What is turtling?

[Gubnillec]

New to the game and the board and this might be silly question. What do people mean when they say "turtling". I have seen it used in a few of the guides and honestly have no idea what it means. I tried searching but didn't have any success. Thanks

[Quillan]

Draw back into your shell, as it were. Basically it means sitting still in a mass defensive clump, waiting for the enemy to come to you. If you turtle, you deploy in a good defensive position, never separate, and not move from the spot.

[18zulukiller]

New to the game and the board and this might be silly question. What do people mean when they say "turtling". I have seen it used in a few of the guides and honestly have no idea what it means. I tried searching but didn't have any success. Thanks

Turtling in most games just means sitting back and building up your deffences and then letting the enemy come to you.

[_Tristan_]

I also means taking things slow...

The turtle will not go on a rampage and attack everything in sight but will most likely build up its economy, better its troops and then only launch on conquering the world...

See it as the anti-thesis of blitzkrieg...

[ninjahboy]

turtling is a good tactic depending on your situation. If your outnumbered you can draw back into a tight frontal defense whie protecting your flanks etc.
the enemy comes to you you kill as many while sustaining minimal casualties.
best turtle units: full plate armoured swordsmen/nobleswordsmen on a defensive mode :D

[crpcarrot]

to me turtling is more to do with playing at a much slower pace. i hardly ever even reach 50% of the map in any of my campaigns.

spend more time bulding up my few provices and setting other goals than what the game victory conditins specify

for example
i will hold the iberian peninsular
be X factions benefactor and protector
protect holy lands from crusades
... you get the picture.

dominations gets boring pretty quickly

[rebelscum]

Turtling is however just an in-game expression and not a ditionary word.
The dictionary definition of turtling is
1. To hunt for turtles, especially as an occupation.
2. Nautical To capsize.

You might more accuratly use the word, 'hunkering',

[Lamprey]

Speaking from a MP point of view:

Turtling is a tactic often used by new players as seems easy to employ - you just sit there. Back when I played a lot of RtW MP, I almost always easily defeated turtlers. The reason for that is that by turtling, they relinguish the initiative and react to your moves, never forcing your hand. That makes them easy to take apart using archer superiority, artillery, surrounding them, etc.

Note that a good player turtling will be immensely more difficult to defeat, since they will have the presence of mind and the skill to counter most of these tactics while maintaining a good defense. Ironically, however, good players very, very rarely turtle because it's a disadvantage against a skilled opponent, and an unskilled one they don't need to turtle against.