Stronger Player - Turtle vs. Hare

[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...

[_Tristan_]

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

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

[ReiseReise]

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

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

[Ulstan]

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

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

[John_Longarrow]

Ah...

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

[Lamprey]

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

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

[Colovion]

I play similarly to how I play Civ, though TW brings out more of a ruthless nature because of rebels and having more reason to be aggressive right away.

The first few turns I'll decide which will be my military cities, which will be the breadbasket of my empire and which will be primarily port cities. I tend to group all of my armies in one or two decent sized forces and attempt to quickly take any weak provinces surrounding my borders. Mopping up rebels is first priority, and I'll even take a chance of leaving cities with only 2 or so units so I can rush off with a family member to gain a trait or so while cleaning up the unrest in the countryside or that weak settlement.

I'm not usually too interested in assaulting a strong AI faction until I have a small advantage, usually it's to be sure that my Infantry types are better than theirs so in a long fight to the death I'll come out ahead. I really despise pitting my troops against enemy troops in city squares. It's ridiculous because they won't break and flee so you have to just throw trash at them, or hope you have a superior force to grind them down eventually.

In the end, I tend to turtle on one or two sides of my empire and concentrate my remaining power to consolidate whichever portions of my border seem difficult to maintain as a border - so my troops fill that vacuum as I thunder across the landscape.

[Vladimir]

In an all human game the turtle would win, in less all the players are bunnies, then everyone dies. In an all human game the more cautious players will band together against the more aggressive ones. The aggressive players are less likely to ally as they know that if they lower their guard even a little they may be attacked. Thus either the hare becomes the tortoise or they fight each other mercilessly while the tortoise nibbles around the edges.

Even if it's one-on-one in a campaign game, the turtle will win. A slow, deliberate player will construct watchtowers, reinforcement forts, use their night fighters effectively, and have better cash and troops.

It doesn't matter if you attack an interior, poorly garrisoned city. Even if you make it there without being ambushed by my army I have another waiting for you, close enough to attack immediately. Led by my night fighter I'm able to isolate and pincer your inferior troops or force you to retreat. If you're carrying siege equipment you'll be able to assault that turn but you may not make it there with your reduced movement.

Let's say you bring a catapult and attack my fortress or citadel, it won't be enough. You'll either run out of ammunition or your inferior troops will be chewed up as they're forced to fight in smaller areas against elite troops. Batter down my first gate and you'll have to expose it to archer fire which may kill the crew. But wait, how did you get it in the first place? Did you spend the time and cash to build a siege engineer and what's the recruitment pool?

If you do assault you'll have trouble maintaining morale as I've use the assassins I trained on a rebel stack to kill your general; maybe I'll gain another rebel stack to practice on. My spies tell me which of your generals don't take personal security seriously so you may have trouble finding one in the first place, that is, if I haven't eliminated your royal line.

So now you've already lost a couple of "cheap" stacks of troops, how are you going to raise more? Since you weren't able to take any of my cities with no economy you're dangerously short of cash and have ran out of steam. Now I can pick you apart.

Turn-based favors turtling. Go too fast and you become a victim of your own strategy.

[TheLastPrivate]

If you guys ever played the board game diplomacy with real people (takes HOURS), its kinda like how totalwar would be played out. Althogh the board game doesn't take tactical skills into account in totalwar mp game diplomacy dynamics would be the core that makes or breaks the rise to power imo.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In an all human game the turtle would win, in less all the players are bunnies, then everyone dies. In an all human game the more cautious players will band together against the more aggressive ones. The aggressive players are less likely to ally as they know that if they lower their guard even a little they may be attacked. Thus either the hare becomes the tortoise or they fight each other mercilessly while the tortoise nibbles around the edges.

Even if it's one-on-one in a campaign game, the turtle will win. A slow, deliberate player will construct watchtowers, reinforcement forts, use their night fighters effectively, and have better cash and troops.

It doesn't matter if you attack an interior, poorly garrisoned city. Even if you make it there without being ambushed by my army I have another waiting for you, close enough to attack immediately. Led by my night fighter I'm able to isolate and pincer your inferior troops or force you to retreat. If you're carrying siege equipment you'll be able to assault that turn but you may not make it there with your reduced movement.

Let's say you bring a catapult and attack my fortress or citadel, it won't be enough. You'll either run out of ammunition or your inferior troops will be chewed up as they're forced to fight in smaller areas against elite troops. Batter down my first gate and you'll have to expose it to archer fire which may kill the crew. But wait, how did you get it in the first place? Did you spend the time and cash to build a siege engineer and what's the recruitment pool?

If you do assault you'll have trouble maintaining morale as I've use the assassins I trained on a rebel stack to kill your general; maybe I'll gain another rebel stack to practice on. My spies tell me which of your generals don't take personal security seriously so you may have trouble finding one in the first place, that is, if I haven't eliminated your royal line.

So now you've already lost a couple of "cheap" stacks of troops, how are you going to raise more? Since you weren't able to take any of my cities with no economy you're dangerously short of cash and have ran out of steam. Now I can pick you apart.

Turn-based favors turtling. Go too fast and you become a victim of your own strategy.

In an all human game I favor your analysis. In a pure human V turtle, one on one game, I feel you haven't done your homework.

Your entire analysis presumes I aimed directly towards your empire and ignored all the other, weak AI ones. That WOULD be stupid.

You're last on my list of concerns, seeing as how you, as a turtle, are less aggressive than the simpleton AI. You on the map gives me almost free reign to do what I want.

By the time you recruit enough spies to make my settlements rebel, I've tripled the size of my empire and my standing army is ten times what it was. I can afford to lose settlements.

Generals? I've too many for you to assassinate. While you train assassins on rebel stacks, I train captains against the AI troops. With large empires, I'm virtually guaranteed a new general every single time.

Good luck on agents winning this game. I can also afford to counterspy you in the middle game, making that strategy ineffective long term.

You ambushing with night fighter is fine. That will work exactly once. And that's only IF I don't do what I always do, which is send a scouting mounted unit ahead of my main army to spring all traps.

Once I locate your main force, I can surround it with three stacks and destroy it. I don't even need to auto-calculate it. That battle would be easy even if you were on a hilltop behind a river. And assuming you were impressivly fortified, I could just ignore your stack and beseige your worthless settlements, forcing you to engage me on a level battlefield. Yes, your night fighter and superior troops make this one battle yours. Now when your somewhat depleted forces face my other two stacks simultaneously in the light of day you haven't a prayer.

More troops beat better troops, and that's all there is to it. This is a numbers game. tactics work great against the AI, against humans who arent idiots and against sheer numbers of troops, it's almost pointless.

So now you've already lost a couple of "cheap" stacks of troops, how are you going to raise more? Since you weren't able to take any of my cities with no economy you're dangerously short of cash and have ran out of steam. Now I can pick you apart.

Sorry, but thats not even remotely realistic.

Unless you and I were the only empires on the map, and we had few provinces, this doesn't make any sense. Of course I can replace entire stacks of troops.

1. I have at least (if I'm having a BAD day) twice your recruitment garrisons.

2. I have a profit-making economy (few garrison forces mean all my standing armies pillage and provide new income sources, and are an investment, not a drain on my economy like your superior but initiative-lacking national guardsmen)

3. When I lose an entire stack (or 3) of my worthless troops which took me no time or effort to recruit, I suddenly turn an even larger profit for the next few turns, which is all I need to churn out more idiot peasants armed with sticks willing to die for a quick florin (the word peasants is misleading, by the middle game I am really recruiting everything but the top tier Dismounted Knights and so forth).

4. You will pick me apart? You and what army?

Every defensive scenario you can construct is FAR easier for me to pull off, given my initiative, sheer number of territories, sheer number of standing armies, same tactics, same strategies, and better economy.

Lets say you manage to DECIMATE 12 stacks of my troops. I have to be an (expletive deleted) for you to manage this.

Now I have the equivalent of 12 stacks worth of maintenence cost coming towards me per turn. What to do with 40 provinces, 12 castles, great garrisons, and a GIANT pile of money.... what to do, what to do....

It's ridiculous. I actually laugh when you defeat my forces on the battlefield. It's hilarious because it almost makes you believe you're winning the war.

Then larger stacks with better troops and more of them start coming towards you. Unless you can engage and defeat a larger, superior empire with more troops (and in the late game, same quality troops), and QUICKLY, there is no hope, my friends! No hope.

It's all about the numbers. Fewer provinces, even when properly developed which takes time, cannot put up the kind of numbers a blitzer can. More territories, more recruitment facilities, more florins per turn, faster reinforcement recruitment, quicker expansion, initiative, and an ever-strengthening strategic and tactical position.

The ONLY way to beat a blitzer is by being bigger and stronger than him, or beating him QUICKLY in the early game when he is vulnerable.

Otherwise, he must be an idiot to lose the game. He is positionally and mathematically superior to you in every sense. Sure, you might have reached "pleasure palace" and "grand cathedral" before I have. But I'm on my way to take them from you and you cannot stop me.

You must switch strategy to moderate expansion to have a prayer of a hope. Turtles cannot stop the mighty blitz.

[Jambo]

Other than perhaps ports and wharfs, the economic buildings aren't worth the money. Markets are a complete joke and farms are only marginally less poor. In essence, regular sacking will easily make you more money.

In short, the Hare will win. Blitzing has always been the most efficient way to play TW games. Maybe it's design intent, maybe it's not. To me it's just bad design. Civ 4's economic aspects are far superior.

[Alpedar]

I play my second camapign (as Milan, first was Venice). I was somehow medium agressive at first (rebel taking phase), then went to slower motion and developing cities. And even this way, its hard NOT to beat it too fast (I want to get to gunpowder units). And my feel is, that if I (noon in this game) could beat it much faster, if i did not restrict myself.
So I must agree, that full agressive approach is probubly much stronger than cautious.

[Old Geezer]

Well I'll be hornswaggled! I had no idea that the order in a stack made any difference! Was that on page 2 or 3 of the manual. Not that such information is important a player, of course. This is great information. Now I won't be forced to field battle all the time when I am in a hurry to finish and go to bed. I can't believe that in 11 months I never came across this info. Was it that way in MTW too?

[Togakure]

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

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

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

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

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

[Ramses II CP]

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

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

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

[Kadagar_AV]

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

Insert heavily sarcastic voice to the above sentence.

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

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

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

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

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

[Rebellious Waffle]

I have an argument for turtling.

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

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

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I have an argument for turtling.

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

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

I have another opinion on that.

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

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

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

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

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