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Quote 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.


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....