Stronger Player - Turtle vs. Hare

[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?

[_Tristan_]

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... )...

So I think for once the hare will win the race...

Just my ...

[Didz]

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.

[icek]

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.

[John_Longarrow]

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.

[Askthepizzaguy]

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?

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.

[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.

[Askthepizzaguy]

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.

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.

[_Tristan_]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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.

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?

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 )...

I (and ATPG, sorry for the acronym but your name is just too long ) 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...

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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 )...

I (and ATPG, sorry for the acronym but your name is just too long ) 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...

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.

[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.

[Askthepizzaguy]

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.

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.

[Eng]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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....

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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....

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!

[Atreides]

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

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.....

[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.

[ForgotMyOldNick]

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...

[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.

[Bob the Insane]

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...

Who has the most fun is based too much on personal opinion to judge...

[Atreides]

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.

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.

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.

[PseRamesses]

Ahh, well, better come out of the closet... I´m a turtle too.

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.

[_Tristan_]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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.

Some misunderstanding here...

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 ) 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...

And for each human player added to the formula the danger rises exponentially...

[Bob the Insane]

Ahh, well, better come out of the closet... I´m a turtle too.

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.

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

[andrewt]

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....

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.

[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...

[Eng]

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...

[_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!