How good can you make your kingdom in 22 turns?

[Proserpine]

Following on from my other recent topic, Why Turtle, here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=106903

I issue the following challenge to all "turtlers" out there. Vanilla MTW2, any faction.

Blitzers say: Breetai completed the short campaign in 8 turns, Askthepizzaguy and Sir Rethvir did it in 9. ATPG has conquered all provinces in 23 and has so far crushed all comers in PvP mode of his turtle v blitz challenge. Therefore blitzing "rules".

But some people think a turtle could win if far enough away from the blitzer at the start.

So here it is. You pick any faction. Your goal is to have the largest, most developed and richest kingdom you can possibly have, by turn 22. That is the max, no. of turns before the blitzer will get to you. Sacking is permitted. You can conquer (but you are a turtle not a blitzer, remember). You are in long campaign mode, and the settings are VH/VH.

[Ferret]

A turtle challenge! I like it, wonder who will step up to be the Turtle master...

[Carlos Matthews]

I would but I can't find my Med2 disk..

[Proserpine]

Why 22 turns? That seems pretty premature...

What about - Who can build the most glorious empire that includes the New World?

Or even, who can orchestrate the strongest most powerful faction BEFORE they start their blitz?

That to me sounds interesting. Blitzing 8 provinces per turn using armored seargents is what I find to be an utter snooze fest.

It's 22 turns because on turn 23 (at latest), you must assume that you have to withstand the might of ATPG's legions of armoured spearmen or whatever . . . who will control the whole map apart from your empire. ATPG has done the whole 106 provinces in 23 turns and thinks it can be done in 22. The point is you have to tech up fast and build forces and an economy which has a chance of winning against an out-and-out blitz attach.

[Askthepizzaguy]

The only question I have is; by what measure are we declaring the winner?

Certainly not most provinces... and largest city, because some factions start with better stuff. How about, what is the largest, most advanced, professional army you can field in 22 turns?

[Proserpine]

The only question I have is; by what measure are we declaring the winner?

Certainly not most provinces... and largest city, because some factions start with better stuff. How about, what is the largest, most advanced, professional army you can field in 22 turns?

Sounds good to me . . .

[Askthepizzaguy]

next part, still ambiguous:

What defines best?

We should do something like this:

The Army of the Generic
Recruited by ExampleName by turn 22

10 generals
12 heavy cavalry
20 light cavalry
10 heavy infantry
10 peasant bowmen
15 longbows

12 ships (cog)

Total experience and armor upgrades: 127 "points"
Total units: 77

Balance: General, Light and Heavy cavalry, long and peasant bows, heavy infantry
6 unique types.

Then post the results and put it to a vote as to who "won"

[PBI]

Also, how do we draw the line between "expanding as a turtle" and "blitzing"?

Seems to me the whole problem with the whole blitz/turtle divide is that virtually no one plays as a "pure blitzer" (all military expansion, no development at all) or "pure turtle" (no conquest at all, stick with just starting provinces), most people simply expand and develop at a rate they find comfortable. For ATPG, that rate is about 5 provinces per turn. For some players, it's a handful of provinces every hundred years. I'm somewhere in between; I'm almost always conquering somewhere, but it's unusual for me to have more than two fronts open at once.

[TheLastPrivate]

number of structures, upgrade status, population, and tech should matter more than troops in this case.

[Proserpine]

number of structures, upgrade status, population, and tech should matter more than troops in this case.

. . . and money in the bank? International trade will essentially end.

[Chaotix]

Attempting to troll ATPG and Pev does not seem like a good idea to me. But anyway, back to the topic:

What faction(s) do you guys think would be best for this challenge? For the Blitz challenge, it was the Turks and HRE. For this new turtle challenge, I'd say one of the top competitors would definitely be England. Once you take care of Scotland, there's hardly anybody who's going to attack you, and you can tech up easily from there.

[decimator22]

Or a faction in the Iberian peninsula you secure it and bingo a base to turtle :). This will sure be interesting but I say best strategically placed army in the campaign with forts etc protecting your territory as your expecting ATPG full blitz and money(?).

[mousestalker]

Much as it pains me to say it, Scotland. For much the same reasons as England. Just conquer the British Isles as best you can and build like crazy. as mentioned above the Iberian peninsula is great defensively. Denmark has possibilities.


I think the countries that are absolutely out are the ones in the middle. Milan, Venice, HRE, Hungary, and the Byzantine Empire all strike me as tough choices.

[_Tristan_]

England, Scotland and Denmark surely are the best factions to succeed in this challenge.

Iberian Factions could do it... The Moors could too but their unit roster is a bit lame in my view...

[FactionHeir]

Right I won't allow any more off topic (i.e. unrelated to "How well can you expand your Kingdom in 22 turns" or similar) comments in here. Anyone found to reply off topic in any shape or form may face disciplinary action.

All Off-topic comments will be removed.

Thank you.

[edit]
Removed removable off topic discussion. Please refrain from posting further off topic in this or any other thread.

[gardibolt]

It's still not clear to me how you'd judge the "goodness" of your kingdom. If you're turtling, what's the point of a lot of troops? You're not likely to have taken many territories, and if you're turtling well, no one's attacking you, they're trading with you. What's the worth of various buildings? Are we after maximum income per turn? Money in the bank? I'd be interested in the challenge but I haven't any idea what the measure of success is.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I can field that one.

The objective of the large army is because if you're going to fairly compare a turtle empire with a blitzer one militarily, you have to assume that by turn 22 I am going to be knocking down your gates with about 5 stacks of troops, and as soon as those are gone there will be a second, larger wave, and so on.

One might measure a turtle empire economically but in terms of total income, 40-50 provinces is far more profitable (especially in that short amount of time) than 15 "developed" ones.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

One of the flaws in this thinking is that the AI is "developing" all the territories I am capturing, thereby the more I conquer, the more advanced my "development" is... and then I still have more armies, territory, and income than the turtler.

BUT! To be fair, we must admit that a blitzer does not necessarily win. A turtler could defend themselves with perhaps fewer stacks, easily replenished, in theory.

The challenge they must overcome is that against human players, I also tend to send a wave of spies and assassins, to reduce their public order by the maximum amount, make the possibility of opening gates 100%, and of course...

All that work... all that time and money spent on improvements... will be destroyed by my assassins every turn, crippling their economy, the main "selling" point of being a turtle.

Then a couple of night fighter generals arrive aboard a huge navy, destroy any standing stacks of troops, and capture their main coastal provinces in a single turn. To destroy the invasion force, and recapture their own settlements, they MUST field an impressive force.

That is why for me to be impressed with any turtle empire, they must bloat a massive force within about 20 turns.

Frankly I'd give you 30. Show me whatcha got. And don't forget to make note of how many spies, assassins, naval forces you've made, and also what your total economic output is.

[Kadagar_AV]

ATPG - For your chair's sake, please - take an hour or two off. I mean, please.

Reported.



I must say this whole "challenge" is pointless...

So let's pretend one guy 7-10 provinces (turtling), while the blitzer has some... what? 50? 70? 99?

Now, for teh turlte to win he would have to attack the blitzer offensively, I dont think anyone in their right mind would see defensive warfare as a solution in this particular case (or pretty much any case, if you have studied military history).

So, for the turtle to "win", he would have to go on the offense against the blitzer, resulting in a.... Blitz?

Again, the whole matchup isn't working...

It's two different playstyles that meet, not two different tactics.

I am a turtler, mainly because it makes the game more fun (For me! It's not an objective truth!). But still as a turtler I would gladly admit I would get my handed to me if in a showdown against a blitzer.

Why don't we let this topic rest, it's boring...



My best campaign so far was when I blitzed roleplaying style... I played Denmark (love vikings, being swedish) and my goal was to expand the kingdom as fast as possible, to plant my banner on foreign soil. To rape and plunder my way across Europe and to Outremer (holy lands).

However, the king was in the capital no matter what, I roleplayed the characters traits...

So in my own way I blitzed, but with RP behind it... I simply pretended I really was teh king of denmark, or rather, the immortal advisor to the roayl throne, and battlefield strategian.

Now, this was a bit off topic, but my point remains...

The hare will ALWAYS beat the turtle except in faerytales.

However, some will find the turtle has more time to appreciate his surroundings.

Hopefully this will be my last word on the subject.

Namaste!

[pevergreen]

Actually on topic from me:

In terms of M2TW, the defender could not win.

Lets say, Blitzer is Turks, defender is England.

Blitzer leaves england alone, takes the rest of the world.

Ok, so England defeats the initial stacks of units. Blitzer stops for a few turns, improving provinces everywhere. If defender tries to attack out, blitzer can either surrender a few provinces and wait until he has more stacks, since more cities = more income, especially that early in the game, over the next few battles, the defender has to replace more and more troops, while the blitzer can actually do the same thing. Eventually, they will both be at the same tech level, and since the blitzer has more income and more troops produced per turn, can just overwhelm.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Trouble is, if I (being a generic blitzer) have 20 castles, not only do I not need ANY infrastructure to build kick-arse troops, but I also have enough emergency income to field wave after wave of spammed troops.

That's just bare bones. And I guarantee I would be fielding more spies and assassins, which would knock out the built up economy of a turtle.

Advanced marketplaces and huge barracks don't work well when they mysteriously explode for no reason. Then the seiges come and you don't have the time or money to repair them.

[Yoyoma1910]

Actually on topic from me:

In terms of M2TW, the defender could not win.

Lets say, Blitzer is Turks, defender is England.

Blitzer leaves england alone, takes the rest of the world.

Ok, so England defeats the initial stacks of units. Blitzer stops for a few turns, improving provinces everywhere. If defender tries to attack out, blitzer can either surrender a few provinces and wait until he has more stacks, since more cities = more income, especially that early in the game, over the next few battles, the defender has to replace more and more troops, while the blitzer can actually do the same thing. Eventually, they will both be at the same tech level, and since the blitzer has more income and more troops produced per turn, can just overwhelm.

So I've though about it now, and I think this example is flawed. If any player were to allow another faction to take everything but England, than they aren't doing their job. This isn't a game of pacifism. The winner isn't the one who only concurs England. So if someone is just sitting on their fanny while someone else is able to come to absolute power, than they should switch to Gandhi Total War.

If this is an argument of whether to "Turtle" or "Blitz," well, what is the situation and the goals? Am I just trying to concur 45 provinces by the mid 1400s? That's so much time, there's no reason to rush it except to end the boredom of world conquest.

But, if another faction were to gain an overwhelming amount of strength, well what choice would one have but to surpass, maim, or destroy this opposition.

A slow moving strategy only works if you are able to maintain a reasonable mix of other factions, none of which are able to gain an overwhelming amount of power. I takes a large nation, like the HRE or moreso France to really be able to achieve this, because you have to play the 80 ton gorilla on the block, as Sparta did in the Hellenistic period.

Well timed strategy and subterfuge can get you your goal just as well as bowling over everything in your path, and leaves the board much more colorful. But then again, I think of absolute destruction as a last resort I save for particularly base factions.

Whatever strategy you choose to play, the only real way to succeed is to be strong enough vs. the opposition to achieve your goal.

[TheDruid]

If the blitzer is Turks and turtle England : its the furtest to go so the blitzer has enough time.
Lets put it otherwise : Blitz : HRE , Turtle : Danmark
one of the first moves would be to conquer danmark.
that would be crippling the Blitzers army cause he has to divide his forces wile the Danish wouldnt.
If they directly take as many men as they can and guard the bridge at Hamburg, there is no more blitzing.....
or would the HRE only attack Danmark in the beginning : no more blitzing since you skip the most obvious target

[Kadagar_AV]

If the blitzer is Turks and turtle England : its the furtest to go so the blitzer has enough time.
Lets put it otherwise : Blitz : HRE , Turtle : Danmark
one of the first moves would be to conquer danmark.
that would be crippling the Blitzers army cause he has to divide his forces wile the Danish wouldnt.
If they directly take as many men as they can and guard the bridge at Hamburg, there is no more blitzing.....
or would the HRE only attack Danmark in the beginning : no more blitzing since you skip the most obvious target

This didnt make much sence...

In your example, HRE = blitzer, Denmark = turtle..

Then the blitzer has 2 options.

1. go for denmark at once, building troops where the turtle builds economy buildings and troop upgrades... In this scenario, the blitzer would win (HRE could easily have 7 stacks on danish soil in a few turns).

2. Skip Denmark and expand in the other directions... I would then assume a smart blitzer would do sabotage missions, blockade ports, and do everything to hurt denmarks income as he expanded outwards, leaving some token forces to hold key positions... Then, when he has land enough he could just start spawning low quality stacks and bumrush his way in. In this scenario, the blitzer would also win.

Again, it's two different playstyles, not two different tactics.

No one in their right mind could possibly believe turtling could beat a blitzer

[Kadagar_AV]

Trouble is, if I (being a generic blitzer) have 20 castles, not only do I not need ANY infrastructure to build kick-arse troops, but I also have enough emergency income to field wave after wave of spammed troops.

That's just bare bones. And I guarantee I would be fielding more spies and assassins, which would knock out the built up economy of a turtle.

Advanced marketplaces and huge barracks don't work well when they mysteriously explode for no reason. Then the seiges come and you don't have the time or money to repair them.

Another factor is mobility...

The blitzer will have several stacks with low quality troops, and the turtle will have fewer stacks but better quality.

This of course results in the blitzer being able to choose battles on his terms... If the turtle defends X, the blitzer can attack Y.

He can mass his forces where he wants them, where the turtle would have to either hold on to the most vital cities, OR spread his defensive line utterly thin (and if he spreads the line thin, the blitzer could just smash through whereever he wants)...

If someone doesnt believe this, just challenge some of the more famous blitzers on a 1v1, and see how it plays out:)

[Ibn-Khaldun]

The blitzer will have several stacks with low quality troops, and the turtle will have fewer stacks but better quality.

This of course results in the blitzer being able to choose battles on his terms... If the turtle defends X, the blitzer can attack Y.

This is the way how ATPG won me in our hotseat duel.. he had more armies to use against me.. I tried to fight him back but the number of armies he could bring against me was more than I could handle..

So.. turtle can't win

[PrestigeX]

I know some players are all about blitzing and so forth,,,

but i generally prefer to enjoy the game and treat it somewhat as thought I were really managing an empire.

Blitzing is more of a fault within the engine of the game, and not very realistic in the sense of how it's done.

Historically, i know blitzing has happened but usually that is because the invaders have .

a. A huge huge force of very good troops (ie. Alexander the great, Julius caesar, Genghis Khan, Germans in ww2 etc).

b. Some form of technological superiority making their troops better than the enemy..again my example fits.. Alexander's phalangites/companion cav... Caesar's legions, the Khan's horde of Horse Archer monghols.. the Luftwafte and Panzer division ..


so in the game using a few armoured spearmen and some kinghts to conquer the world (in the game) is just unrealistic to me.

[gardibolt]

I can field that one.

The objective of the large army is because if you're going to fairly compare a turtle empire with a blitzer one militarily, you have to assume that by turn 22 I am going to be knocking down your gates with about 5 stacks of troops, and as soon as those are gone there will be a second, larger wave, and so on.

....


That is why for me to be impressed with any turtle empire, they must bloat a massive force within about 20 turns.

Frankly I'd give you 30. Show me whatcha got. And don't forget to make note of how many spies, assassins, naval forces you've made, and also what your total economic output is.

Still, even by this, how do you measure it? Is 10 units of levy spearmen better than 3 units of knights?

[FactionHeir]

Try it in a custom battle

I think the knights (if dismounted) will tear through those spearmen though. If mounted, they would anyway unless you play modded

[pevergreen]

Please keep on topic AoW.

@Yoyoma1910: It's right, we are discussing a turtle player, someone who sits there with only a few provinces, and doesnt take that many. They mainly sit and tech up.

I'm quite happy to represent turtling in a final battle vs ATPG. I would have community guided guidelines, but it would be interesting to see how it turned out.

[TheDruid]

This didnt make much sence...

In your example, HRE = blitzer, Denmark = turtle..

Then the blitzer has 2 options.

1. go for denmark at once, building troops where the turtle builds economy buildings and troop upgrades... In this scenario, the blitzer would win (HRE could easily have 7 stacks on danish soil in a few turns).

2. Skip Denmark and expand in the other directions... I would then assume a smart blitzer would do sabotage missions, blockade ports, and do everything to hurt denmarks income as he expanded outwards, leaving some token forces to hold key positions... Then, when he has land enough he could just start spawning low quality stacks and bumrush his way in. In this scenario, the blitzer would also win.

Again, it's two different playstyles, not two different tactics.

No one in their right mind could possibly believe turtling could beat a blitzer

I must say i mostly agreed with your posts till now. think this one is your most stupid ( no offence ;) )
If the HRE decide to skip Danmark, it wouldnt be blitzing anymore.
If they go to attack danmark, they also have to attack other countries otherwise this wouldnt be blitzing.
Turtling : is not building up tech; its building up strong defence troops as well
====> The HRE can maximum Bring one full stack To danmark in the first turns.
Whereas danmark : having only to fight at one front (Turtle vs blitz..... ) can field 1.5 / 2
probably even more teched up.
Also the danish can block the bridge at Hamburg So the HRE has to fight bridge battle in advantage of Danmark against more and better men.
If they lose, the HRE would be crippled as well.
Thats how i see it