@ ED


The reason why I guess we aren't going with the bottom line stock price is because all the money in the world isn't as good as men on the field when it comes to defense.

To realistically compare a turtler versus a blitzer, you gotta have men on the field. I'm just curious as to how many a turtle, focusing on his economic development, can come up with. I personally know the answer, but some have opined that a turtle could match up quite nicely with a blitzer, because of their superior economic power and better troops.

I honestly don't see much difference in growth after 22 turns, which is around the time when the entire world has been conquered by the blitzer, while the turtle has built several ports and a marketplace or two.



If I be more reasonable and give the turtler 40 turns of growth, they might be able to field more impressive armies. Myself and I believe the original poster wanted to see if the vaunted turtle growth power strategy stacked up defense-wise against a blitzer.

I can tell you from experience that no way, no how, unless you give 100 turns of growth, will a turtle be able to defend properly in the grand campaign of vanilla, or most mods. And by then, the blitzer has conquered the rest of the map and developed a "turtle" empire inside his own borders thrice the size, thereby winning the growth/economic development war as well.

This is all just my opinion though. I personally believe the turtle is doomed, but some are still curious as to how doomed, or if they are necessarily so doomed at all. So this particular challenge is about how powerful/combat ready a turtle could make his empire in preparation for a blitz attack. To me it's a matter of how "turtle" their strategy is. If they expand AND develop, they might stand a better chance.

A little off the subject, but I believe the defense of the turtle strategy comes from experiences as a turtle, where some 30-40 turns into the campaign, someone has developed quite well and has been able to field impressive armies, maybe 3 or 4 stacks of them, top notch troops. When exposed to the potential of one's empire, people are more vehement in their defensive strategy. It's just that the AI doesn't know how to expand or attack worth anything, and when confronted with a total annihilation blitzer, the map will get rolled up and the turtle will not be able to reach their full potential in time, and their money will be wasted on buildings which get destroyed and did not invest in enough defensive forces to repel the attack.

It's a matter of pride, I believe. One would think, logically, that developing and defending would prevail over someone who invests nearly nothing in their economy and pushes only for massing a giant force. Unfortunately, in this game, it doesn't work that way. Realism doesn't prevail here, the mass army and sack city strategy prevails. Competitively, that is.

Should both sides choose to roleplay a little bit and expand less quickly, it's anyone's game. If the game begins with both sides enjoying reign over most of the map, like the Hundred Years War scenario, then it's entirely possible that a more realistic defensive strategy could work. But when you have a massive continent to conquer, pillage, sack, and destroy before you even face your opponent, the game becomes a competition between two blitzers, or between two turtles.

Then again, you throw a competent or aggressive AI into the mix, or add more human players, and I've said all along, blitzers die a horrendously painful death.