Stronger Player - Turtle vs. Hare

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?

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: ...

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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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?

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

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.

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Originally Posted by 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?

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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...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by Tristan de Castelreng

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...

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

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.

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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....

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by Eng

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....

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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!

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Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

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

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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.....

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.

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...

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.

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...

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Originally Posted by 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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

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.

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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...

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Originally Posted by 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.

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

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Originally Posted by Eng

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....

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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:

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...

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...

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Originally Posted by 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...

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Yes but that would stretch the definition of turtling a little...

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.

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.

Ah...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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 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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by 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??

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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.

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.

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

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.

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Originally Posted by Didz

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.

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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, 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...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tristan de Castelreng

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.

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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.

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.

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:

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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?

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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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:

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Originally Posted by Tristan de Castelreng

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...

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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.

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

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

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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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:

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 ?

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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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:

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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).

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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

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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.

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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:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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.

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

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by sapi

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:

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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.

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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.

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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.