by my army I have another waiting for you, close enough to attack immediately. Led by my night fighter I'm able to isolate and pincer your inferior troops or force you to retreat. If you're carrying siege equipment you'll be able to assault that turn but you may not make it there with your reduced movement.

Let's say you bring a catapult and attack my fortress or citadel, it won't be enough. You'll either run out of ammunition or your inferior troops will be chewed up as they're forced to fight in smaller areas against elite troops. Batter down my first gate and you'll have to expose it to archer fire which may kill the crew. But wait, how did you get it in the first place? Did you spend the time and cash to build a siege engineer and what's the recruitment pool?

If you do assault you'll have trouble maintaining morale as I've use the assassins I trained on a rebel stack to kill your general; maybe I'll gain another rebel stack to practice on. My spies tell me which of your generals don't take personal security seriously so you may have trouble finding one in the first place, that is, if I haven't eliminated your royal line.

So now you've already lost a couple of "cheap" stacks of troops, how are you going to raise more? Since you weren't able to take any of my cities with no economy you're dangerously short of cash and have ran out of steam. Now I can pick you apart.

Turn-based favors turtling. Go too fast and you become a victim of your own strategy.

[TheLastPrivate]

If you guys ever played the board game diplomacy with real people (takes HOURS), its kinda like how totalwar would be played out. Althogh the board game doesn't take tactical skills into account in totalwar mp game diplomacy dynamics would be the core that makes or breaks the rise to power imo.

[Privateerkev]

The trouble with England's defensiveness is, yes it can field a large navy, but it doesnt MATTER.

Anyone who controls the Belgian, or northern French provinces can keep a ship safely in port until a large army is ready to cross and do it in one turn.

Anyone can also simply recruit a merc ship and cross in one turn.
"My eyes... the goggles do nothing!"- Rainier Wolfcastle, the Simpsons

The ships do nothing defensively. Sorry to disagree with your analysis.
(I'm so stubborn, aren't I? Sheesh. How do you people stand me?)

Actually, I can defend England for a while with a navy. I can create a picket line, and since "zone of control" will limit your movement, you'll have to sink my ships first.

Also, with your Belgium and northern French provinces, I can slow you down. I will probably get to those provinces first because of how close England is. I would then exterminate them and sell every building. Then I'll abandon them, only have provinces in England, and disband my armies. Then I'll just focus on economic and ship buildings. And I'll have a massive navy and can afford it because I'll have no army.

You'll eventually get to northern france but you'll have to build it up from scratch. In the meantime, my ships are teched up and England gets the Naval Academy which means cheaper ships and better gun ships. I can blockade your northern ports and you'll have to fight your way out with your new ships.

You can hire merc ships but only one or two so many turns. And you won't get by my picket line with just one or two ships. You'll have to build your navy far off, and then sail it over. Which will take time. You will still win eventually but blitzing England is not necessarily as easy as you keep boasting. I can make it take 2, 3, maybe even 10 times as long as it would normally take you to blitz the stupid AI.

Because of your economy, you can eventually overwhelm me. But it will take you many turns to build up your cities and then build the navy. I won't let you just move one ship with a full stack across the channel. You'll have to overwhelm me with a gigantic navy first.

[TheLastPrivate]

If the game was played with 2 player controled factions and rest were AI, the blizter would win.
But if it ALL the factions save for Aztecs, Mongols, Timurs, and the Pope were players, then blitzing would be limited to eastern factions mostly.

Example:
I am Sicily and my spy finds Egyptian coastal cities near emtpy due to Egypt blizting up the holy lands and its defended by 2 town militia then I'm sacking it with a general and 2 norman knights, then promptly sell everything and run away.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Actually, I can defend England for a while with a navy. I can create a picket line, and since "zone of control" will limit your movement, you'll have to sink my ships first.

Also, with your Belgium and northern French provinces, I can slow you down. I will probably get to those provinces first because of how close England is. I would then exterminate them and sell every building. Then I'll abandon them, only have provinces in England, and disband my armies. Then I'll just focus on economic and ship buildings. And I'll have a massive navy and can afford it because I'll have no army.

You'll eventually get to northern france but you'll have to build it up from scratch. In the meantime, my ships are teched up and England gets the Naval Academy which means cheaper ships and better gun ships. I can blockade your northern ports and you'll have to fight your way out with your new ships.

You can hire merc ships but only one or two so many turns. And you won't get by my picket line with just one or two ships. You'll have to build your navy far off, and then sail it over. Which will take time. You will still win eventually but blitzing England is not necessarily as easy as you keep boasting. I can make it take 2, 3, maybe even 10 times as long as it would normally take you to blitz the stupid AI.

Because of your economy, you can eventually overwhelm me. But it will take you many turns to build up your cities and then build the navy. I won't let you just move one ship with a full stack across the channel. You'll have to overwhelm me with a gigantic navy first.

Ah, ah, ah... you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. Only I'm allowed to do that. ;)

You are trying to overwhelm me with your superior naval defenses. That only works if they are in a stack, given the one-turn crossing of the sea. Otherwise you have to surround and pound, but as the defender, you dont have time to do that. I can cross in one turn.

And if you try the zone of control defense, you have to cover all of southern and eastern English channel.

You can't do that with full stacks of naval forces unless you're cheating or it's turn 100.

I will simply run the blockade at it's weakest point, or cross in one turn via ship. You can't have both formations at once. Perhaps a ring of ships and a single stack, but then why couldn't I just sail by Ireland and invade that way?

Too much sea to defend, not enough sea to give you time to stop me, not enough ships for the undertaking.

Entirely unworkable plan until late game. And even if you could do it, it would cripple your economy. Why shoot yourself in the foot that way?

Change the strategy (turtle versus moderate expansion), not the tactics.

Tactics will not overcome poor strategy.

I will tell you what. Show me a screenshot of such a thing before turn 30, and I will concede the point. Otherwise, it's pure fantasy.

[Privateerkev]

Ah, ah, ah... you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. Only I'm allowed to do that. ;)

You are trying to overwhelm me with your superior naval defenses. That only works if they are in a stack, given the one-turn crossing of the sea. Otherwise you have to surround and pound, but as the defender, you dont have time to do that. I can cross in one turn.

And if you try the zone of control defense, you have to cover all of southern and eastern English channel.

You can't do that with full stacks of naval forces unless you're cheating or it's turn 100.

I will simply run the blockade at it's weakest point, or cross in one turn via ship. You can't have both formations at once. Perhaps a ring of ships and a single stack, but then why couldn't I just sail by Ireland and invade that way?

Too much sea to defend, not enough sea to give you time to stop me, not enough ships for the undertaking.

Entirely unworkable plan until late game. And even if you could do it, it would cripple your economy. Why shoot yourself in the foot that way?

Change the strategy (turtle versus moderate expansion), not the tactics.

Tactics will not overcome poor strategy.

I will tell you what. Show me a screenshot of such a thing before turn 30, and I will concede the point. Otherwise, it's pure fantasy.

I only need to place a stack at each port and blockade the port. Any ship you build would have to fight their way out. The pickets can be 1 space apart and only 1 or 2 good ships in each picket stack. The picket line would just be to stop your 1 merc ship. The port stack would stop your recruited ships. Again, you'd win because you could just build a massive navy in the med and sail it over. But, again, it will not be as easy as you keep claiming. :no:

[Galain_Ironhide]

askthepizzaguy :knight: versus Privateerkev :viking:

Man, I'd love to see you two in a p vs p. I think it would be brilliant. :2thumbsup:

atpg, I can see why you love this thread. Top posting! If you delivered a pizza late, I'm sure you would end up having the customer believing that it was their fault in the end! :clown:

[Zim]

Pk participates in a lot of hotseat games, maybe Askthepizzaguy can join the next one. :yes:

[Privateerkev]

Pk participates in a lot of hotseat games, maybe Askthepizzaguy can join the next one. :yes:

I would love a chance to play with ATPG and I'm sure we'd have fun. Unfortunately, he does not seem to have Kingdoms at the moment. But if that changes, we can set one up. Maybe Brittania?

And Galain, thanks. But I think the general consensus of the community is that a hare would own a turtle in a 1 v 1 MP game. But I would play for fun in a MP one with multiple players. I'm in two at the moment and their a blast. :yes:

[TheLastPrivate]

Forgive my ignorance but can you explain to me how ATPG works?

[Zim]

Forgive my ignorance but can you explain to me how ATPG works?

Sorry, I was to lazy to type out "askthepizzaguy". My mistake. :sweatdrop:
Does sound like some kind of weapon or something, doesn't it?

[Didz]

Based on the current multiplayer game I am in there are a few obvious observations to make so far.

1) Scotland almost took out England in a blitzer rush, but was persuaded by the French player to let England survive to keep the English player in the game. In fact, England agreed to vassal itself to France to secure this deal and it was made quite clear to Scotland that finishing off England would upset the French player.

2) Diplomacy is now much more in line with the game Diplomacy. What is said and what is the truth are now suitably disconnected. For example, England promised Scotland the castle of Nottingham in return for a cease fire and return of London. London was duly handed over and the cease fire agreed then England refused to hand over Nottingham leaving Scotland looking stupid. The only good news was that England also welched on the deal with the French player making him look stupid too. The net result being that England is now sandwiched between two player controlled factions both of which view him as unreliable and dishonest.

3) The blitzer who ignores the Pope now risks major retribution as he becomes a real target for real players.

4) Lack of funds now poses a very real risk as human players do not ignore weakness of defence due which results.

5) Its terribly slow to play. Anyone who still thinks its feasible in real-time online play ought to try a PBEM to get a feel for just how long it takes for people to complete their turns.

The multiplayer game seems to be heavily influenced by diplomacy, most of the human controlled countries have formed into larger allied factions quite early on and are discussing their long term goals and targets. One faction going bald headed for blitz style growth will almost certainly make itself the focus of a lot of attention particularly if that growth is into an area earmarked for the expansion of an allied player group.

Indeed just being an unallied player makes you a target in the first place.

[Cheetah]

But alliences can chose to rush or turtle, right? So the question is still there.

[regor]

Based on the current multiplayer game I am in there are a few obvious observations to make so far....

Thanks for the first hand info Didz, got a nice chuckle out of #2.

I've got to ask about battles. In my SP games I have several combined arms stacks for each historical era, with which I am confident (all else being equal) I can beat any other full-stack army with it - no matter what the autocalc says.

So my question is: is it frustrating to be beaten by a stack of catapults and town militia, when you know that, if you you where to play the battle yourself, you would win hands down? Do the players exploit this fact?


Apologies to the OP for going off topic.

[Alexander of Yorkshire]

I like to play as a turtle and agonize over my choices of who to attack. And have a nice family tree with some heroic figures. Normally takes about 20 turns for the plan to the execution.

[Privateerkev]

If there is a MP game with more than two players, then it will be up to the players if a blitzer survives or thrives. I will second Didz in saying that diplomacy is the name of the game in 3+ player MP games. I'm in two Kingdom Hotseats and the most important part of the game is the diplomacy that happens before the initial save game even gets uploaded. That is where you establish your allies and targets. If a blitzer can get a group of allies to ignore/aid his blitzing, then he will do very well and might be well positioned in the later game for fulfilling the victory conditions. If the blitzer fails to establish diplomatic relations with enough people, then he will find in about 3 turns that his territories have already been divvied up by the rest of the players. And he will have a violently short game.

In the Teutonic Order game we restarted, no one initially picked the TO when we were picking factions. So, a bunch of us agreed to knock them out of the game and divvy up their territories. I opened my big mouth on the game thread and another player thought the TO should be given a fighting chance since the whole campaign is about them. So, knowing that he might be in for a short game, he bravely took the TO. A few of us realized that the TO is a good faction for a blitzer. They have awesome units and a faction squeezed in between it's territories. Plus, they pretty much need to blitz due to initial money problems. So, seeing the threat of this potential blitzer, add to that the fact that the player of the TO is experienced and skilled, and don't forget that we still want those territories, many of us continued our plan to knock out the TO.

We're only finishing up our second turn but the game is very interesting and the fate of the TO is still up in the air. It's a good case study of how important diplomacy is in 3+ MP games. :2thumbsup:

[Ferret]

Based on the current multiplayer game I am in there are a few obvious observations to make so far.......

and then there's me as Russia hiding away in the corner, too bad at the game to blitz and hoping no-one will want to come East :beam: .


Indeed just being an unallied player makes you a target in the first place.

:sweatdrop: maybe the Poles will be interested?

[Cheetah]

Are there plans to organise a new hotseat game? I would be very much interested.

[Privateerkev]

Are there plans to organise a new hotseat game? I would be very much interested.

There has been so much energy put into restarting the two Kingdom games that are going on, that I don't think anyone thought to start a third. If the two going on keep going at a good pace, I'll consider starting a third. (Brittania maybe?) Anyone else is welcome to start one anytime though. :yes:

Also some one could start a regular MP game but one is going on and those tend to need more people than Kingdom games.

[Didz]

But alliences can chose to rush or turtle, right? So the question is still there.
Yes, but I suspect its harder to achieve as there are inter-alliance considerations to take into account.

For example: Lets assume that the North-European Alliance were planning a blitz style assault on the rebel held towns of the Low Countries.

Before such an assault could commence the allies would need to agree which towns were going to be assigned to which factions and which factions would be assigned to capture which town and somehow co-ordinate the timing of their attacks so that all member states achieved their assign goals and benefits within a reasonable time frame.

In the case of Scotland for example I don't currently have any navy so my faction would be unable to participate in such an assault for several turns. However, France could begin almost immediately. But if France were to begin without Scotland why should Scotland receive any benefit from the attacks, on the other hand if it doesn't then France gains in power and Scotland doesn't causing an imbalance in the alliance.

At the same time the Baltic alliance may be threatening Scotland with invasion because it has recently been ex-commed. So, Scotland is less keen to dispatch troops to the Low Countries anyway and would prefer France to be ready to assist it if enemy invasion fleets appear in the North Sea.

Then of course there are still the English to deal with.

So, multi-player blitzing might be possible in theory but it has a number of practical problems in application mainly focussed upon inter-player diplomacy than practical game play. At the end of the day an alliance will only hold if it satisfies the needs of all its members and blitzing is likely to provide more benefit to some factions than others actually creating tensions.

[Didz]

I've got to ask about battles. In my SP games I have several combined arms stacks for each historical era, with which I am confident (all else being equal) I can beat any other full-stack army with it - no matter what the autocalc says.

So my question is: is it frustrating to be beaten by a stack of catapults and town militia, when you know that, if you you where to play the battle yourself, you would win hands down? Do the players exploit this fact?
Short answer is YES.

But its a double edged sword. Everyone is in the same boat, so at least your nicely balanced army if not getting trashed by some guy with a faster hand-eye coordination and a fetish for heavy cavalry.

knowing I won't be commanding my armies in battle personally I don't bother much about their composition. In autocalc an army is an army and I just treat them as risk counters really, I haven't really gone to the trouble of working out whether high cost troops give a corresponding auto-calc bonus, perhaps someone could confirm this.

[_Tristan_]

Multi-player blitzing might be possible in theory but it has a number of practical problems in application mainly focussed upon inter-player diplomacy than practical game play. At the end of the day an alliance will only hold if it satisfies the needs of all its members and blitzing is likely to provide more benefit to some factions than others actually creating tensions.

Moreover, if there are still some AI factions, you might still get some nasty surprises such as invasions in the least expected venues... and when you least expect it, forcing you to divert your plans to meeting that new threat...

[Askthepizzaguy]

In an all human game the turtle would win, in less all the players are bunnies, then everyone dies. In an all human game the more cautious players will band together against the more aggressive ones. The aggressive players are less likely to ally as they know that if they lower their guard even a little they may be attacked. Thus either the hare becomes the tortoise or they fight each other mercilessly while the tortoise nibbles around the edges.

Even if it's one-on-one in a campaign game, the turtle will win. A slow, deliberate player will construct watchtowers, reinforcement forts, use their night fighters effectively, and have better cash and troops.

It doesn't matter if you attack an interior, poorly garrisoned city. Even if you make it there without being ambushed by my army I have another waiting for you, close enough to attack immediately. Led by my night fighter I'm able to isolate and pincer your inferior troops or force you to retreat. If you're carrying siege equipment you'll be able to assault that turn but you may not make it there with your reduced movement.

Let's say you bring a catapult and attack my fortress or citadel, it won't be enough. You'll either run out of ammunition or your inferior troops will be chewed up as they're forced to fight in smaller areas against elite troops. Batter down my first gate and you'll have to expose it to archer fire which may kill the crew. But wait, how did you get it in the first place? Did you spend the time and cash to build a siege engineer and what's the recruitment pool?

If you do assault you'll have trouble maintaining morale as I've use the assassins I trained on a rebel stack to kill your general; maybe I'll gain another rebel stack to practice on. My spies tell me which of your generals don't take personal security seriously so you may have trouble finding one in the first place, that is, if I haven't eliminated your royal line.

So now you've already lost a couple of "cheap" stacks of troops, how are you going to raise more? Since you weren't able to take any of my cities with no economy you're dangerously short of cash and have ran out of steam. Now I can pick you apart.

Turn-based favors turtling. Go too fast and you become a victim of your own strategy.

In an all human game I favor your analysis. In a pure human V turtle, one on one game, I feel you haven't done your homework.

Your entire analysis presumes I aimed directly towards your empire and ignored all the other, weak AI ones. That WOULD be stupid.

You're last on my list of concerns, seeing as how you, as a turtle, are less aggressive than the simpleton AI. You on the map gives me almost free reign to do what I want.

By the time you recruit enough spies to make my settlements rebel, I've tripled the size of my empire and my standing army is ten times what it was. I can afford to lose settlements.

Generals? I've too many for you to assassinate. While you train assassins on rebel stacks, I train captains against the AI troops. With large empires, I'm virtually guaranteed a new general every single time.

Good luck on agents winning this game. I can also afford to counterspy you in the middle game, making that strategy ineffective long term.

You ambushing with night fighter is fine. That will work exactly once. And that's only IF I don't do what I always do, which is send a scouting mounted unit ahead of my main army to spring all traps.

Once I locate your main force, I can surround it with three stacks and destroy it. I don't even need to auto-calculate it. That battle would be easy even if you were on a hilltop behind a river. And assuming you were impressivly fortified, I could just ignore your stack and beseige your worthless settlements, forcing you to engage me on a level battlefield. Yes, your night fighter and superior troops make this one battle yours. Now when your somewhat depleted forces face my other two stacks simultaneously in the light of day you haven't a prayer.

More troops beat better troops, and that's all there is to it. This is a numbers game. tactics work great against the AI, against humans who arent idiots and against sheer numbers of troops, it's almost pointless.

So now you've already lost a couple of "cheap" stacks of troops, how are you going to raise more? Since you weren't able to take any of my cities with no economy you're dangerously short of cash and have ran out of steam. Now I can pick you apart.

Sorry, but thats not even remotely realistic.

Unless you and I were the only empires on the map, and we had few provinces, this doesn't make any sense. Of course I can replace entire stacks of troops.

1. I have at least (if I'm having a BAD day) twice your recruitment garrisons.

2. I have a profit-making economy (few garrison forces mean all my standing armies pillage and provide new income sources, and are an investment, not a drain on my economy like your superior but initiative-lacking national guardsmen)

3. When I lose an entire stack (or 3) of my worthless troops which took me no time or effort to recruit, I suddenly turn an even larger profit for the next few turns, which is all I need to churn out more idiot peasants armed with sticks willing to die for a quick florin (the word peasants is misleading, by the middle game I am really recruiting everything but the top tier Dismounted Knights and so forth).

4. You will pick me apart? You and what army? :grin2:

Every defensive scenario you can construct is FAR easier for me to pull off, given my initiative, sheer number of territories, sheer number of standing armies, same tactics, same strategies, and better economy.

Lets say you manage to DECIMATE 12 stacks of my troops. I have to be an (expletive deleted) for you to manage this.

Now I have the equivalent of 12 stacks worth of maintenence cost coming towards me per turn. What to do with 40 provinces, 12 castles, great garrisons, and a GIANT pile of money.... what to do, what to do....

It's ridiculous. I actually laugh when you defeat my forces on the battlefield. It's hilarious because it almost makes you believe you're winning the war.

Then larger stacks with better troops and more of them start coming towards you. Unless you can engage and defeat a larger, superior empire with more troops (and in the late game, same quality troops), and QUICKLY, there is no hope, my friends! No hope.

It's all about the numbers. Fewer provinces, even when properly developed which takes time, cannot put up the kind of numbers a blitzer can. More territories, more recruitment facilities, more florins per turn, faster reinforcement recruitment, quicker expansion, initiative, and an ever-strengthening strategic and tactical position.

The ONLY way to beat a blitzer is by being bigger and stronger than him, or beating him QUICKLY in the early game when he is vulnerable.

Otherwise, he must be an idiot to lose the game. He is positionally and mathematically superior to you in every sense. Sure, you might have reached "pleasure palace" and "grand cathedral" before I have. But I'm on my way to take them from you and you cannot stop me.

You must switch strategy to moderate expansion to have a prayer of a hope. Turtles cannot stop the mighty blitz.
:knight:

[Zim]

askthepizzaguy,
just out of curiosity, why are you reserving your analysis to a one on one game in the main campaign with a map full of hapless A.I. factions? That seems like the least interesting background for a blitxer versus turtler battle. Of course in such a game the Blitzer would win. He would find himself quickly attaining a vast resource advantage over the turtle, that could only be prevented by the turtle becoming a blitzer himself.

Maybe if it were a map with only two factions, plus a couple of rebel settlements at most, it would be an interesting debate. It would also be interesting to see how blitzing versus turtling applies to a game with losts of factions and all human players, or even many human players, but in the setup you propose I'm not sure it's much in doubt whether turtling is better. Even most of the people defending turtling agree you'd win in the end.

Now, comparing these strategies in the kind of hotseat games we're playing in the throne room would be interesting. Despite greater importance for diplomacy, I suspect that agressive play is still best in these types of games, you just have to temper it somewhat more. :yes:

[Askthepizzaguy]

askthepizzaguy,
just out of curiosity, why are you reserving your analysis to a one on one game in the main campaign with a map full of hapless A.I. factions? That seems like the least interesting background for a blitxer versus turtler battle. Of course in such a game the Blitzer would win. He would find himself quickly attaining a vast resource advantage over the turtle, that could only be prevented by the turtle becoming a blitzer himself.

Maybe if it were a map with only two factions, plus a couple of rebel settlements at most, it would be an interesting debate. It would also be interesting to see how blitzing versus turtling applies to a game with losts of factions and all human players, or even many human players, but in the setup you propose I'm not sure it's much in doubt whether turtling is better. Even most of the people defending turtling agree you'd win in the end.

Now, comparing these strategies in the kind of hotseat games we're playing in the throne room would be interesting. Despite greater importance for diplomacy, I suspect that agressive play is still best in these types of games, you just have to temper it somewhat more. :yes:


You're absolutely correct, Zim.

I've said all along, if you go back to view my earliest posts on this thread, that the idea of multiple human players on the map makes blitzing a very risky and most likely losing proposition.

I've been reserving my analysis for purely one on one turtle v blitz games because of the strong debate that has been waged regarding it. There are a great many people who believe as I do that the turtle is absolutely inferior, and with good reason.

There are still a few, (actually many, but a minority) who believe the turtle is superior. However, the few strategies put forward by them honestly wouldn't make me hesitate. They were all expected counter strategies. I havent seen anything new.

Blitzing is superior against lone turtles and AI's. However, against another blitzer, or several humans, a strategy of diplomacy and moderate expansion is favoured.

:yes:

Obviously on a tiny map with only two factions and barely any rebels, the game is even.

A great attacker can pick off your weakest territories instead of going for the throat. So a great defender will meet and ambush the assaulting force with a tightly compacted raider stack of good troops. But it would be a strain on both of them to accomplish their stated goals. And technically, neither would be a turtle or a blitzer, they would merely be attacker and defender.
-----------------

I'd personally enjoy seeing a real counter-threat from a turtle empire. I'd like to know which faction, what strategy, where the defensive stand would be made, by what turn, and under what circumstances. I'd also like to hear how and when the grand counterattack can be made.

Personally, I see the blitzer as the evil, terrible empire that must be eliminated, and the turtle as the realistic, moral, peaceful empire that MUST destroy it. How will Luke and his band of rebels destroy the Emperor?

Your strategy here.

Fair warning, I will look for any and all weaknesses and give you my fair estimate as to it's effectiveness. So far, I see the spy rush and the sneak attack against the back quarter while I am off crusading to be the most annoying and brutal counter. This is somewhat uncharacteristic of the turtle. However, I will allow it, seeing as it is a preemptive harrassment strike, not a full blown invasion. If the turtle is invading first, and quickly, he's not being a true turtle. I guarantee the blitzer will strike first, by the middle game at least, while we're building ourselves nice fat bloated marketplaces ripe for the pillaging.

Two things:

1. How to turn back the relentless tide of disposable troops?

2. How to assault the empire on it's own soil?

[Zim]

It has been an interesting debate. :yes: I've been following it for a long time, despite making only a few posts. As the King of Blitzes, I have a strong respect for your opinions on the issue.

I think you might be surprised by how much blitzing goes on in hotseat games, especially the smaller ones from Kingdoms. People use diplomacy to cover their backs, but even in an all human environment, there's a strong tendency for most players to put all their resources into an early attack, to eliminate their most threatening neighbor.

An exception seems to be the Britannia game, although it's a bit early to tell. I think it's because everyone's starting positions are so hugely different. Factions like Wales and Norway have to attack early, while England has to Turtle, lest it find itself fighting all it's neighbors. Then there's Ireland and Scotland, both of which would benefit most from a more moderate approach, I think. :yes:

It's been a blast, if you get Kingdoms you should join one of the games sometime.


You're absolutely correct, Zim.

I've said all along, if you go back to view my earliest posts on this thread, that the idea of multiple human players on the map makes blitzing a very risky and most likely losing proposition.

I've been reserving my analysis for purely one on one turtle v blitz games because of the strong debate that has been waged regarding it. There are a great many people who believe as I do that the turtle is absolutely inferior, and with good reason.

There are still a few, (actually many, but a minority) who believe the turtle is superior. However, the few strategies put forward by them honestly wouldn't make me hesitate. They were all expected counter strategies. I havent seen anything new.

Blitzing is superior against lone turtles and AI's. However, against another blitzer, or several humans, a strategy of diplomacy and moderate expansion is favoured.

:yes:

Obviously on a tiny map with only two factions and barely any rebels, the game is even.

A great attacker can pick off your weakest territories instead of going for the throat. So a great defender will meet and ambush the assaulting force with a tightly compacted raider stack of good troops. But it would be a strain on both of them to accomplish their stated goals. And technically, neither would be a turtle or a blitzer, they would merely be attacker and defender.

[Privateerkev]

I'd personally enjoy seeing a real counter-threat from a turtle empire. I'd like to know which faction, what strategy, where the defensive stand would be made, by what turn, and under what circumstances. I'd also like to hear how and when the grand counterattack can be made.

I've said it before in here but since your putting out the challenge, I'll say it again.

I think England in the Kingdoms Brittania Campaign could win as a pure turtle. I have laid out why I think this in earlier posts in here. If you have any questions, please let me know.

[Askthepizzaguy]

It has been an interesting debate. :yes: I've been following it for a long time, despite making only a few posts. As the King of Blitzes, I have a strong respect for your opinions on the issue.

I think you might be surprised by how much blitzing goes on in hotseat games, especially the smaller ones from Kingdoms. People use diplomacy to cover their backs, but even in an all human environment, there's a strong tendency for most players to put all their resources into an early attack, to eliminate their most threatening neighbor.

An exception seems to be the Britannia game, although it's a bit early to tell. I think it's because everyone's starting positions are so hugely different. Factions like Wales and Norway have to attack early, while England has to Turtle, lest it find itself fighting all it's neighbors. Then there's Ireland and Scotland, both of which would benefit most from a more moderate approach, I think. :yes:

It's been a blast, if you get Kingdoms you should join one of the games sometime.

I appreciate the compliment, however the title King of the Blitzes is one I feel uncomfortable with until I've seen my competition. Sure, I may have set a record with the HRE blitz conquering 50+ provinces by turn 16, and I've yet to see someone take 108 provinces by turn 57 other than myself, however there are far too many other players here. Surely one of them has beaten my records.

I'm hoping someone will post proof of that. As for Kingdoms, I'm afraid your king of the blitzers is a college student without the money to buy it. I'm still playing around with lands to conquer and the long road mods, now that my fellow forum members have talked me into it.

Update: My Danish campaign goes well... but falls apart mid-game on lands to conquer.

I manage to accumulate 10 or 15 stacks, and quite a few provinces, and then begin my massive backstab of HRE, France, England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and the Moors in a single turn. I completely decimate most of the resistance, but I do not have the troops or the Papal approval to continue slaughtering nor do I have the public order to do so. By now it's turn 20 or so, and I've taken out half of Europe. However, most of the map goes rebel and I lose massive florins.

I am thinking there is no way to conquer all provinces by turn 60 on LTC. I will have to start thinking smaller. Yes, the pizzaguy has been humbled by this mod, for what I hope to accomplish.

Then again, I can still destroy 7 factions at once, in the EARLY game. That's not bad either.

Anyone want some screenshots? It's hilarious to watch.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I've said it before in here but since your putting out the challenge, I'll say it again.

I think England in the Kingdoms Brittania Campaign could win as a pure turtle. I have laid out why I think this in earlier posts in here. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Agreed, a different game entirely might be a challenge. However, I've not played it, so I can't answer that one.

For now, I am referring only to games such as Vanilla M2TW, Lands to Conquer, The Long Road, RTW, RTR.

[Joh]

Hi everybody,

I fell humbled around such knowledgeable players and experienced posters, but after reading this thread I had to add my piece.

One on one, large map, plenty of rebel/faction lands: turtle is dead.
One on one, small map, no rebel settlements: in comes down to player capability.
Real human multiplayer: both turtle and blitzer are dead, and the day will go to the moderate expansionists.

Regarding discussions here I will address the most enthusiastic followers of each technique.

askthepizzaguy: imo you have too much confidence in your siege technique. I do not doubt it does work against AI, but I am sure an experienced player will not sally trough a single gate, nor would he/she move his/her whole army simultaneously (I do not and hell knows I am not a deep strategist). As for waiting for the city/castle to fall, well, human player would send aid in a much more intelligent way that the AI. And again, I do not think facing a human player surrounding my army would be as easy as with the AI. Also, the troops will be well balanced, and the general will not charge your 10000 peasant to die in vain and leave the whole army shaken.

Privateerkev: you are relying on your settlements to be more advanced and produce more cash. We here know that the worst thing about being at war with many AI factions is sieges. But not because AI would take your cities, but because a surrounded city/blockaded port does not generate income. As a blitzer, I do not need to take your city, just blockade and strangle your economy. You sally, well I retreat to lay siege next turn. In the mean time, I have negated you your income. Maybe my cities are not well develop, but at least they are generating some cash which I can convert into fresh troops.

All and all, I think that a much more cautions expansion is needed if human players were to control every faction and just but a few rebel settlements were present.

Personally, I'd rather play the turtlish approach because imo very early blitzing cripples the AI and therefore prevents any challenge in the game (=ruins the fun). Of course, if your challenge is to conquer as many provinces as possible in 125 turns, then turtling is out of the question.

By the way askthepizzagy, how do you fare playing the turks? I am having problems with them because they will not attack my stack/half stack on a river crossing, but move all their army (5 or so stacks) deep into my territory to my largest cities (even though they are well defended). How may provinces do you actually manage to hold after the mongol invasion?

Sorry for the long one, I write few, but rather long :oops:

[Lusted]

askthepizzaguy, you playing the latest version of LTC?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hi everybody,

I fell humbled around such knowledgeable players and experienced posters, but after reading this thread I had to add my piece.

One on one, large map, plenty of rebel/faction lands: turtle is dead.
One on one, small map, no rebel settlements: in comes down to player capability.
Real human multiplayer: both turtle and blitzer are dead, and the day will go to the moderate expansionists.

Regarding discussions here I will address the most enthusiastic followers of each technique.

askthepizzaguy: imo you have too much confidence in your siege technique. I do not doubt it does work against AI, but I am sure an experienced player will not sally trough a single gate, nor would he/she move his/her whole army simultaneously (I do not and hell knows I am not a deep strategist). As for waiting for the city/castle to fall, well, human player would send aid in a much more intelligent way that the AI. And again, I do not think facing a human player surrounding my army would be as easy as with the AI. Also, the troops will be well balanced, and the general will not charge your 10000 peasant to die in vain and leave the whole army shaken.

Privateerkev: you are relying on your settlements to be more advanced and produce more cash. We here know that the worst thing about being at war with many AI factions is sieges. But not because AI would take your cities, but because a surrounded city/blockaded port does not generate income. As a blitzer, I do not need to take your city, just blockade and strangle your economy. You sally, well I retreat to lay siege next turn. In the mean time, I have negated you your income. Maybe my cities are not well develop, but at least they are generating some cash which I can convert into fresh troops.

All and all, I think that a much more cautions expansion is needed if human players were to control every faction and just but a few rebel settlements were present.

Personally, I'd rather play the turtlish approach because imo very early blitzing cripples the AI and therefore prevents any challenge in the game (=ruins the fun). Of course, if your challenge is to conquer as many provinces as possible in 125 turns, then turtling is out of the question.

By the way askthepizzagy, how do you fare playing the turks? I am having problems with them because they will not attack my stack/half stack on a river crossing, but move all their army (5 or so stacks) deep into my territory to my largest cities (even though they are well defended). How may provinces do you actually manage to hold after the mongol invasion?

Sorry for the long one, I write few, but rather long :oops:

Greetings, Joh.

As for my seige technique:

If the enemy does not have a full stack garrison, I can pretty much blitz rush the center square by making a feint to the walls, smashing the gate, and abandoning the ladders and seige equipment and rushing straight through the gate with my crusader mounts. (Good, cheap, mid-level knights from my insane crusades).

If the enemy foolishly guards the center, then I can easily take the walls and rain arrows of death upon him. Granted, if he's prepared, that means I will be taking arrow casualties as well.

Assuming he's got the dismounted knights or better, I will not be able to take the center simply by clubbing my way there. Then it comes down to waiting out the seige or surround/pound on the sally or seige relief.

If he's backed into the castle, I can afford to wait him out. I prefer seige relief battles because then it's an even ground numbers game. Simply surround with your cheapo crusader seargents, merc spears, crusader knights, militia spears, and general units (of which I have plenty).

There are decent troops you can get without any effort at all.

Once I'm out on the campaign map, and he must relieve the seige, I can play defender with my myriad stacks of troops. I can defend my general until my relief forces arrive, and by then even the best troops are tired and depleted from all the killing. Bye bye main defender stack.

I can wait them out, Blitz the center, take the walls, or win seige relief battles easily. What can they do?

They can sally... always a bad move. I brought far too many troops to defeat easily with a sally, not to mention my relief stack. They can cover the center while I take the walls. They can cover the walls while I take the center. They can do both and starve to death. They can relieve seiges and lose by numbers.

Defenders have poor options. True, a frontal assault against DFK's inside a citadel is a silly move. But then, if I did that all the time, I wouldn't be the pizzaguy, Blitz dude extraordinaire.

As the Turks, I tend to overwhelm the Egyptians first while allying with the Byzantines. Then, I call a jihad against any catholic faction or the Russians. If I get crusaded against, assassins or navies will sink thier mission.

Once I have the entire Arab caliphate under my control, I wipe the Byzantines off the map (Need a reason? How about insulting Islam. The Emperor named his teddy bear Mohammed. Therefore, according to the Holy Text, he must be executed!)

I send imams to convert and my jihadis to exterminate and pillage all settlements in my wake. Then I build up my castles and prepare for the Mongoloids.

A few well placed stacks near bridges near castles will trip them up. Night fighter works well. A good mix of heavy/missile cavalry and spearpoints will do wonders against the Mongrel scum.

Holding provinces is not a priority, my friend.

What happens when the Mongols take a province? Don't they let a stack sit inside of it?

Now what happens when you take a couple of generals with night fighter and catapults and re-take the settlement? It's called the Venus Fly Trap.

Come little mongrels... take my undefended castle... and then DIE!!!

catapults and archers rain death upon them... they sally into my spearpoints and slowly bleed to death... no reinforcements in sight. Mounted units suck inside of castles. Even stampy the elephant is a poor castle defender. I just aim fire at Stampy so that Stampy stamps his friends instead of me.

Alternatively, you could let the Mongols come... just prepare massive armies first and deploy them somewhere hidden to shadow their movements.

Let them come... let them take settlement after settlement... let them spread out and divide their forces... let them create a bloated, fat, poorly defended and spread out Mongol empire... and suddenly blitz their provinces which are defended with no more than one stack.

Slay them all.... rinse and repeat.

Seiges are too easy to kill the defender, especially when the defender is an AI. Seiges are the name of the game.

[Askthepizzaguy]

askthepizzaguy, you playing the latest version of LTC?

Possibly not. I got this version back in the day. Which was a Thursday, by the way.
:beam:

Dont hurt me too badly yet, give me time to exploit all the weaknesses in my current version.

Right now I have HRE trading away half of their empire for 18000 florins, and then getting that money right back with promises to attack their evil neighbors, and then allying with their neighbors and backstabbing them.

Pretty big exploit, if you ask me. Hilarious though.

I'm off to kill the Kaiser, the Kaiser of the Roman Empire.
The emperor was a wonderful ally, a wonderful ally he was
And now the emperor will bleed to death with his filthy corpse atop a pike
because because because because because.... because of the horrible things I does.

:knight:

__________________________

MY 500th POST!!!

[Lusted]

Was just curious as my latest version has improved campaign AI and diplomacy, and was wondering how it would cope with blitzing.

[crpcarrot]

@ askthepizzaguy

lol sometimes i wonder if u even read the other persons post cos u seem to have completely missed the point he was making.

althoguh i have no doubt that you are an excellent blitzer and probably can thrasht he ai in you sleep in a true multiplayer game i doubt it will be that simple. all the points you make are valid against the AI but against a human its not that simple or straightforward.

also i really dont understand how u can manage to have so many stacks and assume you can support them and reinforce them throughout you blitz. once the blitzers borders are wide enough he will be vunerable to counter blitz by other human players.

also if it was a true maltiplayer game exploits will be banned so you cant really rely on exploits to prop up your blitzing strategy.

i'm with most of the others here i got bored of blitzing when i played the original MTW semi turtling is more fun. once u have a a certain number of provinces managin the rest of the is plain boring.

and if i may also add i dont really want a half page reply to this post of things u have already said. i doubt you will convince me after so many posts.

cheers

[Joh]

Greetings, Joh.

As for my seige technique:

If the enemy does not have a full stack garrison, I can pretty much blitz rush the center square by making a feint to the walls, smashing the gate, and abandoning the ladders and seige equipment and rushing straight through the gate with my crusader mounts. (Good, cheap, mid-level knights from my insane crusades).

If the enemy foolishly guards the center, then I can easily take the walls and rain arrows of death upon him. Granted, if he's prepared, that means I will be taking arrow casualties as well.

Assuming he's got the dismounted knights or better, I will not be able to take the center simply by clubbing my way there. Then it comes down to waiting out the seige or surround/pound on the sally or seige relief.

If he's backed into the castle, I can afford to wait him out. I prefer seige relief battles because then it's an even ground numbers game. Simply surround with your cheapo crusader seargents, merc spears, crusader knights, militia spears, and general units (of which I have plenty).

There are decent troops you can get without any effort at all.

Once I'm out on the campaign map, and he must relieve the seige, I can play defender with my myriad stacks of troops. I can defend my general until my relief forces arrive, and by then even the best troops are tired and depleted from all the killing. Bye bye main defender stack.

I can wait them out, Blitz the center, take the walls, or win seige relief battles easily. What can they do?

They can sally... always a bad move. I brought far too many troops to defeat easily with a sally, not to mention my relief stack. They can cover the center while I take the walls. They can cover the walls while I take the center. They can do both and starve to death. They can relieve seiges and lose by numbers.

Defenders have poor options. True, a frontal assault against DFK's inside a citadel is a silly move. But then, if I did that all the time, I wouldn't be the pizzaguy, Blitz dude extraordinaire.

As the Turks, I tend to overwhelm the Egyptians first while allying with the Byzantines. Then, I call a jihad against any catholic faction or the Russians. If I get crusaded against, assassins or navies will sink thier mission.

Once I have the entire Arab caliphate under my control, I wipe the Byzantines off the map (Need a reason? How about insulting Islam. The Emperor named his teddy bear Mohammed. Therefore, according to the Holy Text, he must be executed!)

I send imams to convert and my jihadis to exterminate and pillage all settlements in my wake. Then I build up my castles and prepare for the Mongoloids.

A few well placed stacks near bridges near castles will trip them up. Night fighter works well. A good mix of heavy/missile cavalry and spearpoints will do wonders against the Mongrel scum.

Holding provinces is not a priority, my friend.

What happens when the Mongols take a province? Don't they let a stack sit inside of it?

Now what happens when you take a couple of generals with night fighter and catapults and re-take the settlement? It's called the Venus Fly Trap.

Come little mongrels... take my undefended castle... and then DIE!!!

catapults and archers rain death upon them... they sally into my spearpoints and slowly bleed to death... no reinforcements in sight. Mounted units suck inside of castles. Even stampy the elephant is a poor castle defender. I just aim fire at Stampy so that Stampy stamps his friends instead of me.

Alternatively, you could let the Mongols come... just prepare massive armies first and deploy them somewhere hidden to shadow their movements.

Let them come... let them take settlement after settlement... let them spread out and divide their forces... let them create a bloated, fat, poorly defended and spread out Mongol empire... and suddenly blitz their provinces which are defended with no more than one stack.

Slay them all.... rinse and repeat.

Seiges are too easy to kill the defender, especially when the defender is an AI. Seiges are the name of the game.


I can understand your strategy, but I can also see two (imo) flaws in it.

First: you are again assuming a human player is as incompetent and predictable as the AI. That would probably not be the case.

Second: it is the first turn of the campaign, and you are going to START your blitz. Where have you exactly got your multiple stack attacking armies from? I have not tried that many factions, and I know some (generally the small ones to even things out) start with large armies, but not all. You are using a small army to attack a (usually) small garrison, and you win because the AI is bad at defending (or attacking for that matter). In this case, reinforcement used by a human player will make a huge difference (imo).

Imagine you are catholic player, you cannot exploit crusades off the bat as no catholic faction will be excommunicated for a while, and either getting the Pope to accept it or reaching your destination takes time. Then again, I am assuming the aim of the crusade is a human player, who will make a much better work than the AI. Assume you take my settlement, next turn I will declare Jihad on you, which means things will level out, or even if you don't, I will do my best to punish you, I am a turtle, but not stupid. I do not even have to wait until you take my settlement, I can call for a Jihad and face my "almost free army" with yours ... of course mine in a defending position.

The whole point of the blitz is to gather momentum, the larger number of settlements I conquer, the larger the armies I can field. What I am saying here is that a HUMAN player can deny you that momentum.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@ askthepizzaguy

lol sometimes i wonder if u even read the other persons post cos u seem to have completely missed the point he was making.

althoguh i have no doubt that you are an excellent blitzer and probably can thrasht he ai in you sleep in a true multiplayer game i doubt it will be that simple. all the points you make are valid against the AI but against a human its not that simple or straightforward.

also i really dont understand how u can manage to have so many stacks and assume you can support them and reinforce them throughout you blitz. once the blitzers borders are wide enough he will be vunerable to counter blitz by other human players.

also if it was a true maltiplayer game exploits will be banned so you cant really rely on exploits to prop up your blitzing strategy.

i'm with most of the others here i got bored of blitzing when i played the original MTW semi turtling is more fun. once u have a a certain number of provinces managin the rest of the is plain boring.

and if i may also add i dont really want a half page reply to this post of things u have already said. i doubt you will convince me after so many posts.

cheers

It appears as though you are guilty of that which you accuse me of.

If you had read my posts, you would realize that I've stated, not once, not twice, not three times, but over and over again, that blitzers are vulnerable to counter blitzes. This runs contrary to what the Turtle's stated objective is. Blitzing therefore makes a turtle not a turtle anymore. Like turtling makes a blitzer not a blitzer.

If you can't imagine how I can manage to support all those stacks during the blitz, I refer you to the PROOF that it can be done.

My thread, England. 108 provinces by turn 58.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87236&page=2

Most of the good stuff begins on page two, however, If you are wondering where all the troops came from, I refer you to the bottom of page one.

However page two begins on turn 15... yes, you can believe your eyes. Those are all my troops, those are all my provinces. I have roughly as many stacks and provinces as I have turns in the game at this point. Even more so, in fact.

Simply put, the Ai will trade you lots of florins for diplomatic concessions. Crusades bring you thousands of free troops. Trading for territory gives you even MORE recruitment facilities. If there is an AI in this fictional Turtle V Blitzer game, guess what I will be attempting to do yet again?

You refer to game exploits. I am assuming you mean no one is allowed to crusade, or that there will be house rules that there are limits on the total number of crusading stacks? That's fine. But no one has stated such terms here thusfar. And it might be "exploitative", but then again so is making your enemy's entire empire rebel through spies. That's unrealistic as well, but perfectly legal... so call it what you will, turtles are attempting to play by the game rules to their advantage as well. Blitzers will do the same.

I can blitz without a crusade, but obviously it would be less devastating. Just as a defending turtler would be less effective without spy/assassin/rebel stack/enemy rebellion exploits.

As for convincing you that I am correct, it is not my goal. Feel free to believe whatever you want. A person does not need to convince his opponent to win a debate, or to be correct to begin with. Call it arrogant, perhaps, but it is also the truth. If I cannot convince you with the facts, with reason, and with proof, then you cannot BE convinced.

I'll also choose the appropriate length of my own replies, as will you. It's a free forum.

I appreciate your feedback, though. Please do not mistake my vigorous argument for hostility. I'm quite happy with the debate. I do feel you have overlooked what I have said. But I don't expect you to go back and check. Like you said:

Cue the music-

"If I haven't convinced you by now, you will never never never never be convinced.

Ooooo, ooo ooo"

:beam:

____________________

Apologies for the shameless plug of my England thread, yet again, but it was necessary to prove a point.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I can understand your strategy, but I can also see two (imo) flaws in it.

First: you are again assuming a human player is as incompetent and predictable as the AI. That would probably not be the case.

Second: it is the first turn of the campaign, and you are going to START your blitz. Where have you exactly got your multiple stack attacking armies from? I have not tried that many factions, and I know some (generally the small ones to even things out) start with large armies, but not all. You are using a small army to attack a (usually) small garrison, and you win because the AI is bad at defending (or attacking for that matter). In this case, reinforcement used by a human player will make a huge difference (imo).

Imagine you are catholic player, you cannot exploit crusades off the bat as no catholic faction will be excommunicated for a while, and either getting the Pope to accept it or reaching your destination takes time. Then again, I am assuming the aim of the crusade is a human player, who will make a much better work than the AI. Assume you take my settlement, next turn I will declare Jihad on you, which means things will level out, or even if you don't, I will do my best to punish you, I am a turtle, but not stupid. I do not even have to wait until you take my settlement, I can call for a Jihad and face my "almost free army" with yours ... of course mine in a defending position.

The whole point of the blitz is to gather momentum, the larger number of settlements I conquer, the larger the armies I can field. What I am saying here is that a HUMAN player can deny you that momentum.

Firstly, no, I am assuming the human player is as competent, or more so, than I. But I am looking for stated strategies which will work, I've seen few so far which would really be much of a bother, with the exception of spy rush rebellions or a single raider stack hitting me behind the lines.

Those, I've admitted, would slow me down considerably.

But no, I am not convinced the most vigorous defense of a citadel is any bother to me. It simply does not worry me, because I would use every option except the frontal assault, which means eventually the defender would need to attack me. Which means I can surround and pound by the sheer weight of numbers. Granted, versus humans the losses would be exceptional. But by then, I've half the map rolled up and several, hundreds even, battles lost do not concern me. They are meant to wear your economy and your reserves down, cripple your trade, and completely distract you while my empire grows and prepares actual defenses and the best garrisons in the game.

Actually I can precisely exploit crusades right off the bat. I don't need to aim at another catholic faction to destroy them. The purpose of the crusade is to get free troops. I can easily take the target city and leave the other 10 stacks near my territory.

Never mind ending the crusade while most of my troops are in the middle of your territory. Mind a turn 15 rush of 10 stacks? I would. Again I refer you to my threads detailing blitz/crusade/jihads for proof that its not only possible, but routine.

As for the fairness thereof, I didn't design the game I just play it. Assuming I'm not using cheat codes or modded files, it's all perfectly legal.

I would expect the other player to make use of jihads or even join my crusade in progress. That would be a nifty counter strategy. However, strangely, you're the first one to mention such a tactic. Congratulations!

I appreciate the innovation.

I do believe it would be a nice trick to aim a jihad deep into catholic territory so soon, as there's no way you could hold any settlements without mass exterminations and huge garrisons. That cripples your economy.

Still, your use of a jihad to create defensive troops would WORK assuming I was even headed in your direction. Otherwise the jihad will end and you will have a lot of disbanding to do to stay afloat.

I appreciate your feedback! This debate is highly enjoyable.

[Robespierre]

ATPG, surely there are limits to this? you're not saying you don't build? not even merchants guilds in pursuit of that elusive monopoly on fruit?

definately a pure turtle makes soup and the sounding-body for a primitive lyre. but as the blitzer don't you need to exert some control over vast empire at all.

reminds me of Iain Banks is it feersum enjinn:What happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?
The unstoppable force stops; the immovable object moves.

[Askthepizzaguy]

ATPG, surely there are limits to this? you're not saying you don't build? not even merchants guilds in pursuit of that elusive monopoly on fruit?

definately a pure turtle makes soup and the sounding-body for a primitive lyre. but as the blitzer don't you need to exert some control over vast empire at all.

reminds me of Iain Banks is it feersum enjinn:What happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?
The unstoppable force stops; the immovable object moves.

I do indeed build. Mostly troop recruitment buildings in cities that would actually benefit from them (actual cities, decent castles). Then I work on public order buildings, if I have the money.

Eventually, I will capture regions that have blacksmiths and so forth... so it's fairly unneccessary to build my own.

I wouldn't pillage a decent merchant's guild. And by the late game, it's too wrapped up for me to be concerned with merchants, guilds, or anything peripheral to the actual seiging and destruction of the enemy.

Yes, there are limits to my strategy, it fails against multiple human opponents, fellow blitzers (or an even game... we both lose), and in games like The Long Road where I can field exactly two seiging armies at a time, if I try really hard. Then... it's defender advantage? Actually, they go bankrupt trying to defend and cannot field enough troops either. So we are both weakened, but at least my territory is expanding.

I've noticed the Lands To Conquer mod makes holding blitzed territory or purchased territory harder and unprofitable to some extent. That does indeed slow my advance.

But eventually, it's all the same result.
https://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb225/askthepizzaguy/0311.jpg

Caption: I still have 33 turns to go before I reach the ratio of one province per turn.

[Privateerkev]

Since I'm starting to be held up as the "Turtle Champion" I should make something real clear. Again.

In my opinion, in a 1 v 1 M2TW Grand Campaign MP game, a pure turtle will always lose. My posts have only tried to refute some specific points about how easy such a victory would be for the blitzer. I claim that I can add to the time it would take for the blitzer to win. I do not believe I could effect the eventual outcome though. The math is just too weighted in the blitzer's favor. Eventually you will be crushed by the sheer weight of numbers. No matter how good of a pure turtle you are, eventually the rest of the map will be the color of your opponents faction. And then you will get stomped on like a bug.

Kingdoms might change things a bit. The Brittania Campaign might be more difficult for a blitzer due to the massive unrest that a different culture causes when you take a settlement. So, without having tested it, I believe the English in the Brittania campaign have a good chance at winning as a pure turtle in a 1 v 1 MP game.

In MP games, no matter what campaign, that have more than 2 people, things change for the blitzer. There, the name of the game is diplomacy. If the blitzer can gain diplomatic support, he can blitz in the early game and be in a powerful position in the middle game. If no one sees the threat he poses in the middle game, he can then whomp in the later game and win. If the blitzer can not gain diplomatic support, then while he is blitzing, he will find that all of his settlements have disappeared and have been divided up amongst the other players.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Since I'm starting to be held up as the "Turtle Champion" I should make something real clear. Again.

In my opinion, in a 1 v 1 M2TW Grand Campaign MP game, a pure turtle will always lose. My posts have only tried to refute some specific points about how easy such a victory would be for the blitzer. I claim that I can add to the time it would take for the blitzer to win. I do not believe I could effect the eventual outcome though. The math is just too weighted in the blitzer's favor. Eventually you will be crushed by the sheer weight of numbers. No matter how good of a pure turtle you are, eventually the rest of the map will be the color of your opponents faction. And then you will get stomped on like a bug.

Kingdoms might change things a bit. The Brittania Campaign might be more difficult for a blitzer due to the massive unrest that a different culture causes when you take a settlement. So, without having tested it, I believe the English in the Brittania campaign have a good chance at winning as a pure turtle in a 1 v 1 MP game.

In MP games, no matter what campaign, that have more than 2 people, things change for the blitzer. There, the name of the game is diplomacy. If the blitzer can gain diplomatic support, he can blitz in the early game and be in a powerful position in the middle game. If no one sees the threat he poses in the middle game, he can then whomp in the later game and win. If the blitzer can not gain diplomatic support, then while he is blitzing, he will find that all of his settlements have disappeared and have been divided up amongst the other players.

They don't hand out those awards for nothing. Privateerkev is absolutely correct on all points.

King Turtle and King Blitzer agree, one on one it's no contest, but in 3 or better its anyone's game.

Blitzing is a terrible idea as no one would permit the blitzer to carve up the map, even if they were allied. Not unless the blitzer was also ceding territory to his ally. And even so... why trust the dangerous, powerful blitzer? He might be used as a tool to eliminate your neighbor and expand your empire through territorial gifts, but otherwise, why tie your fate so completely with someone who's stated goal is to eliminate you?

The blitzer, i.e. me, would be willing to cooperate as it offers me every advantage. Gifting you territories I can't afford to hold on my own in exchange for florins to build my armies, alliances, and promises of your own to guard my flank? that is a diplomatic treaty I'd be willing to sign AND honor.

You would need to demonstrate trustworthiness at the beginning. Leaving myself vulnerable to you means I need cash up front in case you betray me. And as you well know, the blitzer does not need to betray you until you're the last one standing. And I'll even tell you up front that's my intention. You'd bog me down in the interim if I backstabbed you, for little gain on my end. In other words, yes, I would be trustworthy as an ally. If you give me the starting florins I need, the honest defense of my border against an aggressor, and an alliance, I'd be willing to wipe out your neighbor for you and gift you half of their territory as payment. Just maintain my trust and you might get more favors from me, like additional territory in exchange for religious conversion missions to soften up my targets.

Or perhaps military assistance on the battlefield, rare if ever that I might need it.

Just remember, if you were to betray me first (as I expect you would) I would make certain my next crusade or jihad landed on your doorstep, I would burn your cities to the ground, and gift them to your worst enemies.

I'm very honest, but I'm also someone you may not want to deal with, and definitley not one to betray too soon. It might not be to your advantage to help me, unless you feel me increasing the size of your turtle empire prepares you for my eventual assault, and gives us an even endgame which would be fun. In which case, my diplomat is at your doorstep willing to make the deal.

I betray the computer routinely, but that is only because the AI is absolutely untrustworthy whenever there is even the slightest motive to betray.

I would be much more reliable an ally with a human. Probably because I miss having allies I can trust.

Sounds like Kingdoms will be a fun game... if I werent busy with Final exams I'd look for it.

[ReiseReise]

I appreciate the compliment, however the title King of the Blitzes is one I feel uncomfortable with until I've seen my competition. Sure, I may have set a record with the HRE blitz conquering 50+ provinces by turn 16, and I've yet to see someone take 108 provinces by turn 57 other than myself, however there are far too many other players here. Surely one of them has beaten my records.


Turn 16?!?! When did that happen? I thought it was Turn 18. I'd love to see the post and screenies.

SQ: Is 108 every province?

You have inspired me to take on the challenge. It might take me a month to rework my style but I am up for it. I thought I was pretty damn spiffy doing the short campaign in 13 turns so I obviously have some work to do :beam: Unfortunately commuting and working 48 hours severely cuts into playing time. Gah, and my boss asked me if I wanted 4 or 5 days next week and I said 5. WHY!?!?!

[phonicsmonkey]

You have inspired me to take on the challenge. It might take me a month to rework my style but I am up for it.

that's what I thought, but I got about eight turns into the super blitz and got so bored I went out and bought Kingdoms instead

I'm not saying I would have beaten or even equalled the 16-turn record, but after a few turns you can see how it can be done

[Askthepizzaguy]

Turn 16?!?! When did that happen? I thought it was Turn 18. I'd love to see the post and screenies.

SQ: Is 108 every province?

You have inspired me to take on the challenge. It might take me a month to rework my style but I am up for it. I thought I was pretty damn spiffy doing the short campaign in 13 turns so I obviously have some work to do :beam: Unfortunately commuting and working 48 hours severely cuts into playing time. Gah, and my boss asked me if I wanted 4 or 5 days next week and I said 5. WHY!?!?!

This is the screenshot of the finished product. Since the entire campaign was brief, predictable slash and burn, I felt it didn't need a thread of it's own.

So, how is it going? :beam:

I managed 50 provinces by turn 16, but I forgot to take Rome, so it doesn't count.
The proof is here in the save file.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/n5083o

https://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z148/itsthepizzaguy/0001-2.jpg

Although, theoretically I could still take Rome and beat the 20 turns... but I don't see the point.
I still have all the save files from each turn, so if anyone wants to see this turn by turn, I can send you a link.

Check out my other threads,

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88366 (Russia)

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88116 (Egypt)

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87236 (England)

Having taken over the known world using Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox factions, I have since switched to Lands to Conquer. My current quest is the Danes, on VH/VH, and so far I've decimated the HRE, France, Portugal, Moors, and I'm only on turn 15 or so. This is very difficult to do as the Danes, given their sole starting province, isolated starting location, strong neighbors, poor economy, and on LTC anything outside of the middle of Europe earns you practically no income, plus there are public order penalties.

The fight goes well. Thus far, the biggest threats to my power are England (Which I just backstabbed), France (Which is already crippled), Venice (which I repulsed using town milita), the Holy Roman Empire (which is almost completely destroyed). I plan on taking all of France, Spain, and the British Isles while harassing northern Italy, then I will head east into Poland, Hungary, and Russia. Spain is in the process of being conquered, Portugal is already destroyed, the Moors are crippled and helpless, and I've too many troops for England to counterattack me.

Anyone interested in a LTC Danish thread with screenshots? I think you might find it pretty sweet.
Sorry, off-topic. Back to topic.

And yes, 108 provinces is the total number for the Old world. This does not include the Americas because it is impossible to blitz there. So it's fairly pointless to wait until you can.

__________________
Edit: The HRE blitz screenshot works, but I've since lost all the save files. Sendspace deletes them periodically! Dang them.

[Joh]

@askthepizzaguy

I just read your thread about conquering 108 provinces before turn 60. I have to admit I never thought the "abuse" of the crusades could reach such a scale, and please do not understand "abuse" as a derrogatory remark. I am basically impressed. I do not like to play the game like that, but that is my gaming style. I am not judging your style either, this is just a game after all.

I have to admit I have not played that much with catholic factions since I find them a little bit to much aim them and slug it out. Muslim factions add a little bit more in my opinion. Must admit, haven't played with eastern european factions though. And I seldom use crusades/jihads, only to keep up with the AI.

Anyway, I seem to remember that I tried crusading with the English in my initial campaign, and that I lost a lot of unit to desertion (playing 1.3). Have you tried your crusade tactic with the latest patch? I am not completely sure it will work since you loose units if you do not approach or slowly approach the crusade goal. It could also be because I only use a single stack army, so it could have an influence as at least one of your stacks is getting close to its destination.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@askthepizzaguy

I just read your thread about conquering 108 provinces before turn 60. I have to admit I never thought the "abuse" of the crusades could reach such a scale, and please do not understand "abuse" as a derrogatory remark. I am basically impressed. I do not like to play the game like that, but that is my gaming style. I am not judging your style either, this is just a game after all.

I have to admit I have not played that much with catholic factions since I find them a little bit to much aim them and slug it out. Muslim factions add a little bit more in my opinion. Must admit, haven't played with eastern european factions though. And I seldom use crusades/jihads, only to keep up with the AI.

Anyway, I seem to remember that I tried crusading with the English in my initial campaign, and that I lost a lot of unit to desertion (playing 1.3). Have you tried your crusade tactic with the latest patch? I am not completely sure it will work since you loose units if you do not approach or slowly approach the crusade goal. It could also be because I only use a single stack army, so it could have an influence as at least one of your stacks is getting close to its destination.

Don't be ashamed to say it. It IS abuse of the crusade function to use it for non-crusading purposes.

I 'abuse' ALL the loopholes in the game. Crusading through Byzantium even if they aren't the crusade target, diplomatic trickery, crusading in the wrong direction and then leaving/joining the crusade to prevent desertion, and intentionally abusing the captain promotion device (even if you have a general, if you have overwhelming odds, let your troops ride ahead with a captain and slaughter your opponent on the field for an easy promotion) so that I can have endless stacks of generals and troops for crusades, buying/selling provinces to my advantage, the list goes on and on.

I don't do this every time. I am perfectly capable of 'restraining' myself and enjoying the game with actual use of assassins and merchants and realistic conquests and economic growth. However, one of the things that pleases me the most is seeing what the maximum limit is for possible advancement in this game, and attempting to reach that upper limit.

Is it possible to conquer all provinces by turn 55? Who knows until we try?
I say it might be possible. I was only 3 turns shy. 2 with France.

So my objective is to see what's possible with the game, without actually hacking the game files or using cheat codes. Just whatever the game allows you to do in it's original version. Different versions have different rules.

Example: There is no way to conquer all provinces on Lands to Conquer by turn 60. It is absolutely, physically impossible, and that's a fact.

But what about turn 90? It may be possible. The trouble is, excommunication is a much larger factor in LTC.

If you saw my Egypt thread, you know that the Muslim factions have the capability to roll up the map as well. I can abuse jihads very well indeed.

And with Russia, none of that was possible. But I did manage to obtain more than 1 province every turn. Which is pure blitzkreig at it's finest.

I am sure that if I played the game more often as the rest of you do, I would have more stable, defensible empires. But it's not all that impressive to look at if you post screenies of it. Anybody can do it.

I also think my skills as a general might improve if I slowed down a bit... but when you can win the war with force alone on the campaign map, it feels like a step backwards to put yourself in the position of turtling and using a stack at a time, even with better troops.

I know I can paste the computer with town militas, mounted scouts, and mercenaries. The only point of getting better troops is either overkill or amusement, and I'm plenty amused already. I note that many people say they become bored with blitzing... I don't know... it's easy to begin a blitz. What's difficult is going full throttle constantly, without breaks in the action, facing every single faction at once. If you blitz carefully, of course it's boring. You're supposed to blitz like you need to own the entire world by lunchtime.

:knight:

[Malkut]

In a player vs. AI game, I combine the two.

For instance, as England, I rush to unite the islands, then settle down to create a steady economy and a military infastructure. When it comes to attacking the continent, multiple large stacks, each containing a core of elite units, are more effecient than a gajillion massive stacks of peasants. If you ever get to the point where you can't continue without excommunication and rebellion, you can always go back into turtle mode and still defend yourself well until you get your initative back.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

In a player vs. AI game, I combine the two.

For instance, as England, I rush to unite the islands, then settle down to create a steady economy and a military infastructure. When it comes to attacking the continent, multiple large stacks, each containing a core of elite units, are more effecient than a gajillion massive stacks of peasants. If you ever get to the point where you can't continue without excommunication and rebellion, you can always go back into turtle mode and still defend yourself well until you get your initative back.

This is also the way I play..
At the start of the game I blitz and take all available rebel settlements cause don't want a war with any factions...
Then I turtle for a while ... Recruit and build and defend ...
After that it is time for blitzing again and so on ...

[Ferret]

we really have to get you in a hotseat game ATPG, Zim blitzed me very effectively during a crusades one, not that I'm a hard player to beat lol.

[Askthepizzaguy]

In a player vs. AI game, I combine the two.

For instance, as England, I rush to unite the islands, then settle down to create a steady economy and a military infastructure. When it comes to attacking the continent, multiple large stacks, each containing a core of elite units, are more effecient than a gajillion massive stacks of peasants. If you ever get to the point where you can't continue without excommunication and rebellion, you can always go back into turtle mode and still defend yourself well until you get your initative back.

I tend to agree.

By the time I need to slow down (if for some reason I do... mostly I don't) I tend to disband less useful soldiers and solidify my weakened stacks.

That's why I travel with two or three or four or five stacks at a time in a given assault. When the stacks are depleted I can reorganize them into unstoppable double stacks again and continue the assault unhindered. Unless I'm doing a kamikaze, which is loading up a worthless general with disposable troops and taking as many provinces and causing as much mischief and devastation as possible before he's defeated. Nice cheap distraction. Usually pays for itself and thensome.

I find that if I need to slow down I go from blitzer to berserker. I disband large portions of my armies and send off some kamikazes. I keep my main generals and my main army inside my border in a strategic position, and I "disband" the rest of my troops by using them as kamikaze assault troops. The objective is to disband them and destroy as much as possible in the process.

I'm a cruel and cunning leader, after all.

[Zim]

we really have to get you in a hotseat game ATPG, Zim blitzed me very effectively during a crusades one, not that I'm a hard player to beat lol.

The funny thing is that in SP I'm far more of a turtle. Keeping up a blitz gets tedious to me after a while if my only opponenent is the hapless AI.

ATPG would probably approve of that game. I used a Jihad to make up for the large distances I had to cross (and took advantage of the free upkeep to hire a much larger army than I could normally afford), managed to get myself a ton of generals, maneuvered my armies to make sure I had overwhelming numerical superiority in any battles I initiated. And I've never even blitzed before. :clown:

Overwhelming numbers doesn't always beat quality in autoresolve, though. In the Teutonic hotseat game in one of the battles where my force was much bigger, the TO's auto resolve superiority won them the day (with oddly few casualties for the losing side, though).

[Askthepizzaguy]

The funny thing is that in SP I'm far more of a turtle. Keeping up a blitz gets tedious to me after a while if my only opponenent is the hapless AI.

ATPG would probably approve of that game. I used a Jihad to make up for the large distances I had to cross (and took advantage of the free upkeep to hire a much larger army than I could normally afford), managed to get myself a ton of generals, maneuvered my armies to make sure I had overwhelming numerical superiority in any battles I initiated. And I've never even blitzed before. :clown:

Overwhelming numbers doesn't always beat quality in autoresolve, though. In the Teutonic hotseat game in one of the battles where my force was much bigger, the TO's auto resolve superiority won them the day (with oddly few casualties for the losing side, though).

I approve of jihads as a means of troop recruitment and fast marching.

I approve of massively overwhelming the enemy and crushing them under the pure weight of numbers.

Blitzing can be boring if you're only attacking on a single front. Try blitzing against the entire map as soon as possible (and as soon as you've extracted whatever you can through diplomatic means from your enemy) and DO NOT STOP the blitz... ever. Not until every province is securely in your hands.

Tip: Save Rome for last.

Auto-resolving doesn't get you as many prisoners. If they can rout, they can escape. The computer seems to end the battle as quickly as possible...

Oh and by the way

The computer has a BIAS against your first few units. If you have a weakened peasant unit or two in front of a stack of useful troops, and you beseige someone who has serious defenders (but you should theoretically still win easily) guess what... the computer will make your whole army rout.

Pretend the computer is comparing them, one at a time, lead unit versus lead unit. Thats why you don't lead with cavalry. Thats why you don't lead with weakened infantry or peasant archers. Too easy to rout your army in auto resolve.

Test it for yourselves. I took Vilnius with a vastly superior force and I lost the battle every time on auto resolve because I had religious zealot peasants as my lead troops and mercs and crusader knights in the back of the stack.

Ummm bad idea. Lose every time to routing. But on a human-controlled battle, I won EASILY every time.

[Zim]

Well, it's a Crusades hotseat, so I have to autoresolve and there's no Rome. I'll have to remember that about autoresolve. It could very well have been the reason I lost. I had a general as the first unit, but number two was a kazak, whose crappy stats couldn't have helped any.




I approve of jihads as a means of troop recruitment and fast marching.

I approve of massively overwhelming the enemy and crushing them under the pure weight of numbers.

Blitzing can be boring if you're only attacking on a single front. Try blitzing against the entire map as soon as possible (and as soon as you've extracted whatever you can through diplomatic means from your enemy) and DO NOT STOP the blitz... ever. Not until every province is securely in your hands.

Tip: Save Rome for last.

Auto-resolving doesn't get you as many prisoners. If they can rout, they can escape. The computer seems to end the battle as quickly as possible...

Oh and by the way

The computer has a BIAS against your first few units. If you have a weakened peasant unit or two in front of a stack of useful troops, and you beseige someone who has serious defenders (but you should theoretically still win easily) guess what... the computer will make your whole army rout.

Pretend the computer is comparing them, one at a time, lead unit versus lead unit. Thats why you don't lead with cavalry. Thats why you don't lead with weakened infantry or peasant archers. Too easy to rout your army in auto resolve.

Test it for yourselves. I took Vilnius with a vastly superior force and I lost the battle every time on auto resolve because I had religious zealot peasants as my lead troops and mercs and crusader knights in the back of the stack.

Ummm bad idea. Lose every time to routing. But on a human-controlled battle, I won EASILY every time.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Well, it's a Crusades hotseat, so I have to autoresolve and there's no Rome. I'll have to remember that about autoresolve. It could very well have been the reason I lost. I had a general as the first unit, but number two was a kazak, whose crappy stats couldn't have helped any.


Lead units should be your HEAVIEST and highest morale infantry, followed by your heaviest cavalry, and at the last should be your insta-rout units, such as peasants, militia, weakened units, and all your French mercenaries. :beam:

Alternatively, you can lead with a strong general and then your heavy infantry, or several generals and then heavy infantry.

Ugh... auto-resolving every time? That takes away from the most critical aspect of gameplay... using your jedi skills to win impossible battles.

:knight:

If I had to auto-resolve every time I would go crazy :dunce: and they would need to give me happy drugs :nurse: until I began to see pink elephants :elephant: and walk out in front of traffic :policeman: and get hit by a semi. :angel:

_______________________________________
Insert relevant smiley face here.

[Zim]

It's a pain, especially when my horse archers that get slaughter in autoresolve could turn the Order infantry into pin cushions in a real battle, but I think it's worth it to play against human opponents. I can't really play SP anymore, it doesn't hold my interest.

[Alpedar]

How can i reorder units in stack?

[Askthepizzaguy]

How can i reorder units in stack?


It's simple really. Take the unit you want as your captain (if you dont have a general... if you have a general this is not something you can choose) and move it one space adjacent to your stack. This is now your lead unit in the new stack and the captain by default (unless you have a mounted unit... sometimes the computer chooses a captain for you as a mounted unit... I havent figured out why it doesnt happen every time).

This is advantageous if you've had lame captain units... peasants make bad captain's bodyguard units, but archers are by far the worst. Anything with a special ability (like knights who have formations, spear militia which have a formation, archers which have flaming ammo) means you can't use the rally troops function. Which is like having no captain at all.

If you have scouts (Denmark) they make great captains. they have no formation, they are light and mounted, and they can rally troops. Use them as your lead unit always. Except auto resolution battles where you want a lead unit of heavy infantry.

If not, go with infantry that can rally. Sometimes thats pathetic peasants... but if you have dismounted knights, and they have no special function, please by all means go with that. Or any mounted unit with no special function.

But like I said, if you have a general, this discussion is moot. Your general, no matter how bad he is, is always better than a captain due to the ability to rally, and his bodyguard unit is comprised of the toughest knights in the game.

A blundering idiot general (unless his morale penalty is for some reason negative 10) is always better than the most elite captain unit.

Next, select your toughest infantry. Hit shift (or control, I forget) and click on your toughest infantry unit and all the others of the same type will highlight. Now have them join your lone captain unit/general in the adjacent 'stack'.
Now select all your other mid level infantry, and do the same thing.
Now select all your light/bad infantry/achers, and do the same thing.
Now select all your mounted units, and do the same thing. This is how you practice effective stack management for auto resolutions.
Save the best for last. Your objective should be to burn infantry before you burn your elite cavalry, is it not?

Of course, if you're playing only on auto-resolve... why would you ever USE cavalry??? Cavalry are worthless, just like archers, on auto resolve. Elite infantry is always better. Pretend you're meeting in the middle of a bridge. That's how I imagine auto resolve battles. Which unit would you send in first? The best morale/stats infantry unit you have to force a rout. Archers and cavalry will run away.

If you can only auto-resolve... then simply use a full stack of armoured seargents/dismounted knights. Those are the best best best auto resolve unit. Have them under any general and you win the auto resolve battle.

Except in extreme tactical situations like... uh... hmm... hilltop/bridge battles.
And seiges where the enemy has exactly the same troops as you do.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to ever happen, because that would be just plain stupid (for many strategic and tactical reasons) If you have that many good troops, you need them on the field. Worthless militia are all you need as garrisons. Use elite troops as relief forces and have them sit on bridges, hilltops, or hidden in forests for ambushing. Remember, against smart humans ambushes will never ever work!

A single worthless scouting unit always rides ahead of the main force when I play versus AI or human. I NEVER get ambushed. Sorry. I wish the computer would simply allow you to choose whether or not to spring your trap on a lone worthless unit, and just reroute you if you choose to ride through it. The only way you should be able to spring a trap is by clicking directly on it and occupying the space, thus revealing an army lying in wait.

But I digress... and this is only vaguely related to auto-resolution stack management and that's only mildly related to human versus human battes and that's only tangentially related to turtle versus hare. So it's a bit of a stretch to say I'm on topic here.
:focus:

This line of questioning could be the basis for a new thread.

[Jambo]

Other than perhaps ports and wharfs, the economic buildings aren't worth the money. Markets are a complete joke and farms are only marginally less poor. In essence, regular sacking will easily make you more money.

In short, the Hare will win. Blitzing has always been the most efficient way to play TW games. Maybe it's design intent, maybe it's not. To me it's just bad design. Civ 4's economic aspects are far superior.

[Alpedar]

I play my second camapign (as Milan, first was Venice). I was somehow medium agressive at first (rebel taking phase), then went to slower motion and developing cities. And even this way, its hard NOT to beat it too fast (I want to get to gunpowder units). And my feel is, that if I (noon in this game) could beat it much faster, if i did not restrict myself.
So I must agree, that full agressive approach is probubly much stronger than cautious.

[Old Geezer]

Well I'll be hornswaggled! I had no idea that the order in a stack made any difference! Was that on page 2 or 3 of the manual. Not that such information is important a player, of course. This is great information. Now I won't be forced to field battle all the time when I am in a hurry to finish and go to bed. I can't believe that in 11 months I never came across this info. Was it that way in MTW too?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Well I'll be hornswaggled! I had no idea that the order in a stack made any difference! Was that on page 2 or 3 of the manual. Not that such information is important a player, of course. This is great information. Now I won't be forced to field battle all the time when I am in a hurry to finish and go to bed. I can't believe that in 11 months I never came across this info. Was it that way in MTW too?

Actually this is all my pet theory about auto-resolution battle mechanics, based upon oodles of experience auto-resolving and hitting bizarre snags when my lead units are weakened.

Sometimes all you have to do is solidify your troops by joining together weak units and all of a sudden the battle will auto-res better. I figured that out because it makes sense... you wouldn't send 20 units of depleted troops into battle, you would rather send 10 units at full strength to avoid routing.

But I really, really think I am on to something regarding auto-res calculations. You will get better results if you organize your stack properly. Much better.

In fact, I rarely if ever lose an auto-resolve battle ever since I've been subconsciously combining troops after every battle and purposefully managing stacks without generals.... and finally stacks with generals.

[_Tristan_]

I would have to agree on this... That's pretty much what I do in hotseat games (as all battles are auto-resolved)..

A few tries in SP games led me to believe that the way you order your troops can really make a difference...